Wow, no garbage trucks or cafés setting up on Saturday meant a nice quiet morning that didn’t start until after 9am. Our travels today started with a walk over to a quilt shop which unfortunately closed some time ago. Makes one wish that websites would self destruct when businesses close. That’s not the first time we’ve gone looking for something based on a website only to find out it no longer exists. Next stop was a bank machine and then off to the main event of the day – Belvedere Palace.

Belvedere was originally built as a summer home for Prince Eugene of Savoy and is constructed as two palaces linked by a formal garden. It now serves as an art gallery and is currently running a special showing of the work of Gustavo Klimt. After touring an exhibition of Russian paintings in the lower palace we stopped for lunch in The Menagerie. One of the problems we have discovered is that vegetables are few and far between here and generally not served with dinner. In order to compensate we’ve been having soup or salad for lunch. Today’s salad was greens with goat cheese, honey and nuts. They poured the honey over the cheese and then baked it so it had a crusty outer layer. Yummy, yummy!

The Klimt collection was probably a dozen paintings including The Kiss, likely the best known. I really enjoyed listening to the commentary on the audio guide, which helps you understand the background story of the painting and highlights certain special features. Other than finding out about each of the rooms in the palace, some of which were spectacular, one of my favourite displays was a series of busts of the funny faces people make when they take medicine! We headed home about 4pm to have a short rest and change before dinner.

Tonight we took the subway and bus out to a suburb called Grinzing. It’s quite easy to get around on public transit. There are four subway lines and a number of streetcar lines in addition to the busses. Everything seems to be very clean and electronic signs keep you updated as to when the next train or bus will arrive. Grinzing is a cute little town that began as a result of the wine industry. Heuriger (new vintage) wine taverns used to sell their own wines, while snacks were offered for free. The snacks are no longer free but diners sit at wooden tables in a courtyard and many sample the different wines of the vintner until the wee hours of the morning. It was a lovely warm evening with just a slight breeze which made dining al fresco quite appealing. We had a nice chat with a German couple who sat next to us and then on the way home in the subway we met a fellow from North Carolina who is here teaching at a Christian school. He gave himself away when he asked “Where y’all from?”