Our motto: More than you’ll ever want to know. And then some.
Fewer words than usual; a bunch of photographs. Some highlights from our second day exploring Vienna as pedestrians.
In which we (1) try out the Vienna Ferris Wheel (as seen in Carol Reed’s The Third Man); (2) visit the Belvedere Museum, home of Klimt’s famous painting The Kiss (and a few other, less famous works); (3) visit the Third Man Museum; and (4) go to the opera.
The Vienna Ferris Wheel
Fans of Carol Reed’s 1949 film The Third Man, starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, will remember the scene where Harry Lime (Welles) and Holly Martins (Cotten) meet at Vienna’s Prater and step into one of the wagons of the ferris wheel, so that they can talk in private (the shots with the wagon interiors were actually filmed in London). Our hotel is quite near the Prater, so we went to have a closer look this day, on our way into town. F&M popped into one of the wagons for a spin.
The Belvedere Museum, home of Klimt’s The Kiss
Klimt’s painting The Kiss is one of the most famous, most reproduced paintings in the world, up there with da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, and Edvard Munch’s The Scream. The original painting is in the Belvedere Museum, and most visitors to Vienna, if they visit only one art gallery or museum during their time in the city, will visit the Belvedere Museum, and most of them will take a photograph of the famous painting with their cell phone camera, or will have themselves photographed in front of the painting. Shades of People Taking Pictures of Other People in Front of Things.
Here are some pictures of People Taking Pictures of Klimt’s The Kiss, plus a small sampling of the many reproductions of The Kiss that tourists can buy at any and every shop selling souvenirs of Vienna (and I virtually guarantee you that it is always tourists, and never locals, who buy these things). There are also some pictures of other, less famous works that can be viewed at the Belvedere Museum.
The Third Man Museum
The Third Man Museum’s is a must for fans of Carol Reed’s film starring Orson Welles (as Harry Lime) and Joseph Cotten (as Holly Martins). The museum is only open on Saturdays at this time of year, maybe more frequently earlier in the summer.
The museum has an exhaustive collection of ephemera (& other, less ephemeral items) related to the film; posters; clippings and reviews from the era; etc. Plus everything you ever wanted to know (perhaps more than you wanted to know) about the zither, the Third Man Theme, and about the zitherest (Anton Karas) who became famous enough as a result of his having played the theme that he could open his own wine bar in Vienna.
A highlight was the screening of a two-minute clip from the film, using a vintage 1930s projector which had been adapted so that it could project a continuous loop of film, rather than a reel. It was wonderful to sit there in the dark as black and white images flickered on the screen, noticing reflections off the screen illuminating other items, and the sound of the projector in our ears, overlaid on the dialogue.
A night at the opera
We’d heard (& read) about inexpensive standing room tickets for same day performances at the Vienna Operahouse, so we thought we’d give it a try.
And shuffling forward in line for what seemed like ages, we finally reached the ticket wicket and were offered the last four tickets—I kid you not—for a performance of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. So: no time for dinner—but these are the sacrifices that seekers after culture must be prepared to make.
Our tickets were for positions at a velvet-padded rail up in the balcony, to one side, so the sight lines weren’t great (standing room tickets are also available for other levels of the opera house, with better sight lines, but you’d need to arrive earlier than we were able to). But the sound was excellent. And at intermission we all slid into what had been empty seats, a practice which is not permitted in theory, but is ignored in practice.
Coda: brief update on The Church of J2 and M
Recruitment to The Church of J2 and M is on hiatus due to the utter despair of the chief recruitment officer at having failed to meet her performance targets.
On a more positive note: our new Pope has chosen her new Pope name! Please welcome Pope Spallebiondi the First, formerly known as Pope New-Name-Still-To-Come the First.
Danube to Dalmatia 
It worked! I got a paragraph and a link to read further. Glad I was able to help. 🤣
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The transmission of thoughts through the ether is *consistently* faster than email 😊
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