Last Day in Vienna
It was another gray winter day - our sixth and last day in Vienna. We had tickets for a concert that evening, but what would we do with our free day? We’d had our fill of Christmas markets, Habsburg palaces, and art museums. There was still plenty to see in the Innere Stadt. I did a little research, put a few random ideas in my virtual back pocket, and decided to see where the day took us.
After a late breakfast, our first stop was the Ankeruhr (Anchor Clock), a mechanical clock built in 1914. The Ankeruhr has twelve notable figures from Vienna’s history that move slowly around the clock, one for each hour, with organ music playing at the top of each hour. At noon, all twelve figures make a special rotation.
When we arrived in Hoher Markt, the oldest square in Vienna, a small crowd had already gathered to watch the clock. The hour was prominently displayed in Roman numerals, and the figure of Joseph Haydn marked the minutes: 12:50 am. The crowd continued to grow, and finally the noon show began. We did see all twelve figures, but they moved VERY slowly. I heard the organ music but didn’t recognize the melody. As events go, this one was rather uneventful. But it was a beautiful clock (in the German Art Nouveau style, or Jugendstil), and I was impressed that was still keeping time - and just. five minutes late - 110 years after it was built.
Next, we decided to visit the Jesuitenkirche (Jesuit Church), not far from the clock. The church’s exterior was rather plain, but the Baroque interior was resplendent with colorful marble columns and gold statuary. The most intriguing feature was the trompe-l’oeil painting that made a flat part of the ceiling look like a large dome. It was a clever and effective optical illusion, painted by Andrea Pozzo in 1703. We never did learn the purpose of the mysterious purple column.
We were feeling hungry when we left the church. Down the street, Steve found a cafe that, like the Jesuit Church, was plain on the outside and fabulous on the inside. Well, at least the contents of the pastry case were fabulous! The cafe itself was charming, and lunch was delicious. This is one of the things I love most about travel - serendipitous discoveries like this little cafe on a random side street.
Fortified, we walked back toward the hotel and our next destination. On the way, we impulsively decided to stop at Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral) and see what it looked like inside. With Romanesque and Gothic design, it was not as ornate as the Baroque Jesuit Church, but it was quite beautiful.
Our last mini-adventure for the day was a visit. to the Dorotheum, the largest auction house in Continental Europe and one of the oldest in the world. It was huge - several floors with rooms filled with jewelry, watches, fine art, collectibles, and more - all of it for sale via virtual auction. It was like visiting a museum where everything had a price tag, or browsing high end eBay merchandise in person instead of online. There wasn’t much art that interested us - and we marveled at the high prices for the “naive” works by Austrian artist Gottfried Kumpf. We did have fun looking at the vintage watches and jewelry, and the rest of the afternoon flew by.
We had plenty of time for a rest in our hotel before dinner and the concert. It had been a great day, filled with beautiful things, not too hectic, and uniquely Vienna.
