A Week in Vienna

L had to attend a week-long conference in Vienna, and I tagged along. I've been to Vienna before, but it was a whirlwind tour that took as much time as saying "Wiener Schnitzel." This time, I had more than enough museums and monuments to keep me busy for a week, though a bad cold and cough kept me down all day Thursday and nothing much could be done before my flight back to The Hague on Friday. I'll definitely try to be back to see more.

One of my favorite sights was the Kunsthistoriches Museum, a spectacular building with one of the most impressive Old Masters' collections:

As a fan of Vermeer, my favorite painting was, of course, the one and only Vermeer painting they had:

There was also The Belevedere, famous for housing "The Kiss" by Gustave Klimt, but have you seen the gardens?

I couldn't take pictures of Egon Schiele's works in the Leopold Museum at the  Museumsquartier. The area, and especially Schiele's works,  are a definite must-see:

Seeing old monuments from the Austro-Hungarian Empire makes you understand what the word "grandeur" really means, and how you know the world will never see days like that again:

And, yes, the food. Heavy, yummy, saucy and hearty: