I will start off with a side rant -
Museums with free audio tours: I'm no longer a fan. Keyword “free.” It seems that when a museum gives you a free audio tour, it does so because the museum wouldn’t be worth visiting without the explanation. In my opinion, you’re damned if you take the audio tour and you’re damned if you don’t. If you don’t do the audio tour, you may as well skip visiting the museum altogether. On the flip side, if you do the free audio tour, you are sentenced to the prolonged torture of listening to filler narrative that drags on much longer than it should (it is something that you could listen to on your couch at home . . . you don’t need to be at the museum). Standing in one place for minutes at a time staring at some old relic you don't care about just sucks the life out of you.
We started today off by visiting Schonbrunn Palace, which was just a few minutes walk from our hotel. About 20 minutes from the city center, Schonbrunn Palace was the summer residence for the Habsburgs. The palace and surrounding parks/gardens are pretty amazing - they rival Versailles in size and opulence. We enjoyed the early part of the day roaming the grounds and visiting the Gloriette behind gardens (you can see the Gloriette in the background of the 2nd picture below).
Next, we visited the Nachsmarkt, which is a large outdoor market (not quite bazaar size, but large nonetheless) with fresh food, clothes, and other goods for sale. We ate lunch at one of the small restaurants here, Mr. Falafel.
Following this, we decided to hit up the Haus Der Musik (the “House of Music” museum). The concept of the museum was pretty cool, with 4 floors of music/sound topics ranging from the Viennese composers to conducting your own virtual symphony (it was tough) to learning about sound and measuring your hearing threshold. There were also a few strange rooms, including one where you hear what it sounds like to be a fetus in the amniotic sac. Overall, I think the museum would be more fun as a kid to visit, but still interesting for us. By the way, the whole 3rd floor was a free 45 minute audio tour about the composers that dragged on and on (see rant above).
Since we had already bought a combo ticket, we headed to the Mozarthaus after this, which was the house Mozart lived in for 10 years in Vienna until his death (his most productive years). We were pretty beat from the Haus Der Musik (mainly due to the audio tour floor), so we took a quick break for some ice cream and Fantas to rejuvenate ourselves. I was really hoping/praying the Mozarthaus was not an audio tour. Well wouldn’t you know it, the whole thing turned out to be a free audio tour (uggghh)! The audio tour was like listening to a documentary with hardly any visuals, except for some portraits and manuscripts on the wall. Just give me a DVD next time (haha). At least we can now say we visited Mozart’s house.
The sad part is, as much as I hate the free audio tours, I will probably continue to do them. I'm badly afflicted with a common condition known as "FOMO" (fear of missing out).
In the evening, we went to the Music Film Festival over at the Rathaus (court house). They have a huge screen where they show different operas/concerts every night. Thousands come to hang out, eat dinner (lots of outdoor food/alcohol vendors), and socialize. It’s basically a big party. Tonight they were showing Carmen. We had seen it before, but fun to see again without the subtitles.
Additional notes/thoughts:
- In Vienna, many people have dogs, and in some cases it seems that dogs have more rights than humans (ex. there are certain green areas in the city where people aren’t allowed to walk on, but dogs are). Today was a first for me. I witnessed a bulldog riding an escalator. He got on the crowded down-escalator right in front of us like he owned the thing (equipped with leash, muzzle, and owner of course). For some reason it struck us as very humorous.
Museums with free audio tours: I'm no longer a fan. Keyword “free.” It seems that when a museum gives you a free audio tour, it does so because the museum wouldn’t be worth visiting without the explanation. In my opinion, you’re damned if you take the audio tour and you’re damned if you don’t. If you don’t do the audio tour, you may as well skip visiting the museum altogether. On the flip side, if you do the free audio tour, you are sentenced to the prolonged torture of listening to filler narrative that drags on much longer than it should (it is something that you could listen to on your couch at home . . . you don’t need to be at the museum). Standing in one place for minutes at a time staring at some old relic you don't care about just sucks the life out of you.
We started today off by visiting Schonbrunn Palace, which was just a few minutes walk from our hotel. About 20 minutes from the city center, Schonbrunn Palace was the summer residence for the Habsburgs. The palace and surrounding parks/gardens are pretty amazing - they rival Versailles in size and opulence. We enjoyed the early part of the day roaming the grounds and visiting the Gloriette behind gardens (you can see the Gloriette in the background of the 2nd picture below).
Next, we visited the Nachsmarkt, which is a large outdoor market (not quite bazaar size, but large nonetheless) with fresh food, clothes, and other goods for sale. We ate lunch at one of the small restaurants here, Mr. Falafel.Following this, we decided to hit up the Haus Der Musik (the “House of Music” museum). The concept of the museum was pretty cool, with 4 floors of music/sound topics ranging from the Viennese composers to conducting your own virtual symphony (it was tough) to learning about sound and measuring your hearing threshold. There were also a few strange rooms, including one where you hear what it sounds like to be a fetus in the amniotic sac. Overall, I think the museum would be more fun as a kid to visit, but still interesting for us. By the way, the whole 3rd floor was a free 45 minute audio tour about the composers that dragged on and on (see rant above).
Since we had already bought a combo ticket, we headed to the Mozarthaus after this, which was the house Mozart lived in for 10 years in Vienna until his death (his most productive years). We were pretty beat from the Haus Der Musik (mainly due to the audio tour floor), so we took a quick break for some ice cream and Fantas to rejuvenate ourselves. I was really hoping/praying the Mozarthaus was not an audio tour. Well wouldn’t you know it, the whole thing turned out to be a free audio tour (uggghh)! The audio tour was like listening to a documentary with hardly any visuals, except for some portraits and manuscripts on the wall. Just give me a DVD next time (haha). At least we can now say we visited Mozart’s house.
The sad part is, as much as I hate the free audio tours, I will probably continue to do them. I'm badly afflicted with a common condition known as "FOMO" (fear of missing out).
In the evening, we went to the Music Film Festival over at the Rathaus (court house). They have a huge screen where they show different operas/concerts every night. Thousands come to hang out, eat dinner (lots of outdoor food/alcohol vendors), and socialize. It’s basically a big party. Tonight they were showing Carmen. We had seen it before, but fun to see again without the subtitles.
Additional notes/thoughts:- In Vienna, many people have dogs, and in some cases it seems that dogs have more rights than humans (ex. there are certain green areas in the city where people aren’t allowed to walk on, but dogs are). Today was a first for me. I witnessed a bulldog riding an escalator. He got on the crowded down-escalator right in front of us like he owned the thing (equipped with leash, muzzle, and owner of course). For some reason it struck us as very humorous.
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