Prowling my world, camera in hand

This week I made my first ever visit to Vienna and fell in love with the city. So most of this week´s blog is devoted to that trip. There is also a more “formal” Vienna gallery here.

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But first some unpleasantness from Iberia. I was supposed to fly from Alicante to Madrid at lunchtime on Monday and then on to Vienna. But my flight to Madrid was first delayed and finally cancelled, by which time I had of course missed my connection to Vienna and ended up having to go via Barcelona on Tuesday morning. But at least I was able to go home and spend the night in my own bed, after spending almost 3 hours in this queue to get re-booked. Notice that Iberia had one person to deal with a full planeload of passengers that needed help. Pathetic service to say the least:

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Finally, early Tuesday afternoon, I am in Vienna airport:

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I had read the Vienna Lonely Planet guide on the plane, so as soon as I checked into my hotel, I headed out to enjoy the remaining couple of hours of daylight. The Belvedere palace was just a couple of hundred meters from my hotel, so that is where I headed. Already looking through the tree branches I could see that this was something special:

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And indeed it was:

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The view of the city from Belvedere:

Then I went inside and was totally blown away by the quality and quantity of art on display, and by the magnificent and opulent surroundings. Belvedere is actually two palaces, Upper Belvedere where most of the permanent collection is kept, and Lower Belvedere which is used more for exhibitions. And I got lucky–there was a fantastic exhibition of works by Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka.

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Ceiling, Upper Belvedere:

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Staircase, Upper Belvedere:

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Art appreciation, Upper Belvedere:

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Looking at Klimt, Lower Belvedere:

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A pose often adopted by my dog:

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Men’s room, Upper Belvedere:

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Not hard to guess which painting is the most popular one in Upper Belvedere:

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Upper Belvedere at night:

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Later that evening, I attended a reception, following which I headed out for a nighttime walk in the city. The first point of interest I stumbled upon was this huge memorial to Soviet soldiers who ousted the Germans from Vienna and probably hung around longer than most Viennese wanted them to:

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Same place during the day, with what appears to be a Russian tourist taking close-ups of the inscriptions:

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Meeting of cultures, Kärtnerstrasse:

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Traditional Vienna street food, a sausage known as Käsekrainer:

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On Wednesday morning, I went for a walk before the conference started. This is Platz der Opfer der Deportation, a square from which 10,000 Viennese Jews were deported to concentration camps in 1940:

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“Never forget”:

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Handbill advertising an event in October, a public reading the names of all the deportees:

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Tram stop, Rennweg. Vienna’s public transport turned out to be excellent and relatively inexpensive:

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A scene from the conference. The panel on stage consists of senior people from the World Intellectual Property Organization, the European Patent Office, the OECD, and the Chinese, Japanese and Korean intellectual property offices. It is very common for Asian participants to constantly photograph their bosses in such situations with their phones. I see such scenes time and time again as I attend various events:

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After the day’s proceedings, I headed back to the city, making a pit stop at an excellent brew bar, Salm Bräu, also conveniently close to the hotel:

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Their Dunkel (dark) beer was particularly good:

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In the old centre, the streets are narrow and pretty but some have ominous names such as Blutgasse (Blood Lane):

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But there was also this:

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I had dinner at a very old-fashioned, traditional restaurant called Beim Czaak. The food was surprisingly delicious:

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My final Vienna picture, a bus stop on Rennweg near my hotel:

On Thursday morning at 4:45 a.m. I was already in the taxi on the way to the airport for my flight back to Alicante, this time with no “surprises”.

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On Friday, as I often do, I went for lunch at an excellent vegetarian restaurant near the Mercado Central, and photographed some details here and there. The prohibition against putting up posters on this wall may be more or less respected, but otherwise it seems a free for all:

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Bicycle storage:

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Bundle of fur in the checkout lane: