Monday, October 16, 2006

Art unrestrained

The Kunsthistorisches Museum houses the Roman collection of the Hapsburgs, who had a little spare money to spend on art.

Vienna boasts of more than 50 museums -- everything from natural history to art to dance to hats. We arrived in time for a regular and great event -- A Night of Museums. You buy one ticket for 12 euros and between the hours of 6 p.m. and 1 a.m. you can get into as many museums as you can get to.

I was thrilled. In my usual full-out, see-it-all-in-whatever-period-of-time you have I flipped through a big book of possibilities making a list -- the Picassos at the Alberta, The Kiss by Klimt at the Belvadere, German expressionists at the Leopold, Roman sculture at the Fine Arts Museum and ....

Karen rather practically pointed out that nearly free admission would probably mean huge crowds and did we really want to tramp around from one museum to another ALL night.

Well, she turned out to be very right. The line at the Leopold stretched out the door and around the building three times and the Belvadere was a long Underground ride away from the center of town where the other museums mostly clustered.

Her getting pick-pocketed and a drizzly rain didn't help our enthusiam and we petered out by 9.

Still, we saw the Picassos, dinosaurs and a gigantic stuffed walrus at the Natural History museum, and wonderful Greek and Roman sculpture.

I left determined to return for more.

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