3 months with 3 monkeys (or How to travel Europe with children.) : Vienna

Vienna Naschmarkt

Another day in town and this time we headed to the Naschmarkt which is a big outdoor food market in Vienna selling everything from apples to zuchinis and everything in between. It was chock-a-block when we got there and stayed that way until we left.

We walked through drooling at all the different kinds of prosciuttos, olives, cheeses, pastries, cakes and, joy of joy, oysters.

Oystery goodness

Massive big oysters too so Nicki and I decided to lash out and spent €8.90 each on 3 of the slippery buggers which included a glass of champagne or a beer. Perfect.

Of course we'd never let the kids go without so we packed them off to experience some exotic cuisine themselves and they each had a doner kebab from the Turkish bloke, with cigarette in hand, about 50m away.

Natural History Museum

After we left there we walked back to the Museums Quarter where we were the other night so I could get some photos of the buildings there during the day.

Snapped a few pics of said buildings and Nicki and I dragged the kids to the Albertina. Seeing we are in Vienna we thought it was high time we got some culture into our Philistine lives.

The Albertina is an art museum/gallery housing one million old master prints as well as 2 collections of impressionist masters such as Monet, Mattise & Picasso amongst others.

Bloke wrestling a bull

We grabbed some audio guides which was handy as you could listen to the explanation, the style and the history of the painting. By the painting as well were written explanations for the ones not on the audio guides.

At first I got into it a bit but by the end it was starting to sound like the pretentious waffle you read on the back of a wine bottle. You know the type of thing "hints of raspberries, tobacco, leather and wet dog".

To top it off I was then listening to the description of the painting below that looks a bit like a Pro Hart or a Jackson Pollock by a bloke called Appel when the following came through on the headphones...

The Appel in question - "Mask in a Landscape."
Painted with paintily outbursts.

"It is known that Appel preferred painting in total darkness in order not to inhibit his paintily outbursts through concious vision."

GOLD !

I laughed but the painting is probably worth millions.

As the kids were getting bored or more correctly even more bored we left the gallery and did a short tour of the palace attached to the Albertina.

Art! It's the funnest thing eva!

Six o'clock came and the kids breathed a sigh of relief as the gallery closed so we walked into the central pedestrian mall for one last look at Vienna before catching the train home.