Elsien's Traveblogue

Winter is coming to Vienna. I saw adverts on posters throughout the city asking for 'snow clearers' and there was a brief flurry of snowflakes as I walked to Ottakring Underground station yesterday morning. It was pretty cold, but the sun came through in the afternoon and warmed everything up a little.
I sheltered from the cold in the very warm Kunsthistorisches Museum, where I was on several quests. The first one,finding the Saliera, Benvenuto Cellini's saltcellar which I had to write an essay about in the first year of my Art Historycourse, came to nothing: the whole department of sculpture and other artefacts is closed until 2013! So no medieval wooden sculpure either.
However, the Caravaggio chase was more successful: they have three and had displayed them all, in the 400th year of his death, along with a load of 'Caravaggistes'. Putting the '-istes' with the real thing shows the man's genius: The Madonna of the Rosaries is a brilliant realistic composition.I love the filthy footsoles, turned towards the spectator at eye level ... There's a muted David with the Head of Goliath, but my favourite is the Crowning with Thorns, painted as if from below.
Next stop Rome, where most of his paintings are ... (February, I hope!)
More walking around Vienna, more baroque churches, although they were originally Gothic, which is already quite a baroque kind of style. An organ concert in St Peter's Church, Wiener Schnitzel mit Kartoffelsalat for lunch – got to have it while you're there! The waitresses were Chinese though; even Vienna is quite multi-cultural, in spite of the Austrians resistance to immigrants ...
Will try and get to the Freud Museum today.