Vienna in January

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Our room was lovely; it was a corner room, so it was large. It was painted a peachy color and one wall was all storage, closets and drawers and shelves. We had a color tv with 2 English channels and a minibar.

Our large bright bathroom had a shower and a tub as well as a towel warmer. We had 3 large windows, 2 chairs and a table, and even a small stool in the bathroom. The bed had feather pillows and feather comforters. It was very comfortable.

We got a weekend rate for Friday, Saturday and Sunday which was about $85. This included a fabulous buffet breakfast with champagne, juice, coffee, tea or hot chocolate, cereal, fruit, eggs and bacon, sausage, cheese and meat, toast, yogurt and the best selection of rolls that I have ever seen. We never left here hungry.

Everything about this hotel was first class at an excellent price. The #62 Tram goes right near the hotel, and the Taubstummengasse stop on the U1 was right around the corner.

For an appetizer we had a plate with a sample of all their appetizers. These included bread and cheese dumplings with walnuts and scalloped cabbage and artichokes. We were given a bread basket with homemade warm rye and white bread.

Our salad course was wonderful with a variety of field greens, yellow peppers and cherry tomatoes all covered with an excellant balsamic vinigrette. For my main course I ordered lamb chops which were four of the most tender and flavorful chops I've ever had. They were arranged on a bed of homemade fettucini and whole baby carrots and an onion that looked like a large scallion.

One of the others in our group had a half of a roasted chicken done with rosemary and artichokes au gratin. My husband had weiner schnitzel and parsley potatoes. Everyone raved about the food.

For dessert I had white chocolate mocha mousse which was presented beautifully with cinnamon and powdered sugar. The other dessert we tried was mango parfait.

This is a first class dining experience. The cost was about $30 a person. I would eat here again and if you are in Vienna I would recommend that you give it a try. But remember we almost didn't get a table in January without a reservation so I recommend you book as much in advance as you can, the quality of the food here is no secret with the locals.

Our waiter was very professional and we soon were sipping our tea and hot chocolate while waiting for our lunch (we resisted the temptation to start and end with dessert). My husband had a habs burger, our friends had grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and I had pumpkin soup. The soup came in a mini tureen and was steaming hot and wonderful.

But in spite of our best resolve, the pastry case was calling us and we wandered over to make our selection. There were at least 25 choices. We ended up with sachertorte and topfenstrudel (a cheese strudel). The strudels are made in the basement here and are a local favorite. Renewed in spirits and with our strength refreshed, we were able to finish our tour of the gift shops before catching the train back to the city.

The museum is divided into 5 main sections from the 16th century to the end of World War II. The first room is the Thirty Years War during the reign of Maria Theresa and Prince Eugene of Savoy who was a great military leader of the time. There is a set of his armour, which shows what a very small man he was in stature even though he was a great military man. There is an Ottoman tent that was capture during the war with the Turks, loads of amazing guns, early rifles, pikes etc.

For me the most amazing exhibits were the ones leading up to World War I. The car that Franz Ferdinand was riding in when he was assasinated is in the museum, also the uniform that he was wearing and couch that he died on. There is a whole room on Austrian naval history including a replica of the ship that carried home the body of the executed emperor of Mexico, Maximillian, who was Franz Josef's brother.

We had a headphone set to carry around and give us additional information on some of the exhibits. There are also sheets in every room in English that give more information. We spent over 2 hours here and the men especially were facinated. There is a lot to see and much to enjoy.

To get to this museum we took the UI to Sudtirolerplatz station and then took the 13A bus for 2 stops. It is a little off the beaten track but worth the effort. The cost is 70As and includes the headphone tour.

As you enter the first thing that greets you is the Last Judgement triptych by Hieronymus Bosch. This is a large work and the demons in it are terrifying. His work has an amazingly futuristic look to it and the colors are still bring and fresh. In the same room is Lucretia by Lucas Cranach the Elder, which has been compared to Leonardo's Mona Lisa, as well as other early German and Dutch paintings. In the next room is a Botticelli Madonna and child, softly pastel and beautiful as only a Botticelli can be.

As if this wasn't enough there is Rembrandt's Portrait of a woman, a self portrait by Van Dyke, more than a dozen Rubens oil sketches among them one of the three graces, and a Murillo of two boys gaming. This and much more await you at the Academy of Fine Art.

The Royal Apartments are dedicated to the memory of Emperor Franz Josef and his wife the Empress Elizabeth "Sisi". Their portraits by the famed artist Franz Xavier Winterhaulter are in the Grand Salon. Sisi is gorgeous in a white ball gown with stars in her hair and Franz Josef is dressed in a red and white military uniform. There is another Winterhaulter portait of Sisi in the Emperor's study which is informal with her very long hair hanging loose and this is said to be the emperor's favorite picture of his wife. Since she spent a great deal of time away from him it must have been cold comfort.

We had a headphone tour of the apartments which was quite interesting. As you begin the tour there is a large genealogy chart so that you can try to figure out who some of the people are. The rooms are of impressive size and the decorations are luxurious but there is an underlying sadness here for a time that has past and will never return.

One of the early rooms has lots of informal childhood pictures that give a pretty good idea of what kind of a life imperial children led. Some of their toys have been preserved. In Sisi's room her exercise equipment is still there waiting for her and we learned that she perhaps was one of the early anorexics. She was obsessed with keeping her figure and almost never ate. This caused problems at dinner parties where guests were not allowed to eat after the empress or emperor had finished, guests soon learned to eat before they came to a dinner party at the palace.

We got to walk through their personal rooms as well as the formal rooms and the dining room was especially attractive, set up for a small family dinner. I have included a picture that I took of it; photography was discouraged in the apartments.

The chapel is quite small and people are packed into the pews. There are also seats along the sides of the balcony upstairs. The choir boys are in the upper balcony, two stories directly above where we were so there was no way we would ever be able to see them.

Our 2 friends had seats upstairs in the first row and if they stuck their heads out the window (yes, the front row is behind a partition with windows) they could just see the first row of boys.

In the part of the Chapel where we were there is a center aisle and they sell standing room only tickets for the aisle , there were at least 3 people across. As it turned out my husband and I had seats 71 and 72 and they were both aisle seats across the aisle from each other and with people packed into the aisle (some of them dragging along their suitcases) we didn't see each other for almost an hour.

Luckily for us we had attended Mass on Saturday night because we couldn't see Mass from where we were either. Now having said all the negatives, the sound in that chapel was divine. The acoustics are wonderful and the singing was to die for, and if you are claustrophobic you might just have(die, that is).

I don't think that this is the best way to hear the choirboys. Many of the standing room people were not Catholic and were chatting and carrying on during the Mass (just the fact that they dragged their suitcases in with them was horrifing enough, this has to be a fire hazard). It is disrespectful to say the least. It was treated like it was a concert which of course it wasn't but the frosting on the cake was when they passed the basket even though we had payed quite a high price to have our supposedly good seats.

The music is so wonderful that I am not even sure how to rate this. The music is divine, the Mass wasn't!!!

If after all this you still want to experience this you must order your tickets as many month in advance as possible. The tickets are scarce and sell out quickly. We ordered them through the concierge at our hotel about 4 or 5 month in advance.

After Mass the choirboys come out in their signiture uniforms for photos but the crowd was so overwelming I didn't even bother.