Art and Music in Vienna

Itinerary

Day 1
Depart London Heathrow at 10.50 on BA flight to Vienna, arriving at 14.05. We travel by private coach to the Kaiserin Elisabeth, a friendly and traditional Viennese 4-star hotel situated on a quiet street in the city centre.

In the afternoon you may like to join Siân on a short, introductory stroll around the old city. We will visit the Franciscan and Jesuit churches, famous for their impressive paintings by Andrea Pozzo, internationally renowned in the 17^th century for his theatrical use of trompe l’oeil.  We also visit to the nearby Mozarthaus, the apartment where the composer and his family lived from 1784-1787 and where the famous opera, The Marriage of Figaro, was written.

The evening will be spent in a delightful local restaurant – dinner with wine is included.

Day 2
This morning we enjoy a guided walking tour of Vienna. First of all we visit the famous Gothic Cathedral of St Stephen’s, beautifully restored following the bombings of 1945 and full of rich carvings, altarpieces and other works of art. Mozart was married in the cathedral and his funeral also took place here in 1791.

Mozart was a regular client of Vienna’s coffee-houses and we will make a stop for coffee and cake (included) at one of the city’s most elegant and famous establishments, Demel, which dates from the 18^th century. We then walk along the Graben to the impressive Hofburg, the Imperial Palace from which the Hapsburg Empire was ruled, and take a tour of the State Apartments and Imperial Treasury. Here we will learn about the life of the beautiful Empress Elizabeth, otherwise known as Sisi, after whom our hotel is named.

Lunch (optional) has been arranged in a beautiful restaurant located in the Burggarten, which served as a private royal garden for the Habsburg family until the fall of the empire in 1918.

There will then be some free time for independent exploration – there will be a number of temporary exhibitions which you may like to visit, such as Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka’s Women (Lower Belvedere) or Worlds of Romanticism (Albertina).

We reconvene in the late afternoon and walk to the Kunsthistoriches Museum which houses one of the greatest collections of Old Masters in the world. The museum is particularly rich in works by Bruegel and has more paintings by Giorgione than any other gallery. We will also study works by van Eyck, Rubens, Titian, Rembrandt and many others. Siân will lead a guided tour of masterpieces of the collection, and this is followed by a special gourmet dinner in the magnificent cupola hall of the museum. The museum will remain open exclusively for diners until late.

Day 3
This morning we visit the beautiful Schloss Belvedere, built as a summer palace for Prince Eugene of Savoy and now the home of an impressive art collection of late 19th and early 20th paintings. Here we will see many masterpieces of Viennese art including Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss.

We then travel by tram to the nearby Karlsplatz. Vienna is a fascinating city in which the traditional and classical have often rubbed shoulders with the modern and controversial. Like Klimt, the architect Otto Wagner became known as an enfant terrible as a result of his adoption of the Jugendstil – the German/Austrian variant of Art Nouveau – and we see one of the most beautiful examples of this in his Stadtbahn Pavilion. On the opposite side of the square rises the triumphant Karlskirche, a masterpiece of Baroque architecture. Its new panoramic lift will give us a unique close-up view of Rottmayer’s frescoes in the cupola.

After lunch we enjoy a specially arranged private opening of the Liechtenstein Palace, which boasts one of the most impressive private art collections in the country. The palace is no longer open to the public, but on request only. The sumptuous magnificence of the interiors is complimented with many famous masterpieces by Rubens, Vigée-Lebrun, van Dyck, Moroni and Raphael to name just a few.

There will be some time to rest before this evening’s performance at the Vienna State Opera. Please see further details below

Day 4
Today we have a full day’s excursion to the province of Burgenland, the area between Hungary and Vienna. We drive to Eisenstadt, a small attractive market town, and visit the palace where Haydn worked for the Esterházy family, seeing the concert hall in which his most famous symphonies were played for the first time. We will also visit Haydn’s house, and enjoy a light lunch. In the afternoon we return to Vienna when we will have some free time to rest before this evening’s performance.

Tickets to the Vienna State Opera will be arranged (optional), alternatively dinner at a local restaurant for those not attending the performance. Please see further details below

We will find time one day for a coffee or aperitif in the Hotel Sacher which is famous for its delicious Sacher-torte (a rich chocolate cake). The Sacher is about 5 minutes stroll from the Kaiserinelisabeth and directly opposite the opera house

Day 5
This morning you may like to join Siân for a guided tour of highlights of the lesser-visited Wien Museum where we will concentrate in particular on the exhibition “Vienna around 1900” shows paintings by Klimt, Schiele, Gerstl and Arnold Schönberg, and also works by the famous Wiener Werkstätte. We will also explore works by a number of outstanding women artists of the period such as Teresa Ries, who are little-known today but who were highly successful and much admired during their lifetime.

We will leave Vienna after lunch to catch our flight with BA which leaves at 15.05, arriving in London Heathrow at 16.30