September 18, 2026

September 18, 2026

Friday

Wien, Austria

Good morning! Two hour tour of the Belvedere Palace. This is really an art museum not so much a palace tour. This is where Klimt’s “The Kiss” is located. A number of early 20th century artists have works deployed here.

The day began with a trip to Starbucks for our morning cappuccino; give me a break it is the only place which is open at 07:30 in the morning. Ok, not true, you can go to McDonalds, they are open. The supermarket around the corner is open as well, but I did not observe anyone purchasing any coffee there.

Our tour begins at 11:00, but we have to mark our way to the palace on our own. According to Rome2Rio the “D” tram stops just opposite the palace. The Art Café is just a few meters up the street from the tram stop. We hung out in the room until just before 10:00.

We walked down to the Metro stop at Stephanplatz. We walked down the stairs to the Metro station, found a ticket machine, bought two 24-hour tickets, validated there right there, and then walked 3 km to the Vienna Opera House, crossed the Kärntner Ring and found a tram stop for the “D” streetcare.

A few minutes later a tram showed up. We boarded. We looked at the tram map. And quickly realized the one we were on was going in the wrong direction. We managed to get off before it started moving. We headed across the street to the tram stop for the streetcars going in the opposite direction. Four stops later we exited the tram at the Belvedere Palace stop.

We walked up the street to the Art Café Restaurant and took seats at a table outside. It was just 10:30, so we ordered cappuccino. About 10:45 our guide Sebastian tested me that he was here. I texted back we are at the table at the end just outside. Apparently he never got the text, so we finished our cappuccini and walked up to him and said hi. His photo was in the text.

He spent the next two-hours with us walking us through the palace grounds and then trough the art museum. Honestly, we were done about 11:30. We hung in there until 11:45 when we asked him to take us back to the tram stop.

We got a tram back to the opera house stop. Got off and headed back to the hotel. We stopped at one of the many carts selling sausages and had another Käsekrainer for lunch before heading back to the hotel. On the way back to the hotel we went for a short walk and made reservations for afternoon tea at Haas & Haas for 16:00. Then we returned to the hotel and took a nap. We are both hurting a bit today from all the walking yesterday.

Just before 16:00 we walked the three blocks to Hass & Hass and had a wonderful afternoon tea in the inter courtyard. We ordered their Traditional Afternoon Tea – a large pot of tea, tea sandwiches (roast beef & tartar sauce, organic smoked salmon & mustard sauce, spicy deviled egg, herbed ricotta & cucumber). They offered tuna and red onion but we asked them to skip that and just give us egg instead. There was a warm English scone with strawberry jam & mascarpone (clotted cream would have been preferred), tea cake and petits fours.  

After tea, which is replacing dinner, we walked to The Paper Republic, to see about getting a leather note book for Grace. This was at the suggestion of Maddie who intimated that this was the new cool thing for a young college woman. Yea, it would be at €200.

We conferred with Grace about it. She picked a color and size. We had it embossed with her initials. Mary Christmas Grace – which is probably when we will be able to get it to her.

We head back to the hotel. I worked on my blog. Mary was reading. Then we played a game of Canasta. We managed to just make 10,000 steps today. All is good.  

Buonanotte & Ciao

Enrico and Maria