Vienna Day 2

We are skipping the optional Schönbrunn Palace visit. We visited Schönbrunn Palace in 2019 on our Vienna to Amsterdam trip.

I went for a 5k run along the Danube river before breakfast. It was foggy and on the cool side at 55 F. I saw several rabbits, jackdaws and a few Mute Swans in the river.

After breakfast, we caught the 9 am shuttle bus to Maria Theresa square. The Art History Museum isn’t open yet, so we walked to Rathaus (city hall) for a photo. The plaza in front of it is closed to set up for the Christmas markets.

Then to the Art History museum.

Cylinder Seals were used as a form of signatures in Mesopotamia.

The Alchemical Medallion of Emperor Leopold I features the portrait of Emperor Leopold I surrounded by 40 smaller staggered portraits, either famous alchemists or the genealogy of the House of Habsburg.

The Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós was found in present day Romania in 1799. The inscriptions on it have not been deciphered.

An Egyptian hippo statue from 2000 BC.

After lunch, we headed to the Ephesus Museum. We’ve been to Ephesus, there are some artifacts here in Vienna that Donna wanted to see.

The Athlete from Ephesus is a rare 1st Century Roman bronze statue copy of a 4th Century Greek statue. Many Roman copies were later melted down for their bronze. This one survived in fragments by being buried in ruble.

We caught the 5 pm bus back to the ship in time to hear a talk by a Ukrainian refugee, Anastasia on her experiences.