Today we visited the Belvedere Palace, which houses a collection of 24 paintings by the exceptional painter, Gustav Klimt, Vienna’s most important artist. Klimt was a founding member of the Secession movement. According to Wikipedia,

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918):

His work helped define the Art Nouveau style in Europe. Klimt is known for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d’art. Klimt’s primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. Amongst his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted landscapes. He is best known for The Kiss and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods.

I was thrilled when I went into the gift shop, and I found Gustav Klimt paper napkins! For me, this was the perfect souvenir of my trip to Vienna. In case you don’t know, colorful paper napkins are something I collect—I probably have close to 75 different patterns.

We had free time in the afternoon, so we had a sausage roll for lunch. A small piece of the bread is cut off, then the bread roll is impaled on a sharp stick to create the hole for the sausage. After the meat is inserted with either ketchup or mustard, the short piece of bread is placed on top, as a small “hat.”

After lunch, we toured four different churches, in between ducking for cover when there were surprise rain showers. In every single church I took photos of their interiors and their organs. The first was St. Stephen’s Cathedral of Vienna.

Next was St. Michael’s, which advertised an organ recital tonight.

We then entered St. Augustine’s Church.

Last church was Lutherstadt, in which we recognized a portrait of Martin Luther. I’m so glad Bill is such a good sport about visiting all these churches and organs!

We had an afternoon snack, partly to escape the rain, but also “just because!” I was sure it was going to spoil our appetite for the farewell dinner tonight. but we couldn’t resist!

We had to say “goodbye” to some of our newly-made friends at tonight’s dinner. This has been a motley bunch of people, but we seemed to get along well, and everyone mostly came on time. We thanked Paula, our tour director, and our bus driver, Piotr, for their part in making this a good trip. On to Prague!