Mozart and more

 Late last night, inside the 1000 year old walls of the Stephansdom, we listened to the melancholy sounds of the Lacrimosa of Mozart's Requiem, performed by soloists of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra...

......outside the walls, Vienna wept.

Earlier in the day we had the mandatory Sacher Torte....and amazingly enough, the Sacher Hotel has managed  to retain a bit of what I would consider the old Vienna, the "kuss die Hand" Vienna, which has been overlaid and buried by the thousands of tourists, the Macdonalds, Starbucks and the fabulous displays of designer stores...we live right downtown, around the corner from the Opera, so are right in the middle of things.
This morning we viewed the Picasso exhibit at the Albertina....not terrifically uplifting, since it is of his works post 1944. A Walton Ford exhibit was more colourful, not any more uplifting, but certainly thought provoking. And the whole morning was anchored with a great lunch at the museum cafe....where you see Bibi with her now favourite painter, Egon Schiele....

And did I mention we ate Wiener Schnitzel? Note the size of the schnitzel and the size of the salads...

  And we topped off the day with a performance of Verdi's La Traviata in the Volksoper

And the evening didn't end there...but more tomorrow...

h and b