Monthly Archives: July 2011

Budapest

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Mark Rossiter

My arrival in Budapest wasn’t too salubrious: a drunken woman and a man with a weatherbeaten face and a moustache like out of a chronicle of some Balkan war shouting and throwing a table at each other, and an old … Continue reading →

Posted in road | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

aside: a German on holiday

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Mark Rossiter

I took this photo while eating lunch in a cafe in the main square at Győr. Note the German tourist at the far right of the photo, and the state of her underwear. This went on the whole time she … Continue reading →

Posted in road | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Győr

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Mark Rossiter

From Bratislava I went on into Hungary down the valley of the Danube, through fields of sunflowers and giant wind turbines (at first I had assumed these were Austrian, but they went right on into Hungary, too). I arrived at … Continue reading →

Posted in road | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

through the Iron Curtain

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Mark Rossiter

There is no doubt that Vienna is quite a mind-blowing town when it comes to art, even if (judging from the work in the Secession House) it looks like it might be living off its former glories (but perhaps that’s … Continue reading →

Posted in road | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

the end of Vienna

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Mark Rossiter

There was one last museum left in Vienna before I moved on: the Leopold Museum. This had some Klimt in it, but its main star was Egon Schiele, a protege of Klimt’s, who arrived in Vienna at the age of … Continue reading →

Posted in road | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

four museums in a day: the straight line is godless

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Mark Rossiter

That’s what Hundertwasser said. He was an originally Viennese but ultimately globetrotting artist originally named Friedrich Stowasser, who ultimately renamed himself Friedenreich Hundertwasser (which is German for peacecountry hundredwater). You can see why he said that about the straight line … Continue reading →

Posted in road | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

four museums in a day: Belvedere

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Mark Rossiter

My next stop was the Belvedere, another old palace converted into a gallery. It’s on a low hill, so there is a view over Vienna – as painted by Canaletto 250 years ago: and how it looks now: Again there … Continue reading →

Posted in road | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

four museums in a day: secession

Posted on July 3, 2011 by Mark Rossiter

My next stop was the Secession House, so named because the painter Gustav Klimt and some of his friends decided in 1897 to secede from the Viennese art establishment. This had a lot to do with a situation in which … Continue reading →

Posted in road | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

four museums in a day: impressionists

Posted on July 3, 2011 by Mark Rossiter

I knew I had a lot to do today. Apart from all the Viennese stuff, I had spotted an ad for an exhibition at a Hofburg gallery called the Albertina: Monet Picasso. I had taken it that this would be … Continue reading →

Posted in road | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

…and again, this time with jewelry…

Posted on July 2, 2011 by Mark Rossiter

So after I looked at the Habsburgs’ art collection, then I went to their treasury. Usually a treasury has money in it, but this treasury was full instead of some real treasures – some of the most amazingly valuable objects … Continue reading →

Posted in road | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment