The one museum we all (especially Elora) really didn’t want Grandma to miss was the art history museum. It is probably my favorite museum in Vienna because not only is the art wonderful, but the building is beautiful too.
Elora was very excited to start off by showing Grandma the pharoahs. She is fascinated by pharoahs for some reason. Here is Daddy showing everyone the inside of a sarcophogus.
Chris has a second toe that is longer than his first, and we have had many discussions about whether or not this is preferable to having the big toe by the longest. When we were looking around in a new room we had never come across before, we found a series of Egyptian statues that all had the second toe as the longest toe. Apparently this was a more desirable foot shape in ancient Egypt!
Elora with some of the toe statues. It was also desirable to have a weird looking cat head.
I just posted this one because of Elora – she is so happy and excited to show Grandma around! She loves the art museum and is so excited every time we come. I love taking her here because it is so funny to me that a four year old would be fascinated by the same things as me.
Here is an interesting mask that we found hanging on the wall at the museum.
And here is Elora trying to make the same face!
Oliver intently studying the carving of the sheep. He absolutely loves sheep.
Hiking up the beautiful staircase to show Grandma the statue of the centaur fight, and then off to the painting wing to show off Elora’s favorite paintings!
Let me point out that the painting floor is so huge, and so difficult to navigate while seeing every room, that there are paintings we have only found once and never been able to locate again. To even find Elora’s favorite painting, I need Chris with me because I can never find it when I try! Today I started in a different place than usual, and rediscovered this painting of the Tower of Babel, which Elora absolutely loves. I really like this painting as well. When Elora picked out a new poster for her room, this is the painting she picked! 
Elora studying a series of paintings that depict a fish market. “Why do they eat turtles? That isn’t nice, I like turtles. I wouldn’t eat them. Do they eat the seals too? But the seals should live at the zoo. I like to eat fish, but I wouldn’t eat a jellyfish…”
Elora with her very favorite series of paintings – the Fireman is on the left and she calls the one on the left the Treeman. They are actually part of two different series, one that depicts the elements and one that depicts the seasons. There are four paintings here, and we found two more in London at one of the museums we visited.
Elora and Michael the Archangel – “Why does he have a sword? Why are those mean people falling down? Why can’t they be in heaven too?” I love her inquisitive mind. I only wish I had better answers for her sometimes.
And here is what Oliver does when he gets bored of paintings – he climbs on top of the benches meant for sitting and when we are really lucky he starts banging on the top of the benches to play music. Gotta love that, especially since people are actually rather quiet while viewing this museum…
Showing Grandma the view of the inside of the dome.
This is a such a beautiful ornate building. I like the top floor because there are just nice places to stand and look at the view, or some great couches to sit and browse the art books they have for sale down in the gift shop. Always a good place to rest with the kids where I don’t have to worry about Oliver setting off any alarms…
Here we are outside the huge building. I suppose from the size of the outside I shouldn’t be surprised that it is so difficult to see everything on the inside. I think there are still parts of the painting floor I have missed, and we rarely ever get up to the collections on the top floor! There are also parts of the museum that are unfinished. For the bargain price of 25,000 -50,000 Euros, you can sponsor the finishing of a room so that they can display more of the artwork that they have just sitting in a storage room somewhere.
And notice the fact that this was in August and we are all wearing jackets and sweaters. To make up for all that super hot weather the first week Grandma came, it started raining near the end of her visit and we had to dig out the warm clothes that have been packed away for the summer!
After the museum we tried to walk over to a schnitzel restaurant in the area that has the biggest schnitzels you have ever seen – but wouldn’t you know it, they are on holiday for the entire month of August. So we stopped at an Israeli restaurant we had passed by that looked really good. Here is Grandma getting to sample lots of new things like Falafel and hummus. YUM!
I totally don’t look happy, but my stuffed eggplant was actually super good.
I can’t remember what this is called, but it was some sort of meat filled pastry served with Tsaziki – so good. Besides the awesome hummus, this was my favorite item we tried. We were sitting outside to eat, but it started to rain so we got to move inside just in time to eat. It wasn’t schnitzel, but I think I liked it better!
