Last Day in Vienna

On our last evening in Vienna, we took the UBAN to St. Stephansplatz and walked through Old Vienna to Schwarzen Camel, an old café dating back to the 1600's. We ordered their "ham plate" which had thinly sliced ham with a serving of grated horseradish, paired with a glass of Riesling - it was delicious!

Later, as we made our way back to the public transit system in St. Stephansplatz, we took a photo of inside the cathedral, St. Stephans:

Tomorrow, we leave for Cambridge!

Olomouc!

Very early on rainy Wednesday morning, August 19^th, we boarded a bus to travel for three hours to the Czech Republic to visit the Center of Plant Structural and Functional Genomics at the Institute of Experimental Botany in the beautiful old city of Olomouc, where Mendel also studied. 

 

Too early!

 

No, it's not!

We're almost there!

We were greeted by the director of the Institute, Jaraslov Dolezel, Jan Bartos, Jan Safra, and Hana Simkova. 

 

They offered us beverages and delicious Czech pastries to enjoy before Jan and Hana began their separate lectures.

 

Before the lectures, the Institute’s new public relations employee interviewed Mark and a couple of the students (Michael and Nepheli) for their website.

Jan Bartos began the morning’s activities with a lecture covering the Institute’s strategies for genome sequencing.

Hana’s lecture addressed the process of sequencing wheat genome and the use of optical gene mapping.

 

Afterwards, the students toured the Institute’s various genome-related laboratories, led by Jan Bartos and Jan Safra:

 

It was lunch time so we reboarded the bus with Jan Safra as our guide (Jaraslov drove in a separate car) and we rode into the square in the middle of Olomouc to walk to our restaurant, which printed special menus for our group luncheon!  Mark and I, upon Jaraslov’s recommendation, ordered the duck breast and dumplings because he said it was a traditional Czech entrée. It was delicious!  Jaraslov went around to the students’ tables to let them know about the duck breast which I believe became a popular choice for a lot of the students. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 After lunch, the students went on a tour with a guide and Jan to visit older sites in Olomouc, fountains and statues, while Mark and I strolled with Jaraslov as our guide through streets of old Olomouc until we reached the square and even stopped for ice cream!

 

By 5 p.m., it was time to reboard the bus and head for home – this was a great visit!

 

 
On Saturday, we say goodbye to Vienna and fly to Heathrow on our journey to Cambridge.

Saturday In Old Vienna – Gerstner’s, Museum Quarter & Sacher Torte

On our first free weekend in Vienna, some of the students traveled to Budapest, a larger group took an all-day bike ride/wine tasting tour through the Wauchau Valley, some went to Salzberg, some stayed in their dorms and toured locally, and Mark and I booked a room at the Hilton at the Vienna Plaza hoping for A/C, time to visit at the Museum Quarter, and hopefully include another visit to  Old Vienna.

We start with breakfast in the center of Old Vienna at Gerstner’s Konditorei which makes Mark’s favorite apple strudel with vanilla cream sauce!

 

After breakfast, we take the No. 71 to the Museum Quarter.  As we make our way, we see beautiful, opulent matching buildings:  on the right side is the art gallery housed in the Kunst Historisches Museum (“KHM”) and the left side is the building for the Natural History Museum (“NHM”):

In between these two beautiful buildings is the Maria Theresien-Plaz, which has beautiful statues dedicated to Queen Maria Teresa.

The KHM was built by Emperor Franz Josef I to hold the artworks collected by the Habsburgs over the centuries.  We saw paintings by Rubens, Caravaggio, and other artists of the Michelangelo school, mostly covering the 1300’s through 1800’s. 

There are beautiful marble ceilings everywhere in the museum

This is a stone and marble staircase leading to the paintings

Another view of the various colors of marble used throughout the museum

Some of the paintings - they discouraged photography.

Another beautiful marble ceiling!

We take a water break in the museum café - see more marble all around!

The NHM is one of the largest and oldest natural history museums in the world. The building it is in was completed in 1889 and currently houses a collection of about 30 million specimens and artifacts.  The collections were originally founded in 1750 by Emperor Franz I Stephan of Lorraine, Queen Maria Theresa’s husband.  As we strolled through the exhibits and rooms, we noticed there were a lot of children present.

On the right of the entrance this statue of American and Australian natives

The left side of the entrance is dedicated to Europa

As in the KHM, the NHM has a lot of marble on the floors, walls & ceilings.

Stone and marble staircase leading to exhibits.

This summer, the NHM is featuring the American buffalo

We noticed that they have a lot of stuffed animals on display

Soaring eagles above us

 

I think they made up this one!

 

There's an exhibit of early man and evolution. 

This double helix introduces the collection.

Dodo!

The NHM has collections in hallways in addition to its large rooms.

Dinosaurs!

Very popular with kids and their parents.

The smaller dinosaur in left front was animated to

move around and roar every few minutes.

Mark videotaped it for Lincoln.

More specimen display cabinets

This one features DNA discussion.

Meteorites!

After spending hours going through two of the museums, it’s time for a late lunch at the Sacher Hotel Café!

 

Mark's Sacher torte with whipped cream.

 

We spent the rest of this very hot Saturday strolling through Old Vienna and picking up a few things to take back to the States.