Lange Nacht Der Museen

We arrived in Vienna somewhere around noon. We actually managed to find our hotel room pretty quickly. It only took a few wrong turns and a mad dash for a map and then we made it no problem. The population of Vienna is somewhere around 1.5 million so it is a fairly large city. We stayed within walking distance of the center. The young lady at the reception told us that we arrived on a great day because there was a huge flea market going on during the day and then starting at 6pm they were having an event called "The Long Night at the Museum" which only occur ed once a year. Basically all of the museums in the city participated and if you bought one ticket to one of the museums you could use it to get in free to any other museum you wanted. All museums were open special for the event until 1am and free buses were provided to take anybody to any museums around the town. We managed to visit 5 museums: The Lipizzaner, the Butterfly, the Torture, the Chocolate, and the Shoe Museums. By the time we finished, it was around 11:30pm and we were too tired and cold to keep going. Here are some pictures from the day:

This is Mr X in the maze of the market - it was so much fun to check everything out.This man was selling sauerkraut. He had these enormous barrels of the stuff and if you wanted some he would just reach in bare-handed and grab a fist of it and put it in a container for you. I just wanted to stand there and stare but I don't think he was too thrilled with me.

Here was the starting point for the Long Night at the Museum.This was the Butterfly Museum. It was beautiful and hot/muggy too which was nice since it was so cold outside. We climbed up these stairs that go through a giant tree trunk. I felt like I was at the Jungle Book part of Disneyland...

This was one of the many butterflies there. I have no clue what kind it was since my knowledge regarding the species is sorely lacking. (Nor can I interpret the German names) But I do know that there were a lot and they were the biggest ones I've ever seen. There were all these cocoons at the front of the building too. It was a bit reminiscent of Alien but on a much smaller and far less scary scale.They gave out ridiculous amounts of free (and incredible tasting) chocolate at the Chocolate Museum. We didn't feel that great after this stop.This was a chocolate sculpture - made entirely of different kinds of chocolate. I so badly wanted to destroy it by taking a giant bite (or ten) out of this.The Shoe Museum was more interesting that I expected. They had the various shoes set up out by the time in which they were popular. They also were serving various beverages for our drinking pleasure while browsing the crazy shoes. Mr X and I discovered that every one of those beverages was alcoholic. How generous of them. Do you see this shoe? Who on earth wore that and who thought it was fabulous? I wonder how many people broke their legs walking around on these things.This was a photo of some of the famous horse carriages of Vienna. No, they aren't Lipizzaner horses but that are very lovely anyway. And by the way, those Lipizzaner horses are impressive - they can jump entirely into the air with their rider and do these acrobatic kicks and such. It was very impressive to see.This was simply a picture I took because I thought it caught the look of the streets in the central area of Vienna quite well. It is a beautiful place and Mr X and I had a wonderful time here our first day.