Vienna Museums: The Albertina
My original plan today was to finally go to Melk, a lovely old town about an hour west of Vienna with a huge monastery on a hill. Sadly when I got to the highway it was closed due to an accident. Since I wasn’t sure how far the highway was blocked and didn’t want to do a huge detour, I turned around and headed home.
There was a lot of rain this morning, so I decided to head into town and check out the famous Albertina museum, which I hadn’t seen up to now. Originally a palace, as part of the Imperial complex, close relatives of the emperor lived there. Now it is a museum which houses an enormous collection.
It was not that crowded though it is definitely tourist season. I guess a lot of Viennese are out of town, reducing the overall number of museum visitors.
There were two things that amazed me at the Albertina.
The first were the many state rooms you could visit. I had thought it was a museum of paintings, but it turns out you can still see several of the Imperial rooms, including a study and a bedroom, antechambers, and reception rooms. All have been beautifully restored and are astounding.
The second was the special exhibit of Gregory Crewdson photos. Displayed as prints, they were all haunting. He sets up what are basically film sets to tell a story. As he lives in Western…
