Austria - Czech Republic: September 6 2009

Another bright but cool day in Vienna. We ate breakfast and then checked out of the hotel, storing our things in the car and headed out to St Stephan’s Cathedral. We attended the 9:30am mass at which the Haydn mass parts from Missa Sunt bona mixta malis was performed along with Leopold Mozart’s Missa brevis in C. It was interesting singing hymns in German, as my pronunciation was probably very foreign. I di the responses in Latin while Maris did them in English. It was definitely a unique experience for us

From there we caught a taxi back to the hotel, picked up the car and drove to the Museum Quarter, where we visited the Kunsthistoriches Museum (Art History Museum). The top floor included many coins from different eras, including the Canadian 1 Million Dollar Coin, which is minted from 100kg 99.999% solid gold. Actually, from the accompanying video, it was actually cast and milled rather than minted in the traditional sense. The middle floor contained many paintings dating from as early as the 1400s.

After viewing the paintings , we sat down for lunch. Following lunch, we went downstairs and looked at the Roman, Greek and Egyptian artifacts, from statues and amphorae, stone tablets, papyrus and cloth tapestries and finally mummified remains and sarcophagi. The Greek gemstones, which included cameos was quite interesting. The Egyptian exhibit was perhaps the most fascinating. Egypt may have to be the location for a future vacation…

Thanks to the updated GPS, we drove yet another route back to Zlin. We arrived early evening and then drove to Tescos for some more supplies.