Long Night of the Museums

I'm back from a week in Ireland and promise to have new pics and posts up by this weekend but first, before I left, we went to the Long Night of the Museums in Vienna. Basically this is an event where you can visit all of the museums in the city for one night. It's a cheap and entertaining way to see a number of different museums in the city, but then you realize that there are over 90 museums in Vienna. There are some amazing ones here--including the Albertina, the Belvedere, and the Hapsburg Treasury, but I'll bet you didn't know that we also have the world-renowned museums for snowglobes, shoes, contraception, and chimney sweepers as well. (Not all in one museum because that would just be strange.) Unfortunately I'll have to visit those last few another time because 7 hours just isn't enough time to see all the museums in the city.

There is a great Van Gogh exhibit in the Albertina and we also saw an unusual exhibit on the history of blood and violence around the world. Lots of people were everywhere around town, so it was very difficult to see the more popular exhibits--I'll have to go back another time to look at the Van Gogh collection. The treasury is probably the most unique museum in Vienna because you can see all of the crown jewels and other items from the Hapsburg Dynasty. So many scepters and capes--I find it hard to believe that people actually wore those things in real life!