Day 48: Back to the Belvedere

But first, let me say how much I love downloading pics from the camera after Nina's been using it unsupervised.

Artsy Shimmer says "It's nice to meet you.'
I think that's shimmer anyway. I can't keep up. It's bad enough that there are 40 ponies with different names, but I think they change sometimes. Like, when did Elizabeth get on the scene? I think she was renamed. I'd ask, but I'd just end up even more confused.

One more:

This is a fantastic picture of Maggie. Well done Nina! She took it while we were eating lunch at the Belvedere (grilled cheese with ham for the girls, gazpacho for me, and coffee with leftover grilled cheese for Nick). And that's my segue back into our day...
We went back today because if you recall, we'd bought the combination tickets for the upper and lower Belvedere when we were there 2 weeks ago. You have two weeks to use the tickets, so it was today or never. Also, today was the coolest day of the week (it's been in the 90s, and the high today was only supposed to be in the 80s. I think we did stay there after all, thanks to the thin cloud cover we had most of the day). When you're taking the un-air conditioned Badener Bahn to and from the city, you definitely need to avoid the 90 degree days.

We wanted to get there early because they have "medieval treasures" that on display in the palace stables, but only until noon. Somehow, we'd gotten the impression that there was at least one crown on display, but alas, that was a mistake. The treasures were of the "religious art" variety, you can guess how excited the kids were.

But, no loss, we were mainly there to see the upper Belvedere anyway. And it was gorgeous!

No cameras allowed inside, sorry. It's an art museum, but many of the rooms had descriptions of what they were originally used for, so it still held some of the appeal of a palace. Nina was satisfied, anyway. We saw some great pieces--a Van Gogh, a Monet, and lots of Klimt (including The Kiss). The girls gave it a thumbs up. I asked Maggie what she'd pay for one of Klimt's portraits and she said, "Fifty." That's a lot of money to a little kid, so she must have liked it!.
Sorry for no posts lately, I had a stomach ache this week. Poor me! Hopefully just a stomach bug, but it did feel an awful lot like the pain I had way back when I probably had an ulcer. :-(