Crystal Excursion: Chamber of Arts & Wonders & Hidden Treasures of Vienna
A morning excursion to the Museum of Fine Art. This is another Crystal Exclusive event which is not widely publicised. The museum was opened for early entry to Crystal guests between 9:15am and 10:15 am. I would definitely recommend this excursion.
Take up was low. There were three groups and ours was only 12 people.
The museum provided there own art expert to guide us. The excellent museum art experts had iPads to help you focus on the finer details in the artworks and as well as to provide background information. The guides selectively picked a hand full of artwork to talk us through. There is too much to see otherwise.
The Grand Staircase
Gustav's Klimt's early work included the wall paintings in the museum
.
Sculptures and objects
Paintings
The excursion includes a walk across to the National Library which has magnificent interiors. My suggestion would be to skip this portion and just stay on in the art museum. We had one of those local who wanted to tell you the intricate details of Austrian history and he just kept us standing in the freezing cold for very little reason. We got really annoyed with a guide for the first time on this trip.
Le Ciel Lunch - Michelin Star restaurant
Those on city tours that morning were walked to the restaurant. There was a Crystal bus from Mozart direct that also did a pick-up at Schwedenplatz for those wandering in the city by themselves.
There were 16 of us for lunch with tables for 6 people and 4 people. One couple sat on their own. There was loads of room and we were not sat together on one massive table. There were other diners in the restaurant at lunch time as well.
The menu looked really unexcited but the food at lunchtime was lovely. Wine was served with both white wine for the starters and red win for the main course. The restaurant is on top of the Grand Wein hotel and looks like what a top end restaurant should look like. Everyone who went for lunch agreed what a nice meal it was. It was deserving of its one Michelin Star for a combination of service and food but no more.
A much larger group went for dinner and came back very disappointed in terms of the quality of what was served.
Lunch started at 12:15 pm and finished slightly after 2 pm. The Crystal coach came to pick us up to take us back to Mozart.
The luggage mat was laid out on the bed when we got back to the room. Yes, it is sadly time to pack.
At 6:15, the Entertainment Host, Neal Fullerton hosted a Singalong Sound of Music show complete with song sheets, etc. He was dressed for the part!
Crystal Excursion: Viennese Wine & Heuriger
Our evening excursion was interesting. It was just the two of us. There were meant to be eight but I suspect when the concierge was rebooking Michelin dinners from the ones cancelled in Budapest, she forgot to cancel their evening excursions for this evening.
So we had a whole Crystal coach and a guide take just the two of us. First stop was to the Vienna's ferris wheel (news to us since we did not see this in any description of the tour)
and then on to
Heuriger Wolff, a wine bar in the Vienna suburbs that serves wine from its own vineyard. This was about a 20 mins drive from where the Mozart was docked.
There was loads of food on offer and heurigers serve a lot of pork
Starters - for two people (ham and salami in the front with most roast beef at the back. Also a plate of meat paste for the bread.
Main course was pork done in various different styles, a bit of duck in the front and a bit of chicken at the back. The crackling on the roast pork was totally yummy.
A platter of fried vegetables in batter and spinach strudel in the front
This is how the platters looked like after we were stuff!
They were concerned when we barely tasted our desert.
In amongst all this food and table wine, the owners younger daughter sat down with us to talk to about the history of the heuriger and the family that has been operating it. We then has a wine tasting of two whites and one red. Heurigers serve young wines which translates as light and smooth; i.e. very drinkable.
But they knew we had a really great time singing during the meal along with other guests at the heuriger.
