We awoke in the hope that the weather had taken a turn for the better during the night, but this turned out not to be the case. So we huddled under our lone umbrella and headed out for a destination that would be primarily indoors, choosing to start the day by visiting the Albertina Museum. But we needed to make another stop first. From some of the pictures you may have noticed that I'm considerably taller than my lovely wife Nella. This makes keeping us both dry under a single umbrella challenging at best. So we decided it would be a great idea to find a second umbrella somewhere as soon as possible. We weren't sure where to go for this, but we had a vague idea of maybe going to a department store. But before finding a department store, we happened to see some umbrellas on display at a souvenir store for what appeared to be reasonable prices. We picked one out (this turned out to be a better deal than we saw later at the department stores) and continued toward the Albertina Museum.

The Albertina Museum is technically part of Vienna's sprawling Hofburg palace complex. The Hofburg was the winter residence of the Habsburgs (I'll talk about the summer residence, the Schönbrunn Palace, some other time), and some of it is still used for government functions, including the residence and workplace of the Austrian president. The palace dates back all the way to the 13th Century, when construction was begun by the Babenbergers, who ran the Duchy of Austria before the Habsburgs. The palace was much smaller then, but grew over the centuries through new construction, sometimes absorbing buildings that had originally been separate structures along the way. The Albertina is found at the southeast corner of the palace complex.

Wielding our umbrellas, we headed through the rain down Kohlmarkt, past the Demel shop we'd enjoyed the previous evening, and directly toward a main entrance of the Hofburg - the huge, neo-Baroque Michaelertor, or Michael’s Gate.

However, we didn't use the gate, turning left just before reaching it and heading south, toward the Albertina. But before reaching the museum, we entered a church on the way, a church called the Augustinerkirche (Augustinian Church), which holds a fair amount of historical significance.

The Augustinerkirche was first built in the 14th Century to serve as the parish church for the Habsburgs, with the interior receiving its current Gothic look in the 18th Century. Many Habsburg weddings took place here, with the most prestigious including those of Maria Theresa to Francis of Lorraine (1736), Archduchess Marie Louise to Napoleon Bonaparte of France (1810) and Emperor Franz Joseph to Duchess Elisabeth of Bavaria, known as "Sisi" (1854).

With all the romance going on, it only seems natural (or at least it did to the Habsburgs) that the no-longer-beating hearts of deceased Habsburgs should be kept here. And so they are, in 54 silver urns kept on shelves in a room called the Herzgruft, located behind the Loreto Chapel next to the main altar. The hearts date from 1654 (Ferdinand IV) to 1878 (Archduke Franz Karl) – a complete list can be found here, for the curious. Here's a drawing, from back when the shelves weren't as fully stocked as they are now.

If you're one of the curious (we weren't, particularly, but I understand your need to know), you're probably wondering what happened to the rest of the owners of these hearts. Glad you asked. Other selected viscera are kept in additional silver jars, located in the crypt below St. Stephen's Cathedral (the Stephansdom – this church will be discussed later). What's left is kept in silver coffins (some apparently quite elaborate) in the crypt beneath the Capuchin Church and monastery a few blocks away. This crypt is called the Kaisergruft. We have not visited the Kaisergruft.

It's hard to visit the Augustinerkirche without thinking of the color gray. Especially if you're visiting on a gray day, as we were. It seems as though it would take some doing to make the place look festive, but this was undoubtedly accomplished when necessary.


One of the side altars is devoted to the last Habsburg emperor, Charles I, who died in 1922. As noted in the Vienna introductory page, Charles has been beatified and may someday become a saint in the Catholic church. Charles died and was buried in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira. But keeping up the Habsburg tradition, his heart was buried somewhere else (Muri Abbey, Switzerland, founded by Radbot, builder of the Habsburg Castle from which the dynasty got its name). The Charles I altar was added to the Augustinerkirche in 2004.

The most notable memorial in the church would have to be the cenotaph to Maria Christina, the fifth and favorite child of Maria Theresa. She died in 1798 at the age of 56, and like her relatives was buried in the Kaisergruft (with her heart added to the collection in the Herzgruft). Her husband, Prince Albert of Saxony, hired the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova to create a suitable memorial to his beloved wife, and the resulting magnificent cenotaph was completed in 1805.


We exited the church into the late Vienna morning and found the rain to still be in progress. We continued south and found the entrance to the Albertina Museum.

The Albertina Museum is located in a former palace that was first established in 1744. It was later lived in by Maria Christina (celebrated by the Canova cenotaph) and her husband Albert, after whom the museum is named. Albert began assembling a large collection of old master prints and drawings while he was Governor of the Austrian Netherlands and was living in Brussels. In 1793, Albert and Maria Christina were forced to flee Brussels because of the French Revolution. Albert had his collection shipped to Vienna, but only two-thirds of it arrived, as one of the cargo ships sank en route. Albert continued to expand the collection until his death in 1822 (you can probably guess where he's buried), but his descendants continued his work while living in the same palace, until they were forced to leave in 1919, when ownership of the palace and the collection passed to the new Republic of Austria. The building received heavy damage during World War II, and repairs and restorations continued into the 21st Century.

There are a number of things to be appreciated at the Albertina Museum. One is the restored building itself. Several rooms have been returned to their palatial splendor.






The attention to detail in the restored state rooms extends to a several small objects which are on display.



While the collection of prints and graphics in the museum's keeping is extensive (approximately 65,000 drawings and 1 million old master prints), the originals are not on display, as they are sensitive to degradation from exposure to light. But many facsimiles of items in the collection are hung in the display rooms. Many are representations of pen-and-ink drawings:


Others are facsimiles of drawings made using chalk:



Still others are copies of watercolors:


Though not originally part of the Albertina's collection, a number of works (mainly paintings) from the Impressionist era through the middle of the 20th Century were transferred to the museum in 2007 (primarily from the Herbert and Rita Batliner Foundation), and are on display in a permanent exhibition called "Monet to Picasso". Most of the exhibition is 20th Century, but there are a few impressionist paintings:


Here are some of the 20th Century works on display:






And, of course, some of the Picassos:


We finished with the Albertina by around 1PM and emerged to find the rain continuing unabated. More indoor tourism seemed to be the thing to do, so we headed over to see Austria's finest collection of old masters at the Kunsthistorisches Museum.