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I now have to see how much more I can get done before the closing times start hitting me. I hustled as fast as I could to the next museum. On my way I had to pass the Hofburg St�berl (below left) selling all kinds of trinkets and souvenirs including this very detailed map of the Hofburg Palace (below right) and Zipfer beer. I am now heading over to the large building outlined in blue at the top.

In the window they had this bronze rendition of Da Vinci's Ultima Cena (Last Supper) for �599 ($709). These prices are for tourists, I guess.

They had a display of this key (Sch�ssel) and its history on the wall near the office.

Here is a beautiful example of what PhotoStitch does. It took me three photos (below) to get the entire building.

It will stitch the three photos together into one (below). You may see the connections if you look hard.

The large base states it is of Prinz Eugen (Eugene) (1663-1736) of Savoy; "der edle Ritter" ("the noble Knight") is a famous Austrian/German song about the Battle of Belgrade in 1717 where he beat the Ottomans Turks. He was born in France but was rejected by the King to serve in the military because of a scandal by his mother, so he went to Vienna and joined the military.

He became one of the most famous and revered military men of his period, even being praised by Napoleon. Below are several different portraits of the man to compare to a close-up of the statue (below).

Above right, the plaque says "From Kaiser Franz Joseph I, erected 1865". The sculptor was German-Austrian Anton Dominik Ritter von Fernkorn (1813�78) (below center) who also did the one of him in front of the Buda Castle in Budapest, Hungary (below left).

Above right is Eugene's Stadtpalais in Vienna, where he conducted most of his business. The plaque below left states: "Dem weisen Rathgeber dreier Kaiser" or "The wise counselor to three emperors". The other plaque (right) is the seal of the Emperor.

It's now time to go inside the NeueBurg. The sign at the top says: �sterreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library). The sign on the left is for the Papyrusmuseum (Papyrus Museum) and on the right, the Kunst Historisches Museum (Historic Art Museum). The eagle door handle (below right) is a little intimidating, but nicely done.

Below is a blow-up of the frieze at the top with the crown and two-headed eagle along with four angels displaying wreaths.

When you get inside, the building itself is just elegant. I see the sign heading up the stairs to my next adventure on the second floor, so I start climbing. I arrive at the entrance of the Historisches Arte Museum containing armor, musical instrument and Ephesus museums.

I now enter the area where they display all the military armor and weapons. Marcia is glad she is not with me for this one. Below is a case showing (L-R) helmets, mail, swords and armor headgear.

I'll just let you look at this huge display of knight and equestrian armor; there is a lot of it.

Below right displays two ceremonial maces of Kaiser Friedrich III (1415-93) and Archduke Maximilian I (1459-1519) (German, 1474) in the center. They note: "In the form of Gothic domed towers, rich with crabs and finials, these two eponymous maces are the pure symbols of their bearers. For the first time, they were also equipped with a playful double function; the hollow shafts contain collapsible game boards for chess (front) and backgammon (rear). A combination of sundial and compass was in the grip cap (upper left). They could have been purchased during the Burgundian War (Neusser Feud) of 1474-5."

The case below displays a "wall Crossbow Rack Windlass with bolt tip, fire bolts, 3 heavy bolts and war bolts."

These 16th Century armor sets are labeled: (L-R) Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse (1504�67), Archduke Ulrich of W�rttemberg (1487�1550) (brown pants), King Ferdinand I, HRE (1503-64) (red pants) and Nikolaus IV Radziwill (1515-65), Grandmarshall Litzuen.

Below left are two portraits of Ferdinand I, center is Ulrich and on the right is Philip I.

There are many more armored equestrian displays and some quite impressive armor.

In the photo below, the middle armor is of Archduke Ferdinand II (1529�95) (right) of Further Austria and Tirol, als Jungling (as a youngster). He was a real Renaissance man and an avid collector of art. He kept his world-famous collections in a museum built specifically for that purpose, making Ambras Castle (below right) in Innsbruck [Schlossstra�e 20,

+43-152-524�4802] the oldest museum in the world. Some of his art and armor collection were moved here to the Historical Art Museum in Vienna. The Schloss Ambras (official site) has paintings by Lukas Cranach, Titian, Anton van Dyck and Diego Vel�zquez.

These are photos of their Spanish Hall of portraits from their website. I don't know how we missed it, but we did.

You could not photograph all the guns and rifles they have on display, but I got a few that looked a little interesting. Below (from top to bottom) is 1) Karls von Inner �sterreich (1540-90), 2-3) Kaiser Rudolf II, 4) Couldn't read, 5) Leopold I (1658-1705) and on the right a series of pulverflasche (powder bottles).

I then had to walk out a door into an atrium area and it took PhotoStitch for the three photos of the height of it. I had to walk across this to the other side of the building and then into the next room for continuation of the armor displays.

These were a little different; below left bows and arrows, right helmets, shield and swords.

Those below left are from Augsburg in 1833, didn't record whose those were below right.

Below left is the upper torso shield of Leopold V (1586-1632) (on the left) and that of Archduke Ferdinand II on the right. Below right is a closer look at the detail in the armor.

These three were used by Maximilian III (1558-1618) (below left) and the three on the right by Archduke Ferdinand II and made in Innsbruck in 1582.

As I was leaving, I caught this shot of Arabic war armor head helmets and saddles (below left) and the last room with the wall covered with old family tree depictions and some final armor pieces.

You won't believe that there were many more displays that I did not get a picture of. I now left the Armor Museum (Waffen und R�stungen) and headed for the musical instruments.

I get to this central domed intersection with this strange instrument in the center. I must be close.

The signs are well marked as to where you should go. I then went through the glass doors.

The first room you enter is loaded with cabinets full of old instruments of all kinds; from violins to horns and harps.

This display was labeled "Spinet and Shelf" which had a pair of spinets, one with a backgammon board incorporated in it (on left).

From this PhotoStitch shot you can see how detailed these displays are filling very large rooms. Looking through the door in the back, you can see an endless number of rooms I have to go through.

Below left is a close up of the piano in the photo above. On the right is another older one.

And another one which has drawers on it (below left). Below right is one that is quite elaborate.

Then I get into the room with the "fiddles" and 16th Century stringed instruments.

Interestingly and unusual but none of these have English labels so the specifics are not clear. Below left are three violas, center they call four "striechbr�gen" and on the right is a lute.

Below are examples of the display cabinets full of every kind of stringed instrument.

Of course they had drums and cabinets full of trombones, trumpets, oboes and flutes.

Here are some unusual guitars, trumpets and horns of various shape with a few oboes.

Here are more drums surrounding a display of horns. On the right are more harps and pianos.

Here is an unusually decorated piano and stool (left). Below right they labeled the one on the left as a Kristallquerfl�te (Crystal flute) and the one on the right as Querfl�te (flute). They are from Vienna in the early 1800s.

Here is a bust of Johan Brahms (Vienna 1898) by Ilse Conrat. Below center are labeled as "Fagotts" (bassoons). Below right are a large Wagner tuba (on left) (Vienna 1913) and soprano cornets (Paris 1856).

Interspersed among the instruments was this glass-enclosed model of old Vienna with its walls. I got a shot of it from both sides. This is more detailed than the metal one I saw this morning.

There

was an oil painting on canvas (below left) by Franz Xaver Wagensch�n in 1770 just before she married the King of France. The sign right reads: "Marie Antoinette and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were of the same age and had known each other since 1762, when he and Nannerl Mozart performed at Vienna's Sch�nbrunn Palace. She, like other of Kaiserin Maria Teresa's daughters, played the piano. Later, she learned how to play the harp and, as Queen of France, owned a very lavish French pedal harp."

I am now in Hall 18. Below is a Glasharmonica (Glass harmonica), a musical instrument invented in 1761 by Benjamin Franklin in which the sound is made by a row of 37 rotating, concentric glass bowls, kept moist and pressed with the fingers or with keys. It was popular until about 1830.

A fitting touch for my last instrument. I now still have time to find my way down to their special museum devoted to the 10th Century BC Greek city of Ephesus on the west coast of Turkey (Ionia). You may wish to click the link to it, to see how important this city was through the centuries.

The city of Ephesus was finally abandoned in the 15th Century. You may ask why is this museum here. Archeological excavations were first begun in 1863, when British architect John Turtle Wood (1821-90) (left), sponsored by the British Museum, began to search for the Artemision (Temple of Artemis). In 1869 he discovered the pavement of the temple, but since he didn't find much else, the excavations stopped in 1874. In 1895, German archaeologist Otto Benndorf (1838-1907) (right), financed by Austrian Karl Mautner Ritter von Markhof, resumed excavations and in 1898 Benndorf founded the Austrian Archaeological Institute, which plays a leading role in Ephesus today. Finds from the site (which stopped leaving Turkey in 1907) are exhibited notably in this museum and were placed here in the Neue Berg in 1978. In October 2016, Turkey halted the works of the archeologists, which had been ongoing for more than 100 years, due to tensions between Austria and Turkey.

Since we are going to explore Greece and its history on this trip and, since I will never set foot in Turkey, here is my chance to see some of these Greek/Roman remains of the eastern Roman Empire. The map below shows the location of Ephesus in relation to Greece. Note that they also did excavations on the Greek island of Samothrace and in Trysa in southwestern Turkey which are included in this museum.

This poster is the first thing you see when you enter. It displays the famous goddess Diana of Ephesus (or �Artemis� to the ancient Greeks), with 18 breasts. She is a fertility goddess from classical mythology.

Below are stock photos; left is of the actual statue at the Ephesus Museum in Turkey. [To see many beautiful photos of that museum, click this LINK.] Below center is another one at the museum in Turkey and this one has 23 breasts. Some historians claim these are not breasts but bull's testicles. Below right is a fountain recreation of it by the Romans in the Villa d'Este gardens in Tivoli, Italy.

Archeological evidence indicates the site of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus had been of sacred use since the Bronze Age and the original building was destroyed during a flood in the 7th Century BC. A second temple was commissioned around 560 BC by King Croesus of Lydia (595-546 BC) (right) and built by Cretan architects. It was constructed largely of marble, and measured 337 ft (103 m) long and 180 ft (55 m) wide with its pillars standing 40 ft (12 m) high. Below are stock photos of the constructed model of it in Turkey and on the right is what the actual site looks like today.

The sculpted bases of the columns contained life-sized carvings and the roof opened to the sky around a statue of Artemis. The second temple was included on an early list of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World by Herodotus in the 5th century BC and was well known in ancient times. According to tradition, the fire that destroyed the second temple was set on the day Alexander the Great was born, July 21, 356 BC. Herostratus was captured and tortured on the rack, where he confessed to having committed the arson in an attempt to immortalize his name. To dissuade those of similar intentions, the Ephesian authorities not only executed Herostratus, but passed a law that his name could never be written or spoken. Look how well that worked: his name is the only one that is remembered. A new temple was constructed on a colossal scale: it was about 337 ft (115 m) long and 180 ft (55 m) wide.

The Pyramid is the only one that survives today. You may be familar with all the above Wonders except the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (below left). It was a huge tomb built by Mausolus (below center left), the King of a Persian region, for himself and his wife (below right) in 351 BC. It was 148 ft (45 m) high and the four sides were adorned with sculptural reliefs by four Greek sculptors along with the four horses at the top (a surviving piece of one below center right).

The structure was destroyed by successive earthquakes from the 12th-15th Centuries and was the last surviving of the six destroyed wonders. Below left is what the site looks like today. Next to it is a stock photo of Mausolus and his wife. The word mausoleum has now come to be used generically for an above-ground tomb because of Mausolus. I thought this was interesting.

Now what is personally interesting to me is that the design of the Mausoleum has been copied by many architects over the years and one of them was John Parkinson (below center right) in his design of the top of the Los Angeles City Hall (below right; look at the top). He and his son Donald also designed the LA Coliseum, the iconic Amtrak Union Station and many other significant buildings in LA including in Santa Monica, its City Hall and a house on San Vicente Blvd that I purchased in 1988 after it was declared a historical landmark. I was able to tear it down and build a house on the lot that we lived in for over 20 years. How did I get from Ephesus in Vienna to Santa Monica?

The Council of Ephesus was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus in 431 AD by the Roman Emperor Theodosius II (401-50). This third ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom, confirmed the original Nicene Creed, and condemned the teachings of Nestorius (386-450) (right), Patriarch of Constantinople, who held that the Virgin Mary may be called the Christotokos, "Birth Giver of Christ" but not the Theotokos, "Birth Giver of God". It met in the Church of Mary in Ephesus. After Nestorius was defeated, he brought his "religion" to the Sasanian Empire, which is what Iran was before Islam conquered it. I'll bet you never heard of it; I hadn't. Click the link; fascinating.

Another interesting fact about Ephesus is that the earliest known inscribed coinage was found in the foundation deposit of the Temple of Athena. Below is stock photo of the actual electrum (naturally formed silver-gold amalgam) coin of Phanes from Ephesus circa 625-600 BC. The obverse (left) shows a stag grazing , and the reverse (right) shows two incuse punches, each with raised intersecting lines.

Here are stock photos of the remains of the Roman Library of Celsus (117-262 AD) at Ephesus. An earthquake and fire destroyed it and another one finished it off in 400 AD.

Volker Strocka, a German archaeologist, reconstructed its fa�ade between 1970-78 to what you see today. It was built in honour of Celsus (statue in Turkish museum, below right), one of the earliest purely Greeks to beome a Roman Consul. He had been consul in 92 AD where he was in charge of all public buildings and was the Roman proconsul of Ephesus, the capital of the Asian province of Rome from 105�107 AD. Celsus was a wealthy and popular local citizen and he paid for the construction of the library with his own personal wealth.

These stock photos below are of the Theater in Ephesus. (Above and below are from the link above.) At an estimated 25,000 seating capacity, the theatre is believed to be the largest in the ancient world. This open-air theatre was used initially for drama, but during later Roman times gladiatorial combats were also held on its stage; the first archaeological evidence of a gladiator graveyard was found in May 2007.

Here is the street scene of Ephesus today, leading from the Theater (above) to what was once the sea. It is hard to beleive it was the fourth largest city in the eastern Roman Empire and extremely important.

The first thing I came across in the museum was this beautifully preserved bronze statue called the Athelete From Ephesus. I got a shot of it from both sides. It was discovered in bad condition and you can see the restoration efforts on his right back side. The 1897 photo (below right) shows how they assembeled the 200 fragments. They then developed a special way to fill it internally and then recreate the missing parts.

This poster tells how another one of these statues was discovered off the Croatian coast in 1996 and, in collaboration with the J Paul Getty Museum in LA, they developed a special cage (below right) for them so they could be transported safely. They were both exhibited at the Pallazzo Strozzi in Florence (March-June 2015), the Getty Museum in LA (July-Nov 2015) and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (Dec 2015-Mar 2016). So I was here just in time to see it back in Vienna.

Here is a display of a Corinthian colum capital showing the fragments (left) as well as a woman (center) and a headless Roman cemturian (right).

Below left are more capitals and on the right (from the LINK above) Roman busts (from Turkey).

Below left and center are headless torsos and on the right are three heads: the left is a bust of an Imperial priest at the time of Emperor Gallienus (253-268 AD), center is a head of Emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD) and on the right is a young boy, probably a prince at the time of Emperor Gordian III (238-244 AD).

Below on the left is a portrait head of a late period Roman republican, the center is a portrait head of Homer (Roman, after a Greek original) and the right is an ideal portrait of the "Wandering Poet" (Homer).

Below left is a metal sculpture of a winged woman (sphinx?) tending an injured boy. On the right is a marble baby with a duck.

These are remnants from the Ephesus Theater; above is a deer and below is a chariot.

Here are more fragments and an example of one of the theater chairs with backs for the wealthy.

They displayed this old photo of a view of the Theatre with the auditorium, orchestra and stage house.

Next, I came upon another scale model of the ancient city of Ephesus, its buildings and surroundings.

Then I entered this long wide room displaying the statuary that was on the Temple of Artemis. These they got out of Turkey before 1907.

This is called the Parthian Monument, one of the most important Roman-age reliefs

from Asia Minor. In five thematic cycles it commemorates the Roman Emperor Lucius Verus (130-169 AD), who established a camp in Ephesus during his Parthian (ancient Iran) Campaign of 161-165 AD. The individual pieces have been arranged in the form of a monumental altar, but this is only a guess as they were not found in their original state. The friezes have a total length of about 230 ft (70 m), of which 131 ft (40 m) are on display. These are stock photos; on the left is the apotheosis (elevation to a god) of Lucius Verus. I have one I took below.

This reminds me exactly of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum in London that were taken from the Greek Parthenon in Athens, which we will be visiting on this trip. I took close up shots so the details can be seen. Nothing much to say; just look at them.

Then there were these marble body and heads of Poseidon from the Roman Era, 2nd Century.

Nearby was a detailed sketch of the city's layout. The Temple of Artemis (#73) is by itself between the main town (left) and the buildings in the upper right (directly under the North sign and scale. You can see it sitting by itself in the model above. The Stadium (#21) is in the upper part of town and the semicircular Theater (#26) is in the center.

The modern columns in the museum are impressive. They have a series of large posters. This one shows the aerial photos of the city today pointing out the various ruins.

Next they had a display of the excavations and digging on the Greek island of Samothrace (Samothrake) in the upper Aegean Sea but its all in German. Below right is a case holding a replica of buildings from there.

The Austrians also did excavasions in the ancient city of Trysa which is on the west coast of Turkey south of Ephesus. Below is their depiction of what it looked like and the plan map of the city.

Below is a reconstruction of the north frieze of the Temple (Heiron/Heroon) and its figures (Giebelfiguren).

Above left are the restored remains of the figures in the drawing above: seated figure (left) (V above), a torso of a reclining man (center) (XI above) and that of a woman (right) (XII above). They show a photo of Winged Victory (above right) which they found in Samothrace, also called the Nike of Samothrace, which is a marble Hellenistic sculpture of Nike (the Greek goddess of victory) (below left). It was created about the 2nd century BC and found by a Frenchman in 1863. Therefore, since 1884, it has been prominently displayed at the Louvre in Paris (below center; we first saw it in 1999). It is one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world and has been described as "the greatest masterpiece of Hellenistic sculpture". It is one of a few major Greek statues surviving in the original, rather than being a Roman copy. Below right is the site where it was found on Samothrace. It is the radiator cap on Rolls Royce's.

On Samothrace Island the complex of worship (map below left) is called the Heirion or Holy Place for worship of the "Great Gods". The remains of the main temple area is shown below right.

The orange circle (above) is the Rotunda (Rundbau) of Arsinoe built by Queen Arsinoe II in 285 BC. Below right they displayed remnants from the rotunda.

Also called the Arsino�ion, it is the largest covered round space in the ancient Greek world with a diameter of 65 ft (20 m).

Now that I have had a little peek into Ancient Greek culture, it is time to leave the Neue Berg (above) and head back. After descending the stairs, I get a closer look at the other big equestrian statue.

This is a statue of Archduke Karl (Carl/Charles), Duke of Teschen (1771-1847) (below right) which was erected by Kaiser Franz Joseph in 1859. He was the Commander in Chief of the Austrian army and Head of the Council of War and is remembered as a hero of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

Below are three of the plaques on the base of the statue. The sculptor was German-Austrian Anton Dominik Ritter von Fernkorn (1813�78) who did the one of Prince Eugen (noted earlier).

I then walked to the left and through this gate (below left) and when I got out on the other side (below right) ...

As I get closer, I now see the huge statue of Empress Maria Theresa in the center of Maria Theresa Platz.

I have no time to explore this, so I head back but get this shot of Kunstmuseum that was on the left but is now on my right.

Back at the Hofburg Palace (where I started today), there is this symbol on the wall (below left). I blew up the upper piece to see the wording about Ferdinando I (1503-64), Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria 1535.

I went by the original entrance inside the Hofberg where I started out this morning.

Now it was really time to head back to the hotel. On my way back down Kohlmarkt Strasse, I went by the Massimo Dulli store front which had a plaque on it about Frederic Chopin. The plaque states he "lived from Nov 1830 to July 1831 on the 4th floor of the house at Kohlmarkt 9 which stood until 1900 on this site".

Below left is my look back at the Hofburg (below left). Right is the classic Erste �sterreichische Spar Casse building (below right). It is the largest Savings Bank in Austria.

I then got back on Jungferngasse and Peters Platz; back to take some photos of ...

The writing at the bottom says "Emperor Charlemagne, the founder of the eastern empire, donator of this church." Hard to believe but must be true.

Walking on the Graben, I got this shot of the Graben Hof (below left) which is quite a nice building. I was surprised to see a New Balance shop (below right) on the Graben as well. I have been running in New Balalce shoes for 25 years.

It is now 3:40 PM, and after all this I need a little sit down time. So I went into Julius Meinl [am Graben 19] that I passed early this morning and had a cappuccino, then a diet coke and then a Zipfer beer �7.28 ($8.53). This place is very fancy and very busy.

At 4:20 PM I walked all the way back to the hotel, and finally got a nice PhotoStitch shot of our Mercure Wien Hotel and the street we are on with a movie theater across the street.

I got up to my room and from 5�6 PM I read my tour guide regarding the remaining things I need to see and then at 6:00 PM I fell asleep and took a nap. I didn't wake up until 8:30 PM and got changed and we headed out at 9 PM and walked to the Dom and found where we wanted to go to get some Hungarian food. I looked in the window and the Hotel Ungarn restaurant was totally empty with waiters hustling around.

Since we didn't want to sit in an empty restaurant, we walked down the street and found Da Capo [Schulerstra�e 18, +43-512-4491] that I walked by this morning and we had been to before with Dima. We were given a table at 10 PM for dinner and we ordered a bottle of Italian white wine called Bianco Veneto 2016 from Venice (above). While we sipped on the wine, which was quite good, we looked over their menu.

We decided to start with our favorite (since 1999), vitello tonnato (cold veal slices in tuna sauce). It was very good.

Marcia and I shared an order of Polpo Calamari Gamberetti al Forno (oven baked octopus, squid and small shrimp) (below left). I was really in a mood for pasta and they had a special of three pastas on one plate (below right). They were pesto spaghetti (left), cavatelli arrabiatta (center) and penne with chanterelles and cream (right).

For an entr�e I had Filetto di Coda di Rospo (filet of monkish) with roasted potatoes.

The whole dinner came to �100 ($118.41). It was good but, not as good as I remembered from last time. We hiked back to the hotel and got to bed at 2:40 AM. I think you will agree, this was an excruciating day.