Tuesday 4 June - Prater and Haydn Museum

The heat is taking its toll. There's no cooling facilities in any of these apartments, and this particular one is exposed to the sun all morning. I'm not sleeping well and not feeling up to big adventures.

Took the U-Bahn to the Prater station, out in the same direction as yesterday, but not so far. The Prater is a big woodland park, though not so unspoilt as the equivalents in Munich or Frankfurt. The Austrians in particular don't seem concerned about running a freeway over their parks, or dropping in a museum, a gallery, a research station or even a little community here and there. I guess the parks are big enough to take it. I set off to do the long walk around, which advertised itself as 9 kilometres. It was fairly well signposted, although at one point I wasn't sure whether to head for the Gasometer or the Lusthaus. The Lusthaus sounded more interesting, so I went there, but it turned out to only be a restaurant.

And I saw another deer, briefly, just off the path. Lots of shady walks and little brooks and marshland, the odd bridle trail and rising school, and many people whizzing around on bikes or scooters, manual and electric. There is a rather tacky funfair near the entrance, but I didn't bother with that. Bought lunch at a supermarket; couldn't find potato or noodle salad, so I got a shredded meat salad instead which turned out to be rather nasty. The two big supermarket chains here are Billa and Spar, and Billa seems to be the down-market one, with palm oil in their foods and so on; unfortunately it's sometimes the only choice.

Caught the U-Bahn back to Stephanplatz in order to visit the Haydn Museum. It wasn't open yet, so I returned to the main street, which is a big shopping centre, closed off to traffic. I went looking for souvenirs, but the genuine stuff was horribly overpriced, and the rest was all generic goods you could buy anywhere in the world.

Back to the Haydn Museum, which was in the house that he occupied with his wife for twelve years and eventually died in. Quite small, with very creaky floors and some wobbly furniture, but very nicely done, with scores and medals and other mementos of the composer's life. They have a room put aside for Brahms, too, since his house in Vienna was knocked down in 1902. The garden was pleasantly laid out and would have been cool, if anywhere had been cool by that time. In fact the only annoyance was the loud and aggressive conversation between the proprietor and his wife, who seem to live in the unused part of the house, and which continued throughout my visit.

Walked back to the apartment, keeping in the shade of the buildings, and remained there for the rest of the day. Too hot to go out again.

Today I'll have a quiet look at the Botanic Gardens and possibly the Belvedere Gallery, where the Klimts are.

Love to all,

Jon.

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