Day 32 Wednesday, October 1, 2025
We take a funicular to a park area high above Wiesbaden, a town about an hour from our bnb in Frankfurt. This funicular uses water as its power source. The car at the top fills with water and it is used to counterbalance and power the car that is going uphill. When the funicular car gets to the bottom it empties its water tank, which is then pumped back up to the top of the hill. It is quite ingenious.
Halfway we meet the funicular car that is descending.
There is a panoramic view of Wiesbaden from the top.
This is a monument to the German soldiers that died during World War I.
I think I may have mentioned that there are big trees in Europe? This hollow tree was cut down, I presume for safety. Can you see me in the other end?
We see golden domes in the distance and walk along a path to this ‘Burial Church’.
This Russian Orthodox Church is a declaration of love from the deeply grieving husband Duke Adolph to his young wife, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, who died in childbirth along with her baby. He built the church with funds from her dowery.
I took this photo before I was told that no photos were allowed in this church. The dome is gorgeous. There is lots of gold decoration and many icons in elaborate gold frames on display.
Outside the chestnuts are falling. They are incredibly prickly!
We had our picnic lunch on a bench beside the church, overlooking the town far below, then walked back uphill to the park. We hear a lot of laughter and screaming so decide to find out what is going on. Just a short distance away there is an enormous Tree Climbing Adventure Park that covers several acres.
The first thing we see is this youngster trying to get up the courage to step off the high platform, which eventually does happen. I was wondering if someone would have to go up and rescue them?
I googled these climbing parks. “Using cables, ropes, bridges, planks and branches, the participants, equipped with harnesses, climb. walk in balance, jump, leap into the void and cross various obstacles. It is the variety and difficulty of the obstacles that makes these courses fun.”
I have never seen such a big park or one with such high platforms and challenges. I love watching all the kids as they make their way around the park. These swinging plaforms look hard enough to cross, but…
they are also very high above the ground!
Most of these kids have no fear whatsoever! 
Crossing from one tree to another on these stirrups was a challenge for this young lady, but she persevered and made it!
While we are watching all the activity above, I look down and see all sorts of mushrooms. I absolutely love the different shapes and colours of mushrooms and I took some photos to draw from later.
This platform high in the trees…
…has two young boys jumping and laughing as the platform they are standing on sways back and forth! 
The kids liked that I was taking photos.
This looked tough. These girls needed to hang from two pieces of wood above their heads and swing towards the next piece of wood to stand on! These kids are so strong and confident. It was wonderful watching them!
If I were just a few years younger I think I would have loved to give something like this a try. I was much more fearless then. Now I will have to be content with hugging trees instead of climbing them!
We walk down a trail instead of taking the funicular back down to the bottom. I find more beautiful mushrooms.
The funicular car passes us on the way down. It is faster than walking but we really enjoyed strolling down on the path in the forest.
Next we drive to Rudeshiem where we catch a boat to view castles along the Rhine.
While we wait for the boat to dock I see a little lizard sunning itself in a bit of sunshine.
I do some quick sketches of the castles along the shore.
We pass a lot of vineyards. This area is famous for its red wine.
We spot a few workers high on the hill.
Some of the castles are in ruins.
We pass several charming small towns along the Rhine.
Some castles are still in use.
The castles look different on the return trip. Interesting how a different view changes so much of what we see.
More vineyards on the way back to the dock. It was a 45 minute ride with commentary in German and English.
This little castle was a signalling station on the Rhine River and it was in use until the 1980’s.
It looks like this castle might be in use as a hotel?
There are a lot of boats and ships on the Rhine River which is a very wide river, with some islands in its middle.
A Viking River Cruise ship passes us. It is bigger than I expected…still a lot of people onboard.
Another selfie.
Several barges that have lots of pipes and valves visible…perhaps carrying oil?
This castle is now a museum.
Here are my sketches of the castles I drew as we sailed by.
We stroll down some narrow streets on the way back to our car.
There are usually 5 monks and 7 nuns who live at the abbey and there are only 25-30 people who actually live on Mont Saint Michel. We sat and listened to part of the mass, from the side of the church. The singing was really lovely and I found it interesting that the nuns and the priest sat on the floor of the church during the service.
There are so many interesting doors in this abbey.
There are so many smaller rooms and interesting spaces to be explored. This one is off the side of the crypt.
When the Abbey was used solely as a prison in the 1800’s, this huge wheel was was used to haul supplies up to the abbey. Prisoners walking inside the wheel were able to raise and lower a cart along a stone ladder inclined along the rock wall. 
We hear shrieks and peals of laughter and realize that is is coming from the people out walking on the sands now that the tide is out. Some of them are thigh deep in the water! There are a lot of people out there, some of them way off in the distance. Thanks, but I am happy to pass walking in mud and cold water.
Bob took interesting photos of the inside and outside view of these two stained glass windows.
…interesting details…
…crooked roof lines…
We discover a semaphore station built in the early 1900’s on the same site as an old lighthouse built in the early 1800’s. There are also more World War II bunkers here. Not surprising since they were built all along the coast of France. The three pillars were to hold radar equipment, but it was never installed, and there are several Tobruks, or machine gun nests.
One of several large bunkers.
‘Mother and Child’ is a well known painting. I do love how expressive Schiele’s hands are.
Schiele’s 1912 ‘Self Portrait with Chinese Lanterns’ was painted as a companion piece for the ‘Portrait of Wally Neuzil’ who was his muse and partner from 1911 to 1915. Both these paintings have a gentleness and sensitivity not found in all his work. I like these very much.
Quite different from this self portrait completed the same year. Schiele was born in 1890 and died in 1918. He was only 28 years old when he died, yet he created over 3,000 works on paper and around 300 paintings! I wonder what he would have accomplished if he had lived longer. He died during the Spanish Flu Epidemic, just three days after his six month pregnant wife Edith.
‘Reclining Woman’ was bigger than I expected. Originally the woman’s genitals were exposed but Schiele added the white cloth covering in order to be able to show the work at an exhibition in Vienna in 1918.
There are several landscapes, and most of them are quite large.
‘The Small Town IV’…
and ‘House With Shingled Roof’ were two that I particularly liked. Although Schiele only painted for such a short time, his work laid the foundations for the Viennese Expressionist movement as well as inspiring other future movements, such as Abstract Impressionism.
‘The Blind Man’ was first exhibited in 1898.
‘Death and Life’ won the Gold Medal at the 1911 International Art Exhibition in Rome. This painting and ‘The Kiss’, that I saw at the Belvedere, are two of Klimt’s most well known paintings. I feel very fortunate to have seen both of them in person, as well as all the other amazing works of art I have seen on this trip.
As we are leaving the Leopold I notice this painting, which makes both of us laugh! It is by Albert Birkle and is titled ‘Man with Fur Cap’, or ‘My Brother the Animal’!
Near the metro station Bob notices this crane which has just been erected. Neither of us have seen one with so many arms before.
When I saw this building our first day in Vienna I thought it was the Hundertwasser House but it wasn’t. Turns out that it was designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser! It is the Spittelau Incinerator which is used to handle Vienna’s garbage. The environmentally friendly plant produces enough energy to heat more than 60,000 households in Vienna in a year.
I have one more life drawing session tonight at Kaffeebar Quentin. I have attended many life drawing sessions in bars or pubs and the model is always at least partially clothed, so I was quite surprised when our model is completely nude. We are in the back of the bar, but the model is still in full view of all the other patrons as well as anyone who happens to look in the windows. Wish I had a scanner, as it would improve the quality of these photos, but I don’t think I can haul one around on holidays! These are all 5 minute poses.
Two ten minute and one twenty minute drawing…
and we finished the evening with a twenty-five minute pose. The people at this session were very friendly and I had met some of them at the other two sessions this week. I will miss Vienna, they have so many life drawing opportunities. There is a session almost every day of the week, and lots of them have interesting themes. 
I liked this one of the young man with the bandaged nose.
Our drive to Vienna was long and uneventful. We stayed on the freeway and it still took us about 5 1/2 hours. We had to wait about an hour for our Airbnb host to meet us, but we found a parking space just outside the apartment and our car was warm, so it wasn’t too bad. It took forever to figure out how to pay for street parking but we finally sorted it out. We take our rental car back tomorrow so we just need parking for one night.
These workers are laying paving bricks for a huge plaza. We have not seen poured cement sidewalks or plazas here, they are all made with paving stones. It seems very labour intensive.
The Gemäldegalerie is our first stop today. This museum is near the Berlin Zoo and has one of the world’s leading collections of European paintings from the 13th to the 18th century. The quality of the artwork here is amazing. This is the first painting we see, part of an altar from 1437 telling the story of Jesus on the left, and Mary on the right. The white ‘baseboard’ in the photo comes almost mid-thigh on me, to give you an idea of the scale of the works.
The corner of one painting from 1444 shows two pregnant women, notice the babies depicted on their stomachs. I had never seen this symbolism before.
We both liked the Fountain of Youth by Lucas Cranach, 1546. This is not the style of his work that I am familiar with…
this is! I have always wondered at this artist’s creativity.
Wow!! This painting by Rogier van Der Weyen from 1440 is my absolute favourite of everything we have seen so far this trip. I absolutely love it and wish that the photo was able to convey the impact it has in person. I would have bought a print but it was almost $100 and I worried about getting it home safely. This is a painting I could live with forever.
I am fond of Frans Hals portraits and there was a whole room of them.
This artist must like them too. What a tough way to work though, on a little stool, holding such a large drawing board. I assume the museum does not allow easels.
I am excited to see this Vermeer from across the room, but then..
I notice The Girl with the Pearl Earring. I had no idea the this painting was in this museum. What a lovely surprise.
Anna Dorothea Therbusch, 1721-1782, is one of the few women artists who actually made a living as an artist. This is a self portrait.
There are Caravaggio’s here…
including this Botticellis Venus.
And there are Rembrandts, including these two famous self portraits.
I finally get to see these two tondos in person, the one on the left by Raffael (34″ diameter) and the one on the right by Botticelli (54″ diameter). I particularly like the Botticelli, his Madonnas are always so beautiful.
This was fun! I am so glad we visited the Gemäldegalerie, it was quite amazing.
After a picnic lunch we check out the Kunstgwerbe Museum nearby. I would love to have this beautiful geometry set from the 16th century.
This museum has lots of porcelain, furniture and church treasures, but we walk by all these. It is just too much to absorb.
A few items did catch our eye though. This is an elaborate portable kitchen from 1807, maybe used for camping? All the info is in German, so not sure.
These glazed porcelain figurines were part of a group of 15 that were awarded a gold medal at the 1900 International Exhibition in Paris. 
There was also an exhibit on Afro Hair, with some very different displays.
And finally, an interesting walk through women fashions through the ages.
Whew! and we aren’t finished yet. We catch a bus back across town to visit the oldest church in Berlin but the interior has been updated so much. It wasn’t what we were expecting, but still interesting. For some reason there was a rooster crowing inside the church? No idea what that was about.
We split up, Bob heads to the Bode Museum and I catch the metro to go life drawing. I pass this post with just a few posters wrapped around it on my way to drawing.
trudymason.com 