VIENNA

Fly to Vienna from Heathrow, transferring by coach to the MAK, Museum of Applied Arts. After some refreshments in the restaurant, we begin our treasure hunt through the galleries of this fabulous institution. Our focus will be artefacts of the Vienna Biedermeier, the brief but distinctive period during the early 19th century in which arts and culture where led by comfortable notions of the domestic idyll, and the Vienna Workshop, which, inspired by the likes of William Morris, sought to renew handcraftsmanship and the applied arts at the turn of the 20th century. Afterwards, we continue to our hotel for check-in, where there will be some time to relax before a group dinner together.

Leave the hotel on foot to visit the Belvedere, Prince Eugene’s grand ensemble of two stately summer palaces linked by terraced gardens, now the home to Austrian art from the 17th to the 20th centuries, including Jugendstil works by Gustav Klimt.  The morning will be divided into sessions comprising a general overview and highlights of the palace and Austrian Expression.  After an independent lunch at the Belvedere Café, we briefly stop at Karlskirche, widely considered the most outstanding baroque church in Vienna, as well as one of the city's greatest buildings.  Continue on to the Secession building by Joseph Maria Olbrich, an icon of the Vienna Secessionists, a group of rebel artists who broke away from the long-established fine arts tradition. One such institution was the neighbouring Academy of Fine Arts whose small but outstanding collection of Old Masters is an unretrieved treasure trove.  This may be visited as an optional extra afterwards, or the rest of the afternoon is free for independent visits.

Today is dedicated to an in-depth exploration of the palatial galleries of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, a superb line-up of masterpieces from Dürer to Velázquez, commissioned and collected by the Habsburg princely connoisseurs over centuries. Our time here will be split into three sessions and we will consider the art of Northern Europe first; highlights include a fabulous collection of works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder such as ‘Hunters in the Snow’ and ‘The Tower of Babel’ and works by Vermeer and Rembrandt, among others. Our session on the art of Southern Europe will reveal masterpieces by the likes of Bellini, Titian and Raphael, as well as some of the extraordinary composite portraits of Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Finally, an exploration of the Kunstkammer—literally ‘chamber of art and wonders’—is a delightful conclusion to our visit. Amassed by successive Habsburg emperors, the more than 2,100 objects, from 16th-century automatons to the famed Saliera, make this the most important collection of its kind in the world. Afterwards, there is time for a festive gluhwein at a Christmas market. 

Our final visit will take us to the lavishly decorated Palais Liechtenstein. Apart from a stunning trompe-l’oeil ceiling by Andrea Pozzo the palace presents a spectacular private art collection, including the pietradura Badminton Cabinet, the world’s most expensive piece of furniture, acquired by Prince Liechtenstein in 2004 for a mere 19 million pounds. After a final group lunch, coach transfer to the airport for our return flight to Heathrow.