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25th May 2026: Hyde, Jeckyll, and everything in between {Vienna & day trips, May 2026}

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It was the morning of Hyde’s concert in Vienna, aptly called Hyde Orchestra Tour 2026 JEKYLL in Wien. D****e wanted to go and wait for the singer at the entrance of the Wiener Konzerthaus, so I headed off on my own to wander around. I got my coffee at a bakery, and started exploring the area. Our hotel was very near the Orthodox cathedral Kathedrale Z. Hl. Nikolaus in Wien. The building was erected in the Neorussian style, using blueprints by Grigory Kotov and consecrated in 1899. I think it was open, but I was still halfway through my coffee and I didn’t want to try and enter with my drink in hand – much less have to toss it. Besides, it was close to the Russian consulate and there were a few armed soldiers around, which made me a bit nervous.

Russian cathedral with bulbous towers

I walked farther downtown and came across a little square, home of the Hochstrahlbrunnen. This fountain was built in 1873, to commemorate the opening of the new high-pressure water supply system. It tries to symbolise the Alpine water coming into the city by sprouting water upwards – and due to some fluke, the morning had created a rainbow.

Fountain with a rainbow running across

I was pretty sure that the Vienna Museum would be closed since it was a Monday, but I checked anyway as I was literally around the corner – it was. Thus, after waving at St. Charles’s Church Karlskirche, I went on towards the city park Buggarten, where the Riding School horses are sometimes taken to literally prance on grass. No luck – or maybe it was already too late in the morning as it was pushing 9:00. I continued along until I reached the Austrian Parliament building Parlament Österreich with the impressive monumental fountain Pallas-Athene-Brunnen depicting the Greek Goddess Athena, patroness of wisdom and war, holding a spear on her left hand, and Nike, goddess of Victory, on the right. The parliament is erected in a Historicism style, evoking a Parthenon building. Both the façade and the statue are decorated in gold.

Neoclassical building with the statue of a Greek goddess standing in front

As the previous times I have visited Vienna (… this sounds like I am in Vienna a lot), there was something going on in the square / park in front of the town hall Rathaus, which made photographs difficult. However, on the other side of the street, the Hofburg rose garden was open to visitors, albeit a bit withered in the heatwave – it was barely 9:30 and there were no shadows whatsoever, which for me is… weird. I mean what better place to plant trees than an actual garden?

Rose garden with a neo gothic building in the background and a blackbird jumping on the grass

My first ticket of the day was for the Papyrus Museum Papyrusmuseum, which was supposed to open at 10:00. It is part of the Austrian National Library Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, and located inside the Hofburg itself, but accessed from a completely different area. There was an automatic glass door that opened if you got close, but there was a “do not enter” notice on it. Beyond the door, automatic access turnstiles, and what looked like a ticket counter with a lady behind it. In the hall with me, a few other people wandering around, as if waiting. At 10:15 I decided to risk someone yelling at me in German for ignoring the sign and went past the door, placed my e-ticket on the machine and went in when it bleeped green. Nobody uttered a word, so I followed the directions for papyri. A nice gentleman looked at my ticket at the entrance of the small museum and waved me in, so I started exploring.

The collection comprises originals and copies mainly from Greece, Egypt, and the Arab world, including pieces that date from the 460s BCE. Some are pieces from epic stories and religious texts, but most are way more mundane – trade contracts, such as credit agreements and leases. Highlights include a piece of the tragedy of Orestes written by Euripides himself, which even records the musical notes for the performers’ chorus. One of the most important pieces cannot be seen as it is too delicate to show, it is an ancient map of the world. But the main event is displayed in a small darkened room – a copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead in all its hieroglyphical glory.

The Book of the Dead (actually, “Spells of Coming Forth by Day” [rw nw prt m hrw]) is a collection of funerary texts dating back from the New Kingdom. It comprises the magic spells that would assist a dead person’s journey into the underworld and the afterlife. They were compiled during a period of over a thousand years. A number of these spells would also be carved or painted on the walls of the tombs or the sarcophagus.

Samples of papyrus from ancient history

And what else was visitable on a Monday morning that appealed to yours truly? It is true that the fine arts gallery was open but let’s be honest. It is right opposite the Natural History Museum. We all know where I am going to end up – any natural history museum, in this case the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien. And to my surprise, the staircase was empty for a few seconds and I managed a photograph!

Baroque staircase with a decorated ceiling

Not being in any kind of hurry, I was able to explore the wards I had not visited before, which included biodiversity. While taxidermy is not an art that draws my attention, I’ve really learnt to appreciate the small glass models of marine animals from the 19th century – read: I adore them. I walked around the second level first, which deals with extant fauna. After I was done, I decided to have lunch in the Kuppelhalle Café for lunch, where I tried an amazing drink with apple juice and sparkling water and something advertised as meat loaf which was… some kind of stew but was very nice.

Afterwards, I continued down to level 1, where I strolled around minerals, fossils, mammoths and the origin of man. That included the dinosaur hall and the pièce de résistance of the museum – the Venus of Willendorf, a 30,000-year-old figurine of a carved in limestone. The figurine is about 11 cm tall and depicts a naked faceless woman with large breasts. It is speculated that she is either a fertility charm or the self-portrait of a real woman (who would not have been able to see her own face as mirrors did not exist). It was found in north-east Austria in 1908, in an archaeological dig near the town of Willendorf, hence the name.

I finished my visit in the temporal exhibition “Good collecting, bad collecting”, which reflects on the origin of some of the pieces that museums have – whether there is a specimen or a lot, and the difference between conservation, display and research. A chilling corner told about how during Nazi occupation, some Jewish individuals were coerced to sell their collections, especially fossils, to the museum for pennies. Recently, under the Reparation Act, the museum has been trying to locate the rightful heirs to those exhibits – some of them have been found, others have not replied, and even some have donated the items back to the museum.

Natural History Museum artefacts: taxidermies of sharks and an elephant seal and dioramas of primitive fish and Neanderthal men

Natural History Museum artefacts: some fossil bones, a reconstructed dinosaur skeleton, skeleton of a mountain lion, statuette of a small fat woman

I headed out and stopped at Starbucks for a drink, then by a bakery to buy sandwiches that I could take to D****e at the venue, and for us to have dinner after the concert. I ended up distributing a few of those amongst her friends waiting there – I got paid back in yen, too, hilariously. I stayed about an hour, but turned out that as they waited Hyde had used another entrance, so the group had been unsuccessful seeing him. Once we had confirmation that all the musicians were in, we decided to head back to the hotel for a while to get dressed up. Or down. My nice clothes were too hot for the weather… In the end I managed a combo that would sort of work – and not have me die of heat stroke.

Wiener Konzerthaus is an early 20th century concert hall. It is not one of the grand classical halls, but was conceived for festivals, more accessible to the general public than the Musikverein. It currently has four halls, the largest one being the one where Hyde’s concert was to be held – the Great Hall Großer Saal, which seats 1,840 people. A few more, probably, with the extra hand-placed rows, but it was not sold-out. There had been a bit of a turmoil among the Japanese fans about the dress code, and whether formal attire was required, to the point that the organisation had to issue a mini-statement on “no dress code”.

The doors of the building opened an hour before the Hyde Orchestra Tour 2026 JEKYLL in Wien concert, but once inside, we got stuck in the reception area, waiting until access to the actual seating opened. This is a tactic to have people wait around the bars and spend some money, I know, but I still find it weird. Unlike Great Britain that checks at the entrance doors, tickets would be checked inside. Once the process finally started, I headed to a worker using a wheelchair, because nobody else seemed to want to go to her. Thus, we were amongst the first ones in. Once we went upstairs, the actual Großer Saal was still closed, so we had to wait again.

There was a pamphlet on sale, which was barely a folded brochure with the setlist on. The price was 5 € and in theory only one per person. The system could be tricked by going to a different person to buy the pamphlet each time… But to be honest, it was almost daylight robbery, and I’m not sure who would want to hoard them.

When we finally could access the venue, seating in the first few rows was a chaos. There were two rows of chairs for guests of the Austrian organisers and some of the people who had come from Japan, and then the first row of the actual venue, which was already labelled second. Or something. It was very confusing. After a lot of shuffling and reseating, we were all ready and the concert started at 19:35. My seat was great for views (no photography allowed though, unless you were an Embassy aggregate) on the first public row, which actually I think was the real fourth row. Unfortunately, it was not that great for acoustics – I was right in the middle of the trombone’s sound flow, so at times that was everything I could hear (I am told this was not a problem in the recording or other rows behind).

My general impression of the Hyde Orchestra Tour 2026 JEKYLL in Wien was not entirely positive. The assemble of musicians is credited as “Vienna Super Orchestra” Kulturverein Orchester Wien, conducted by Lorenz C. Aichner. If the role of the conductor is “study and understand the pieces really well”, I did not feel like he did his homework – he kept pushing the instruments to go louder when he should have been tempering them to make sure the main vocalist’s voice carried over. He was also very bouncy during the wrong songs. It gave me the impression that he felt it was his show, which it wasn’t.

While the names of most of the musicians were not disclosed, we knew that Hyde brought multifaceted musician hico (Hiroki Horiko [堀向彦輝]) as “coordinator” and pianist – he actually was the one giving the calibrating note to the first violin. Also from Japan came Hiroshi Kido [城戸紘志] on drums, Masato Ishinari [石成正人] on guitar, Junichi Sunayama [砂山淳一] on bass, Yuho Yoshioka [吉岡悠歩] and Chihiro Takahashi [たかはしちひろ] on backup vocals and Hidefumi Usami [宇佐美秀文] as “manipulator”, which I think it means in charge of the synthesiser.

The setlist was:
  1. Die happily (from the Jekyll album)
  2. SSS (from the Jekyll album)
  3. Maisie (from the Jekyll album)
  4. So dreamy (from the Jekyll album)
  5. Honey. This is actually a L’Arc~en~Ciel song, but one of the few that Hyde holds all rights for. Hence, it’s used and overused. Although it is a ballad and fits the overall tone of the concert, I did not particularly care for the Bossa nova version of it.
  6. Nostalgic (from the Jekyll album)
  7. Glamorous Sky. I’ve never been much of a fan of this, but I really enjoyed it in Paris, so I’ve started to warm up to it.
  8. Tattoo (from the Jekyll album). I’d say this was my favourite song from the new album.
  9. Final Piece (from the Jekyll album). I really liked this.

Local gourmet segment. Apparently, a staple of the Jekyll Tour is eating something famous from the place where Hyde is performing at. In this case it was, of course, Sacher-torte – actually a small Sacher Würfel cube that he gulped down in one go. He also slipped in a trademark “are you fucking ready, Vienna?” Though at one point he did introduce himself in German, most of the communication was in English. He also improvised a little tune to the lyrics of “please listen to one more song before going to the loo in the intermission.”

  10. Defeat
Intermission.
  11. Fading out (from the Jekyll album)
  12. Smiling (from the Jekyll album)
  13. The Abyss (from the Jekyll album)
  14. Evergreen. I remember when this song came out, in the album Roentgen. I did not like it much, and would skip it in the car all the time. I loved the live version. Take that, 2003 me?
  15. Forbidden Colours (Ryuichi Sakamoto / David Sylvian cover). This was a song I’ve heard him sing before, and I enjoyed it.
  16. Zipang. This is one of Hyde’s collaborations with Yoshiki, and Yoshiki might break my heart again and again, but one thing that you have to give him is that he is a great musician, and he writes and arranges to make his vocalists shine. And boy, did Hyde manage to shine with this. It was absolutely spectacular. And then…
  17. Red Swan, another collaboration with Yoshiki. And I remembered Yoshiki in London talking about that song, and how the red symbolises blood and how the bloodied swan is a metaphor for trying to survive. I’ve seen the song performed before, but either sung by another performer, or a recording. But this time it was live, by the man it had been written for. And I lost it, dissolving into a very discreet meltdown that fortunately nobody around me noticed. Just don’t tell, it’s a secret.
  18. 夢幻 “Mugen”, a collaboration with My First Story that was the theme music for a popular anime.
  19. Last Song

Hyde sang the first part dressed in black, donning a wide-brim hat, and the second part in white. He used a microphone stand embedded with red Swarovski crystals. All in all, we got the whole Jekyll album, which had been composed for this, sprinkled with a couple of power ballads and an arrangement or two. What I didn’t get were my two favourite slow songs – Shallow Sleep and The Cape of Storms, which helped me a lot during some hard times in my life. I think that is why even when I disagree with how the musicians act or speak at points, I keep going back to them. There is gratitude in me, for the pick-up times.

Hyde concert in Vienna 2026, with the singer smiling at the audience

We left the venue and headed to the back door – the one that the singer had used to walk in. This is something common amongst Hyde (and Hyde-adjacent) fans, called demachi (出待ち, literally waiting at the exit). Normally, you only see Hyde going away and waving from a car. Of course, you also cheer and say goodbye to every musician that comes out – from a respectful distance, of course. Obviously, nobody had explained this to either the director or the strings, because they went out for a smoke and were utterly surprised. A couple of the ladies from the Austrian Tourism organisation who were around too took it in stride and whenever they came in and out made a small curtsey and waved back. Others took videos and photos. Most jumped out of their skin.

As I said, normally you wait and wave, maybe catch a glimpse of someone. This time around, Hyde stopped to sign stuff, and that is how I now own an autographed copy of Jekyll… That was… unexpected.

Vienna concert house façade and a CD autographed by the artist

We had sandwiches waiting at the hotel, but since there were a bunch of D****e’s friends around, we ended up heading out to a nearby McDonald’s – which was the only thing open at the time. I tried a “hot honey wrap” (it was a time-limited offer and I was curious. And I know I can survive Austrian spicy) which was surprisingly… interesting. And afterwards, we headed back to the hotel and I crashed after a long shower.

29th December 2024: Arrival, Karlskirche & Prater {Vienna, Silvesterkonzert 2024}

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With our plane boarding at 8:10, we aimed to be at the airport around 6:30, which was a successful endeavour. We had our boarding passes but we needed to drop off some luggage. As we needed formal wear, neither of us could just make do with a simple backpack or trolley. We had decided to bring a carry on each, and two large suitcases – one per room – for coats, jackets, dresses and so on. The travel agency had checked us in the day before, and we had separate seats, but that was not important since it is just a short trip early in the morning.

Once in the terminal, it turned out that Iberia did not have a drop-off counter as my parent was expecting, so we had to queue with the people who needed to check in, including non-Schengen and intercontinental travellers. We decided that two of us would line while the other two could sit down and wait for us. We stepped into the cordoned area, and suddenly… one of the attendants directed half of the queue out and into another area of check-in counters. All in all, it took us around 35 minutes to drop the luggage off. Not efficient, Iberia. Not efficient.

Luggage successfully checked in, we went past security, found our gate, and sat down for breakfast. We went to the gate early, and queued to be the first in our group because… I’m not even sure why, but it was too early in the morning to fight. I napped about half of the journey, and also took pictures of the landscape from above. Once we left Spain behind, the mountaintops were covered in snow, and the valleys in fog. This was a clue of how cold it would be when we landed in Vienna. We had a maximum temperature of around +3ºC throughout the trip.

From the plane window Flight Madrid - Vienna

We disembarked and made our way to baggage claim, where our suitcases were among the first few to come up, which is always a great feeling. Afterwards, we went out and found the people responsible for picking us up – the representatives from Blaguss DMC, the local agency which manages Viajes El Corte Inglés and Tourmundial in Austria and Hungary. First, they handed us our our hotel voucher, schedule, and tickets!! Upon opening the envelope to check that everything was correct, we found out schedule with a Vienna tour the following day that my parents swear they had never heard about – the truth is that it appears in the documentation as optional. The driver in charge of taking us to the hotel was… a character. My biggest regret though is that I did not run for a Costa Coffee while we were waiting for the other travellers to come out, but I only saw the sign when he had started moving.

We arrived at the hotel Elaya Hotel Vienna City West around 13:00. It was a four-star hotel that felt like it had dropped at least one and a half, and it was not any of the ones listed in the original documentation. There was neither a bar nor a restaurant, and the staff was not exactly friendly. I know it’s not nice to work during the holidays, but come on. I don’t think requesting two keys for a two-people room was that outrageous. At first, neither card worked to open my door, but after trying three times each card, both sides, I managed to get it open. And more importantly, though the warm option of the air-conditioning did not work, I figured out how to turn on the radiators.

The hotel room was… sad. It had a little terrace overlooking the interior yard, and two windows – the blinds were unmoveable on one and broken on the other. We unpacked, got freshened up, and went back down to find a place to grab a bite to eat. I approached reception to ask for a recommendation, and there was a Spanish lady trying to get the check-in attendant to help her with her card – she seemed to have the same problem I had had. She had no English at all, so I tried to help her out. The attendant just huffed and left to check the room herself, and I guess she managed to get the card working. When she came back, I asked for any restaurants around, and she pointed us up the street. We found a Greek place seemed okay, and that is where we ended up – at restaurant Mythos, which had very friendly staff, and decent food.

Afterwards, I would have gone towards the city centre. However, my parents needed a break and wanted to move as a group. Thus, I stayed in the room – we did not leave the hotel until 16:30, and by that time it was already getting dark. We walked to the underground stop Pilgramgasse. It was supposed to be just ten minutes away, but was a bit longer, I think we took a wrong turn.

The Pilgramgasse station dates back to the original 1899 Valley line, before electricity and all. The entrance was cast in iron, and it looked very cool. There, we bought seventy-two-hour tickets, which are awesome because you only have to validate them once, and then you can use all the transportation options in the city for 72 hours. The price of the pass was 17.10 €, so not that expensive – one trip is 2.20 €, so aside from the convenience, it is value for money if you plan more than seven trips. Though we did take more than that, the best thing is just being able to waltz down to the platforms without having to validate each time. It was also great that the frequency of the underground service was 8 minutes at the longest, and that was on Sunday evening!

We used the underground to find our stop next to Musikverein Wien (Vienna Music Society), where the concert would take place on the 31st. This was to gauge the time to get to the station and the underground system. Once we familiarised ourselves with the transport though, we realised that there was a better route. It included a change, but the station was much closer to the hotel, and the total time was around the same if you accounted for walking times. The Musikverein stands next to Karlsplatz, so once there we just had to cross the street to find ourselves in front of the church Rektoratskirche St. Karl Borromäus or Karlskirche, dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo.

The cathedral was originally designed in 1713 by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. When he died, his son took over directing construction and altered some of the plans. Though the building is Baroque, it displays a mixture of elements – the dome, a Greek temple portico façade, monumental columns based on Rome’s Trajan Columns… The altarpiece was erected by Ferdinand Maximilian Brokoff after the elder Fischer’s design. It portrays the Assumption of Saint Charles Borromeo, the nominal saint, into Heaven. There were Christmas trees on both sides of the altar, which I found strange – I had always thought that the Christian church was not a fan of them.

Karlskirche Vienna

The dome is frescoed with a scene featuring Charles Borromeo, the Virgin Mary, and the Cardinal Virtues, by Johann Michael Rottmayr. Hanging from it, there was a modern art installation by artist Cerith Wyn Evans called Forms through folds (ascending)…. This sculpture is part of the Karlskirche Contemporary Arts Program, started in 2018. That was… weird, and really out of place amongst the Baroque frescoes.

We climbed to the upper levels. The first floor hosts a choir model and the organ, built between 1739 and 1847. Technically you can also access the treasury, but it was locked away. We continued up and stepped into the terrace, which yields to a bit… underwhelming… panoramic view of Karlsplatz and the city. Vienna is a great city, but the Karlskirche is not really looking at the scenery from above.

We should have tried the Vienna Museum next to the church then, but instead took the underground to the classical amusement park Prater, where we had dinner reservations a couple of hours later. Originally a hunting ground, Prater was the area where the 1873 World Exhibition was held. Some of the current buildings were erected at that time. In 1897, the first rides, attractions and puppet theatres were established – including the Ferris wheel Wiener Riesenrad, which is the current symbol of the park. Prater was severely damaged throughout World War II, due to bombings, trenches and fire, but it was eventually reconstructed using records from local artists who had drawn or photographed the area in all its glory. Nowadays, it is considered an actual park, which just happens to have rides on it, and part of it is protected as “green land”. The actual amusement park is called Wurstelprater. There are tons of attractions, rides, snack stalls, and there were even some musical activities going on.

Viena: Prater

But of course, it was Vienna, in a late December evening. It was late and cold. And dinner reservation was hours away. We almost decided to give it up and go back to the hotel, but we found somewhere to have a drink and warm up instead. Finally, we made our way to the Rollercoaster Restaurant, the place where we had – thankfully – reserved in November. It was packed. There were around 50 people waiting to come in, and most of them did not have a booking, and were turned away – there was even a group of people checking every 15 minutes if there was an opening. We took ten minutes to get to the front of the mob to finally get our table, but we were sat around 20:15. I was so happy I had pushed for the reservation! It made me further convinced that anything in the city centre or near a tourist spot might need a reservation, which in turn made me worried about the 31st “winging it” decision.

The Rollercoaster Restaurant works with a system of rails that hang from the ceiling and connect the kitchen to the different tables. The food is prepared by human chefs and distributed by two huge robotic arms. Once placed on the rails, it rolls and slides and gets to the right table – much like suitcases inside an airport distribution system. We were also on time for one of the robot shows, where they turn off all the lights and play music while the robot arms “dance”, and it was surreally fun. One of my parents was horrified, because they are more on the traditional side of things, but the rest of us had a lot of fun! The food was all right, too. I ordered baked schnitzel fingers served with potato salad, Gebackene Schnitzel mit Erdäpfelsalat, and we shared some baked Emmental with cranberry sauce Gebackener Emmentaler mit Preiselbeeren. I kind of wanted some apple strudel, but my portion was good enough, so I decided not to get any.

Vienna Rollercoaster Restaurant

We left around 21:30, and headed back to the hotel using the underground system. This time, we came out at a stop much closer to the hotel, Zieglergasse, which was neither pretty nor classical, but nearby and functional. Afterwards, there was just a shower and bed. I could not sleep right away though, because my mind was latching onto the group trip the following day. My parent had decided that we would just not show up – we had tried to warn the representative, but the driver said it was not his responsibility. I kept thinking that if we were not there, everyone else would wait for us and that was not a nice thing to do. It did not feel right. Maybe I’d meet the lady with the key problem, I thought, and warn her that we would not be tagging along. Hopefully.

Yes, I know. I worry too much.

14th – 16th October 2017: Vienna, Austria

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14th October 2017: Arrival and the Inner ring: Butterflies and Dinosaurs

Between flight and transfer to the city on Saturday morning, I arrived in the city of Vienna at 1pm. As my hotel was between the station and the city centre, I took my chances for an early check in and I was lucky – it was. After dropping my luggage I headed off to walk around Vienna’s Inner Ring, the Ringstrasse, which is a big boulevard that runs around all the old city of Vienna (Unesco World Heritage Site). A bunch of things were on my way and it seemed easy enough to find one’s way around. My hotel was located in a building close to a park, and had three floors, on the 11th, 12th and 13th floors of a building, which gave me some views of the city.

On Saturday the plan was wandering around, but as I am who I am I ended up improvising. My first stop was the outer Vienna State Opera, the Wiener Staatsoper, where a young man dressed as Mozart tried to sell me tickets for a show.

Vienna opera house, a baroque building in light colours with huge windows and an arched entrance

I continued on my walk and I saw the Albertina, a modern art museum, but I was actually heading to the Imperial Palace greenhouse, which is the home of a café and the Schmetterlinghaus, or Imperial Butterfly House. This is an area of the greenhouse where a bunch of butterflies are free to fly around and feed on a bunch of flowers, plants and pieces of apple. I was lucky enough to catch a few good shoots and I was very happy to have decided to go in (albeit I have to say that I was really keen on going there since I had seen that it existed). I really had a blast and enjoyed this, so it was a must that I don’t regret having missed, especially since the 6.50€ for the ticket. I spent around forty minutes in there chasing butterflies.

Vienna Butterfly house: a former greenhouse, and a few close-ups of different butterflies on bushes.

Then I saw the Austrian National Library, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.

Severe-looking stone building with columns and windows.

After that I back I walked through the Hofburg Palace, Hofburg Wien, and the Michaelerplatz or Saint Michael Square.

Collage of the former Imperial palace. It is a stone building with columns and windows, and arches

After that I crossed the palace in the opposite direction and ended up at the Heldenplatz, which gave way to Naturhistorisches Museum, the Natural History Museum to see dinosaurs, because there were dinosaurs, which is the home of the Venus von Willendorf, a tiny statue of stone dated back 29,500 years. The museum also holds a collection of minerals, meteorites, preserved animals, dinosaurs, an animatronics dinosaur and a multitude of artefacts from Prehistory to the Middle Ages. I also saw the same dunkleosteus that they have in the Tokyo Kokuritsu Kagaku Hakubutsukan. Have I mentioned dinosaur animatronics?

Collage of the Natural Museum: the building, with a dome, a whale skeleton, an Albertosaurus skeleton, the head of a Dunkleosteous fish, a huge salt stone and the Venus von Willendorf, a small naked woman statuette in golden stone

Following the museum I continued down the Ring Boulevard and it did not take me long to stumble up the Pallas Athene Brunnen (Monument to Palas Athena) and the Austrian Parliament Building, Parlamentsgebäude. The latter was under reconstruction.

Vienna parliament house, under renovation. There is a Palas Athena in white marble with a gold helmet standing in front of it.

I continued my walk until I found the Vienna Town hall, called the Rathaus, where there was a kind of Videogame trade fair or something going on.

Vienna town hall - neogothic building with a lot of towers and spikes.

Then I went on walking towards the university and the church of Votivkirche, a neo-gothic building next to the university.

Gothic church under renovation

Afterwards I went down to the hotel because this is not summer vacations after all, just a weekend escapade and I seriously did not have that much energy. On my way I walked past the stables of the Spanische Hofreitschule (Spanish Riding School) stables and I saw some pretty horses.

Two white horses from the Vienna riding school

And even from the hotel (literally from bed), as my room had views, I could take some pictures of the sunset and the lit buildings. And then I went to sleep at a horribly early hour because I was beat and for some reason I managed over 8 hours of sleep.

Sunset over the skyline of vienna. The buildings are dark and the sky is orange

15th October 2017: Palaces, churches and the Cinema

Because my hotel was **** for a change (I have to say that when I think about the whole weekend the word “decadent” is what comes to mind), I had a kettle and instant coffee ready for me – this was my breakfast. After that I did the online for my flight the following day and of course running into technical difficulties, and I left the hotel at around 9:30, which was a bit later than I had intended.

I was coming up to the Belvedere Palace, and on my way there I took a diversion to see the Karlskirche or Karlskirche (St. Charles’ Church), which I could see from my hotel and illuminated at night. This is a baroque church that sometimes holds classical music concerts.

The church of St. Charles; a Baroque church. It has a dome, and two twisted columns in front.

After taking a wrong turn once or twice this I headed out to my original target, the Schloss Belvedere (Upper Belvedere Palace). This is a Baroque Palace (seriously, Vienna is full of Baroque) that has been turned into a painting gallery. The most famous author in this gallery is Klint, but if I have to be honest, I’m not too appreciative of him – must be my likings for the realists. In the end, I liked the palace itself better than the painting collection, specially the reception room and the staircase.

The Upper Belvedere Palace, a Neoclassical building in white stone.

As I had bought a three-combo ticket including Upper and Lower Belvedere and the Winter Palace, I walked down the Belvedere Gardens to the Unteres Belvedere (Lower Belvedere), which holds the “Medieval Treasure” and temporal exhibitions. The best thing was the gold and mirror room and the marble gallery.

A huge garden with a palace in the background. The garden is artificial in a way, with perfectly-trimmed grass, fountains, and bushes.

The Baroque entrance to the lower Belvedere palace, a stone gate with sculptures on top. It looks like it wants to stare you down. The palace peers through the three open doors in the background

Then I headed off to the centre of the city to see the Winterpalais des Prinzen Eugen (Winter Palace of Prince Eugene), which was not the best thing ever but hey it came within the three-museum combo.

A Neoclassical palace with flags hanging over the door

Then I headed off to Domkirche St. Stephan (St. Stephen’s Cathedral), which is the gothic Catholic cathedral. It is not Baroque but Gothic. The entrance was free, but it also had a paid area, including the catacombs. Unfortunately I was too late for the current tour and too early for the following one, so I decided not to stick around, else I would have got the combo for the catacombs, the tower and the treasure.

A gothic cathedral. Collage showing the outside, with the tower and the ornate windows, and the inside showing the pointed arches inthe nave, and the organ.

As it was, I saw the cathedral and then headed off down different streets and saw the outer area of Katholische Kirche St. Peter (Catholic Church of St. Peter).

Façade of a Neoclassical church

And then headed out to the Michaelerplatz to check the inside of the Michaelskirche (Catholic Church of St. Michael).

Neoclassical church, showing the white and pointy bell tower. The image is tilted so the tower fits in the frame

I checked the Spanische Hofreitschule (Spanish Riding School) for tour tickets, but I was late for that and it was all sold out, so I decided to go to the station and buy some food in the supermarket for both lunch and dinner. On the way I crossed the Stadtpark to see the floral clock and the Johann Strauss monument – Johann Strauß Denkmal.

Finally, I headed off to get some rest at the hotel, and have a shower. At 18:15 I walked down to the cinema at the corner of my hotel building, the Gartenbaukino, because in the end that was the reason I was there – to attend the Austrian premiere of the X JAPAN documentary We are X as Yoshiki was going to be around for a Q&A session afterwards.

There had been a small mix-up with the ticket numbering (all of them had been printed out with the same seating number!), which was solved efficiently. We watched the documentary We are X and then there was a Q&A with Yoshiki himself. There were emotional moments as the fans thanked him for everything he had done and for his music.

Entryway to the cinema. It reads We are X Live + Q&A mit Yoshiki 20.00

Yoshiki sitting in front of a burgundy curtain. He is wearing his sunglasses and a black suit, boots and a golden blouse

After the Q&A some of us stayed talking at the cinema gate and the manager, who had solved the ticket problem, came out to close – and he told us where Yoshiki would be leaving from. And that’s… the story of how I got to talk to Yoshiki, I got his autograph and took a picture with him and I will never, ever, ever forget the rush of that.

I have to say I did not sleep much that night. All the excitement caught up with me and I kept replaying the scene in my head over and over again. in the end I think it was around 2:30 that I could turn the lights off.

16th October 2017: Airport Monday morning

After checking out of the hotel I walked back to the train station and took the CAT towards the airport. I had taken an earlier train than I had already planned and boy was I glad to do so when following arrows at the airport took me as much as 20 minutes. Something I learnt in this trip is how friendly Austrian people are, and that they have a great sense of humour, as apparently one of their star souvenirs is “no kangaroos in Austria”. The return flight was not as good as the first, but it was on time and I could arrive to work smoothly for a crazy week.