We’re in the land of the Hapsburg dynasty, which was in power from 1273-1918, at its most powerful ruling over lands which are now Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, northeastern Italy (including Milan, Mantua, Naples, Sardinia, Sicily, Parma, Venetia), southwestern Germany (including portions of Bavaria), Croatia, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Romania, and the Kraków area of Poland. Between 1438-1740, and 1745-1806, members of the Hapsburg family were also Holy Roman Emperor. (The tiny little 4 year gap represents Charles VII, of the Bavarian Wittelsbach Dynasty.) That dynastic history helps to explain how massive the Hapsburg edifices are, how ornate the decoration, and how numerous the palaces.

There have always been people who have more monetary wealth than the rest of us can possibly imagine. Once it was pharaohs, caesars, emperors, shahs, and kings. Then it was industrialists, railroad tycoons, and natural resource developers (plunderers?) – the self styled “barons” of industry and commerce. Now it’s as likely to be a sports or media mega-celebrity as an entrepreneur or businessperson.

Often that wealth comes with power, and as we know from Spiderman comics “with great power comes great responsibility”. (If you’re really curious, look up that maxim – it may have originated as early as the first century BC when referring to the Sword of Damocles.)

So … how to use all that money (power being a whole other topic too deep for our travel blog)…

Philanthropy is nothing new. Neither is the desire to amass vast quantities of “stuff” to show the world just how much wealth you have.

In the Victorian/Gilded Age in North America, the very wealthy endowed university chairs, hospital wings, concert halls, and libraries (think Carnegie Hall and the wide network of Carnegie-sponsored libraries all over the U.S. and Canada, including the original library in Collingwood Ontario!)

In current times, they’re equally likely to put their name on a stadium or buy a professional sports franchise as start a charitable foundation. Money also makes exotic exploration and scientific discovery possible. Think Elon Musk and his SpaceX program.

Much of what we’re seeing here in Vienna is the confluence of philanthropy, funding expeditions, and just plain showing off. The result is theatres and concert halls built to showcase the works of writers and composers who benefited from crown patronage; vast tracts of “royal” land turned into public parks; and truly gigantic collections of art, jewelry, religious icons, literature, and natural wonders displayed in buildings purpose-built as museums and libraries.

What a long-winded prologue to the fact that today we visited the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (Natural History Museum of Vienna)

The oldest curated “collections” (the individual items, especially those related to geology, are often millenia older) in the Natural History Museum date to 1750, when Emperor Franz I Stephan bought the entire collection of 30,000 natural history objects belonging to Florentine scholar Jean de Baillou. At the time, it was the world’s largest such collection. (The current collection is comprised of over 3 MILLION objects, and is actively being worked on by 60 scientists.)

After the emperor’s death, his widow Empress Maria Theresa donated the entire collection to the state and opened it to the public. It is her statue that presides over the square between the mirror-image Natural History Museum and Art and Antiquities Museum (Kunsthistorisches Museum), and her name given to the square: Maria-Theresian-Platz.

The current museum building was commissioned by Emperor Franz Josef I (6 rulers after the original collector, by which time the collection had grown large enough to need its own “palace”) and completed in 1881.

The 100 m² (1076 sq ft) ceiling painting by Hans Canon above the grand staircase is called “The Cycle of Life”, in keeping with the museum’s theme of an evolving planet.

The first 5 exhibit halls display the building blocks of the earth itself: rocks and minerals arranged in the order in which they would have been created during the earth’s formation, ending with some of the “younger” precious and semiprecious stones, and pieces of meteorites which have hit the earth in its most recent 2000 years. In addition to being arranged in geological age groupings, the rocks are grouped by their chemical composition and, within each of those, arranged by country of origin/discovery. It’s a delight!

There are 39 display halls with a total area of 8,700 m² (93,646 sq ft !!), spread over 2 floors. It was everything that I remember loving about Toronto Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) when I was a child, combined with everything my adult OCD tendencies value: stunning exhibits of exotic items housed in beautiful rooms … arranged in painstakingly logical order.

Halls 6 through 9 contain fossils, arranged from oldest to newest in geological age groupings.

Hall 10 contains magnificent dinosaur skeletons, as well as an audio animatronic reconstruction! This is a museum that has maintained its historic heritage AND moved into the 21st century (there is also a digital planetarium and an interactive “lab” area on the upper floor that includes a research laboratory and an 11 metre long LED display wall).

Halls 11 through 13 contain artifacts from “pre-history”: the Ice Age, Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age .

Halls 14 to 16, the last of the permanent exhibit halls on the mezzanine, are dedicated to anthropology, with exhibits, skeletons, and recreations showing the evolution of humans. It was interesting to be reminded that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens overlapped for tens of thousands of years, and to consider what that might mean.

Thinking about when the museum was built, and the long history of Hapsburgs as Holy Roman Emperors, I found their obvious fascination with evolution and science both surprising and refreshing.

After quickly perusing the curated Brasilian exhibit in Halls 17-19 (items pulled from the permanent collection and grouped together for the 200th anniversary of their initial donation to the museum) we needed a refreshment break, so it was out into the grand staircase and up to the Café located in the impressively ornate Dome Hall.

After our break it was on to the first floor (second floor in North American terms) to visit the remaining 19 halls, which showcase all of the non-human life on earth. Again, the exhibits are arranged in evolutionary order, beginning with microscopic life in Hall 21, through sea creatures, mollusks, arthropods and insects, sharks, fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals, ending with primates.

The Vienna Museum continues to accept rare animals not already in its collection that have died of natural causes (or been confiscated from illegal hunters) and as recently as 2012 museum taxidermists have won international competitions for their work on several bird species. They have modernized many exhibits with up-to-date information about endangered species, and the impact of both human actions and climate change on ecosystems. At the same time, they have also chosen to maintain, and explain, many of the 19th century display methods.

I’m not sure if the ROM still exhibits any of its collection of taxidermied animals, preserved sea life, and pinned butterflies (many of them were not on display the last time I visited) because the way some of those things were originally collected is considered cruel by today’s standards, but as a child they were my favourite part of the museum. Seeing those (dead) animals up close made me curious to learn more about them, and to see the places they came from for myself. The feeling of wonder engendered all those years ago was just as strong today.

After several hours of exhibits, and still no dessert, we left the Natural History Museum and strolled to one of my favourite streets in the inner city: Kärntner Strasse, a pedestrian shopping street filled with wonderful stores and restaurants housed in stunning buildings, where there always seem to be talented musicians busking, and delicious cafés beckoning.

We returned to a café/bakery we enjoyed on our last visit: KuK Hofzuckerbäcker (Kaffee und Kuchen Court Confectioner) L. Heiner (est. 1840), who have tables both outside under umbrellas and (my favourite) on the upper floor overlooking the street. Despite an incredibly tempting array of cakes available, Ted ordered a Mocca Amadeus (strong coffee with orange liqueur and lots of whipped cream), and I settled for “only” an Eiskaffee (coffee with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, topped with whipped cream, shaved chocolate, and a Pirouline-style biscuit. We didn’t want too big an afternoon snack, since we would be meeting our landlord and his friend for dinner in just a few hours.

Our coffee break left us just enough time to walk to Stephansplatz, the square around Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral), and peek briefly into the church before heading for the Underground. I’ll share Ted’s photos after we take the guided tour and ascend both the church towers – on a less hot day when we have sufficient energy for the 343 steps in the South Tower (the North Tower has a lift).

Dinner was at a lovely little courtyard restaurant called Mill, that is a favourite of our landlord Harald. We definitely would not have discovered this little gem and its delicious Wiener Schnitzel on our own (Danke, Harald!). I would also not have enjoyed their terrific cold dilled cucumber soup without his friend’s recommendation. Danke, Heidi!

Another lovely day in Vienna, which reinforced that despite really enjoying looking at other people’s “stuff”, we don’t regret having divested ourselves of all of ours.