Vienna, Sketches and Sachertorte!

A little trip to Vienna today, a city steeped in history, filled with stunning buildings, amazing museums and heavenly desserts and gateaux! It's not a city for people on a diet, or you are very strong-willed (which with increasing age, I am not!).

The Viennese are famous for their charm, and I must say I've never received so many compliments from both women and men as in Vienna. I sat slurping gorgeous coffee and sketching the amazing Hofburg! What a spectacular entrance gate and with the famous coaches driving by, I felt I was back to the times of "Sisi", whose portrait you can see on the right. I'm no portrait painter and she looks as if she has a badly stitched scar on her cheek, but I did enjoy sketching her from F.X. Winterhalter's famous portrait. Looking at the calm stunner in the painting it is hard to imagine her turbulent life.

Empress Elisabeth 1837- 1898 and known as Sisi, was from the Bavarian royal family and married Emperor Franz Joseph I at the age of 16. Impetuous,shy and spirited, she found life at the Habsburg court restricting (mother in law problems too!) and started a restless life of travelling. She suffered from ill health and took to strict dieting and obssesive sport to keep her weight down, very unusual for the time. The scandalous murder-suicide of her son Rudolf and his mistress at Mayerling were too much for her and she retreated even more from the world, insisting on only wearing black from then on. Assassinated in Geneva in1898, Romy Schneider portrayed her in several famous films about her life which are cult here in Germany.
So, after that brief history lesson I'm off to celebrate the rest of German Mother's day, unfortunately not with a lovely Austrian Torte! So if it's Mother's Day where you are, have a great one!