Wake at 8 and caffinate in a bit of a rhyming rush ‘cause we have 9:45 tickets to see the Belvedere this morning: the large “guest house and entertaining space” above the smaller 25,000 square foot living quarters of Johann Audebachs Prince Eugene Von Savoyen, who defeated numerically superior Turks at the Battle of Zenta (another 9-11, but 1697).

The Belvedere is at the city’s southern outer reach of the D Tram on a gently sloping hill that overlooks the city, so we feel nicely “out of town” though we’re still in it. And we’re early enough that we are not yet engulfed by swarms of Klimt-obsessed Asians as we enter “the marble room” whose walls are painted a la trompe l’oeil to look like three-d marble niches and the ceiling frescoe depicts Eugene being crowned by swirling angels. (Famous room: Where the four allied and associated powers signed a treaty in 1955 making Austria an independent and democratic, fully sovereign nation once again and forever.)

We gawk and amble into the west wing to see its collection of 20th century art: from early Klimt portraits that look like John Sargent’s Madame X to his later mastery of the “gold technique” in The Kiss, which is almost permanently obscured by a changing scrum of Asians, cell phones waving, capturing each other in various poses imitating the painting.

We segue to the east wing, which houses more traditional, vastly less imitated art — including a portrait of Eugene himself as a field commander in full dress with awed Ottomans behind and below him. Enough! We break for an outdoor cafe where we sit next to an Austrian couple who take our particulars for a future home exchange to their house near Lake Wolfgang in the Salzkammergut resort region.

We walk around the beautiful artificial pond that, when Maria Theresa moved into the Belvedere, she allowed the general public to skate in the winter and kayak in the summer. It’s actually a water reservoir for the expansive and severely planned gardens between the upper palace and the lower living quarters.

We try to find a sculpture garden that turns out to be closed for renovations, so we hop on the D back to town and enter Karls kirche (Charles Church) where an organist and singers are practicing beautiful tunes from their upper perch and exquisitely suited men are placing wedding programs along the pews.

After a little wandering to see the Ankeruhr clock, we tram home for Hendricks and tepanade for a few hours before we join Monica and her husband Daniel at a Lichtenstein wine bar for a cold cuts platter dinner we cannot finish so we box it and bring it home (more on this tomorrow).

Tipple a tiny bit of Lemoncello when we get home, and trundle into our beds.