After a few days in Baden with a friend, I got back to Vienna Friday evening. A good bit of Saturday was taken up with the usual household tasks, but yesterday evening I went to hear a bluegrass group I’ve known (about) for a long time at a wine bar in Grinzing. Yes, you read that correctly — bluegrass in Grinzing. A friend of mine from West Virginia and I go whenever we can and always leave feeling restored. The band itself has four regular members: one Austrian, one Slovak, one Czech, and, now, one Dutch. Constructive globalization in action. 🙂
As for today, this is the last day the ice-skating rink in front of the Rathaus is open. (Actually it offers two levels — so probably one of the few places you can skate uphill and then down again — and paths through the park so “rinks,” plural, seems more appropriate.) Given that not only the forsythia is out but also the flowering trees, it is probably a good thing that today is that last day.
I hadn’t been yet this season so I went down at 10 a.m. just as they were opening and stayed for about an hour. After that, it got so full(!) it wasn’t as much fun anymore. The photos I took show the general flowering of everything as well as the statues that have been accommodated. Now I feel I need to go down once the rinks have been removed and see who those gentlemen are.
Now I slowly have to get back into a work state of mind. Luckily, I have most of the afternoon to do that. And I’ve had a lovely time so — as the old tenant says in the Gwyneth Paltrow “Emma” — mustn’t grumble.
ecbinvienna 
Glorious photos! Thank you! I miss Vienna so much! As for bluegrass in Grinzing: why not? The greatest conjunto accordionist now is not Flaco Jimenez, but a young man from Holland!
And now I know who the gentlemen are — Theodor Körner, mayor of Vienna right after the Second World War, and the famous architect Fischer von Erlach. (I leave my readers to decide who is who. 😉)