Yes, I know I write a lot about chocolate

You have to love a city where they hand out Lindt chocolate on the street. If I’m a good girl, this is what I expect to see when I die. A big chocolate bunny waiting for me. Someone the other day said that she doesn’t expect to crave chocolate any more in heaven. I thought that was the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. I just expect not to die of heart disease and obesity.

But back to Europe.

Today was an indoors day. It was that typical northern European day, where it looks like it’s going to tip down with rain any second, so you carry an umbrella around all day until you realise that it’s going to stay dry, cold, and miserable. Except you can’t really be miserable looking at Klimts and dancing horses.

I’m sure that saying “good horsey!” to a Lipizzaner stallion is the equivalent of saying “nice kitty – here, nice kitty” to a tiger, but it was my spontaneous reaction to seeing one of them start dancing. The stallions (for those of you not familiar) were originally bred as warhorses, I believe, and the jumps and levades were to help them in battle. It’s amazing to see the strength, training, and control that goes into these manoeuvres – when one stood on its hind legs and JUMPED multiple times, it was all power, muscle, and “I’m a mighty stallion.” That’s when they look like warhorses. But when one pure white one started earnestly nodding his head, swishing his tail, and lifting his feet to the music, it was just adorable.

They practice and perform in the Spanische Hofreitschule (Spanish Riding School), which is pretty much ten times nicer than anywhere that I will ever live. It’s all chandeliers, carved stone balustrades, and moulded plaster ceilings. They dance to Strauss and Beethoven, and I’m fairly sure that these horses have more elegance and breeding than some members of the Royal Family.

Then, this afternoon, I visited the Hofberg Palace (gold, gold, gold! Silver! Gold!), and the Leopold museum, where they had an exhibit about Herman Hesse (who knew he could paint as well as write?), and which made me very glad that someone in book group recommended Narcissus and Goldmund last year, so that I’d actually read something by him.

Plus there was a fabulous reproduction of a now-destroyed Klimt (I really like the way he paints some of his women) about life and death and healing, that of course everyone HATED at the time and now we all realise is a masterpiece. That probably means I shouldn’t make fun of installations of rubbish bags and elephant dung. I probably won’t stop, however.