We decided to make a visit to the Secession Building near the Noshmarket in Vienna to marvel the Nouveu architecture and to learn more about it. But the charge for culture in Vienna is not cheap. All museums we have found so far charge something around 10-15 Euro. (About $14 – $21 U.S.) We’re on a pretty tight budget and seeing that it was 9 Euro to enter…  We perused the gift shop for fun instead.

Entrance to the Secession Building with lizards, snakes and gilded trees

But most of our time at the Secession building was spent on the back lawn with a bottle of Prosecco. The building has so many unique and elegant details. There are lizards, snakes, turtles, and owls on the building as well as many other gorgeous embellishments. It was almost completely destroyed in WWII.

Owl details on the side of the building

The Secession Building after WWII

In the side lawn of the Secession building is a very interesting sculpture of Marcus Antonius, supporter of Julius Caesar and lover of Cleopatra, in a lion drawn chariot. He sits there, very fat, smug and arrogant. The chains around the lions necks dig into their skin and a female lion nuzzles the side of his chariot. Looking it up later I found photos of the statue with two gilded lion cubs underneath the other lions. They turned out to be an add-on by an unknown artist and were removed soon after, restoring the statue to its original state.

Mark Anthony sculpture with golden lion cub “add-ons”

The stature restored to its original state

We ended the evening with a tipsy bike ride home to the second district, being careful to avoid the cops. Drinking and biking, or rather, BUI’s are a thing in Vienna.