Vienna in general

.../> To understand and appreciate Vienna today it is necessary to understand its history. Austria sits on the eastern European plain, south and east of Germany. It was settled originally by Celtic tribes who were looking for salt (Salzburg means Mountain of Salt) and the Romans had a settlement on the river. Mindful of the threat from the Turks from the East, the German princes gifted this area to the Brabenberg family to run as its fiefdom – which ...
...legitimacy of his own dynasty. Vienna was the Hapsburg’s family seat. It developed as the family developed. The centre of Vienna was the family Castle (the Hofburg) which slowly grew with the needs of the diplomacy and their entourage. They were divine monarchs (inheritors of the Holy Roman Empire), warlords (rising progressively from Dukedom to Archdukedom to Emperor) defending against the Infidel and Turks, arch diplomats (forging alliances) and ... more

I have been captivated, my heart has been captured. Circumstances dictated a change of vacation this summer. So, instead of going to Florida (as usual) we chose a week’s break in Vienna, capital of Austria. This city is a beautiful, fascinating, historic, cultural masterpiece of a place. I can expect a return visit before too long.

It is a marvellous venue for an adult leisure and sightseeing holiday. It is clean, the public transport runs efficiently, it can be expensive and it caters for most tastes. I’m not sure that I would want to take younger children with me. Perhaps the most surprising and unexpected aspect of our trip was the weather. We were there in July when the temperature was on average a sweltering 33ºC. We were told that in winter the River Danube can freeze over hard enough to skate on.

… And Too Many Monarchs

To understand and appreciate Vienna today it is necessary to understand its history. Austria sits on the eastern European plain, south and east of Germany. It was settled originally by Celtic tribes who were looking for salt (Salzburg means Mountain of Salt) and the Romans had a settlement on the river. Mindful of the threat from the Turks from the East, the German princes gifted this area to the Brabenberg family to run as its fiefdom – which they did for 300 years. During this time Richard the Lionheart was captured on his way home to England from the Crusade and held to ransom.

When the last Brabenburg died, the land was taken over by Rudolph I of the family Hapsburg. Their family fortunes prospered (and at times waned) and they ruled Austria and, for the most part, Hungary for the next 700 years. For a time they inherited Spain through marriage and even produced an Emperor (Maximillian) of Mexico. A daughter (Marie Antoinette) was married to the King of France and executed in the revolution. Napolean Bonaparte married a daughter of the Hapsburg Emperor in an attempt to cement the legitimacy of his own dynasty. Vienna was the Hapsburg’s family seat. It developed as the family developed. The centre of Vienna was the family Castle (the Hofburg) which slowly grew with the needs of the diplomacy and their entourage. They were divine monarchs (inheritors of the Holy Roman Empire), warlords (rising progressively from Dukedom to Archdukedom to Emperor) defending against the Infidel and Turks, arch diplomats (forging alliances) and patrons of the arts (collecting painting, encouraging composers, building magnificent palaces, encouraging architecture and town planning).

And then it was all over. At the end of the First World War (Austria was on the losing side) Emperor Karl I abdicated and went into exile (his wife, dowager Empress Zita finally died in 1989). Austria became a Republic, a state which prevails to this day although it was interrupted by annexation by Nazi Germany at the start of the Second World War and ten years of occupation by allied forces immediately thereafter.

… And Too Many Trams

Vienna is a very compact city with a population of 1.5 million (Austria’s population is about 8 million). The city is divided into twenty three districts and all addresses begin with the district number. Orientation is very easy as the old city walls were pulled down in the 1800s and were replaced with a wide circular boulevard – the Ring. Each section of the Ring is named after an adjacent building or park (Opernring, Stadtring etc). The historic old centre (District 1) built around the cathedral is enclosed inside and straddles the Ring. Much of the central area is a pedestrianised web of narrow streets and alleyways. There is excellent shopping along the Kärtnerstrasse and in the Naschmarkt (New Market) along Friedrichstrasse. Major credit cards are accepted but we were a little surprised to find that many vendors preferred cash and would give a good discount for it. Most of the major sights are within easy walking distance.

As this was our first visit to the city, we took a taxi – booked from within the concourse - from the airport directly to our hotel (a trip of about twenty minutes and cost €32) although there is a bus service and a half hourly train link into Vienna Central Station (about €5). Our hotel was situated on the Ring directly opposite the State Opera House.

The city has a very well integrated transport network consisting of buses, trams, an underground (U-bahn) and a commuter train system (S-bahn). Tram lines run everywhere and trams take precedence over other road traffic. Tickets cover all modes of transport and are interchangeable. Local maps are not easy to read and some vehicles do not have route itineraries on the inside. So planning a journey before setting off is worthwhile. Tourist maps tend only to indicate the U-bahn routes.

Also worth exploring is the “Vienna Card” – available at the Tourist offices and most hotel desks. This consists of a three-day transport pass and a book of vouchers giving admission discounts into many of the museums and galleries. The current price is €16.80.

On our first full day there we went for a bus tour (€30) which drove around the Ring, showed us the major sights and included a short visit to Schönbrunn, the Hapsburg’s Summer Palace. On our last full day we took a full day trip to the Wachau valley which featured a steamer trip along the Danube (it’s a dirty green colour rather than blue!!) and a visit to the Benedictine Abbey at Melk (€90).

… And Too Many Composers

Vienna is the city of music. It is nigh impossible to list the number of composers, soloists, orchestras and conductors that have lived, worked, performed and died within its boundaries. However two names dominate overall: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Strauss (the son).

Mozart (1756 – 1791) was born in Salzburg but spent most of his short life in Vienna. Favourite of Joseph II, he lived in the Figarohaus (Domgasse) and was married in the Cathedral. He was buried in a pauper’s grave in St Marx cemetery. There is a free walking tour which takes in the main points of interest in his life. His memorial is in the Burggarten of the Hofburg.

Johann Strauss (1825 – 1899) – the Waltz king – was a son of Vienna. He was very popular in the city (almost pop idol status) and wrote 400 waltzes and other works including the opera “Die Fledermaus”. His statue (a gilt image of him playing a violin) is to be found in the Stadt Park.

Statues and monuments to the composers and other literary figures abound in the parks and on street corners. More recently a Musical Walk of Fame has been laid along Kärtnergasse and the subway between Opernring and Karlsplatz. This consists of a series of large paving slabs announcing the name with dates and places of birth and death (rather similar to the paving in Hollywood Boulevard).

Vienna is also extremely generously provided with concert halls and theatres. The Vienna State Opera House is in a central position. Dating from 1869 the auditorium was rebuilt following bomb damage in World War II. It seats nearly 2000 and also boasts very cheap (€2.50) standing areas at the back and in the upper galleries. There were no performances during our visit but we did take a guided tour (€3.50) which included a look behind the scenes at the largest stage in Europe. The Opera House is now devoted to Grand Opera. Operettas and lighter works are performed at the Theater an der Wein and the Weiner Volksoper. Close to each other along the Ring are the three concert halls, the Musikverein, the Konzerthaus and the Kursalon Hübler.

Tourists around the Hofburg and the Opera House cannot hope to avoid the attentions of traders dressed in wigs and period costumes selling tickets for daily concerts of Strauss and Mozart music. These concerts are very popular and prices start around €20.

We bought VIP tickets (€200) to a Mozart concert performed in period costume by the Vienna Mozart Orchestra. The package consisted of dinner at the Terrace Restaurant at the Schwarzenberg Palace, the services of a Mozart “page”, a ride in a fiaker, premier seats for the performance, a complementary programme, a glass of champagne, a meeting with the performers during the interval and a souvenir CD by the orchestra. Expensive maybe, but that was an evening to remember!

And for the heavily addicted culture vultures, there is an "Opera Loo" in the subway (admission 50 cents) below the opera house. You choose your music on the way in!

… And Too Many Monuments

Wherever you look there are museums, galleries, historic buildings and churches. Within these buildings are an incredible treasury of the spoils of Europe.

The Hofberg is now partly open to the public. The remainder includes presidential and state offices and apartments. In the main building the Imperial Apartments and the Imperial Silver Collection are open on a daily basis. When the Empire collapsed, the furnishings, fixtures and fittings of all the palaces, houses and other Imperial sites were taken over by the state. The materials accumulated over the centuries have been assembled, catalogued and are now displayed in case after case, room after room, corridor after corridor. There are hundreds of dinner services, full canteens of cutlery, glassware, ornamentation. Just imagine what it would be like if our Monarchy suddenly disappeared and all the goods of state were amalgamated and made available for public display! The State Apartments occupy one corridor of the upper floor and have been refurbished to show the way that the Emperor Franz Joseph and the Empress Elisabeth used to live.

In the same complex is the National Treasury (the Schatzkammer) which includes crowns dating back to the tenth century, religious reliquary from the Holy Roman Empire and a huge collection of objects from the court and from religious establishments around the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The block also houses the Spanish Riding School, the Austrian National Library, the Greenhouses and Butterfly House and the Burggarten.

On the other side of the Burgring is the Museum Quarter. This is another huge square (Maria-Theresan Platz) bounded on three sides by the Kunsthistorisches Museum (History of Art), the Natural History Museum and the Messepalast (Exhibition Palace). We went into the former. It is a large art gallery with further collections of Greek and Egyptian artifacts and a coin museum. The special exhibition this summer was of Parmigianino (and early Italian paintings). I was more interested to see the collections of Pieter Bruegel and Reubens. We went to Brussels and Antwerp earlier this year and were somewhat disappointed by the specimens of these artists in their native land. Having seen this massive collection filling several rooms, I’m not surprised - the Hapsburgs took them all. Bruegel’s Four Seasons and Peasant Wedding are most impressive.

I mentioned the baroque Schönbrunn Palace earlier in this review. This was built in several stages and brought to its magnificence by Empress Marie-Theresa. The Hall of Mirrors was where the six year old Mozart performed in public. The formal grounds are huge and incorporate a maze, a zoo, an orangery and a palm house. When it was first built it was outside the city walls in the countryside. Now it is in the suburbs. Emperor Franz Joseph had a private station built (now closed) on the underground line for his own personal travel to and from Vienna.

Our visit to Schönbrunn (beautiful spring) was something of a disappointment. It was part of a half day city tour and we were only allowed half an hour to go into the gardens and the same time on a quickie tour of the house. We missed so much but within a short one week stay it was unlikely that we would return. The palace deserves better than that.

Austria is a Roman Catholic country and has an amazing variety of monasteries, churches and chapels in gothic, baroque and renaissance architecture. Vienna alone has 360. We visited a number during our stay.

Stephensdom, the gothic Cathedral, is in the centre of the old town and its spire at 450 feet dominates the surrounding buildings. It is also unusual for the patterns of glazed tiles which incorporate the double headed eagle of Austria on its roof. The vaulted nave leads from the organ (at the rear) towards the High Altar. In a side chapel is a fifteenth century altarpiece depicting scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary and Christ. The entrails of many of the Hapsburg rulers lie in a vault under the High Altar.

Karlskirche was built by Karl VI after the passage of an epidemic in Vienna in 1713. It stands in Kalsplatz and is a baroque structure with a large copper dome and two tall minarets - the top of which can be reached by a spiral staircase but only the bottom part is open to the public. The high altar is embellished with richly carved and decorated marble and shows the interface between heaven and earth. At the top is a representation of the trinity and the holy spirit and at its centre is the patron saint of the church, St Charles Borromeo. The inside was cool and quiet and as a small personal tribute we lit a candle in memory of my mother. The square outside contains sculptures by Henry Moore.

Just to the side is Schwartzenburg Platz, the home of the Schwartzenburg Palace. Part of this is now a very exclusive hotel. In the centre of the square is a statue to the Prince who commanded the Austrian armies at the battle of Leipzig. Nearby is the huge Hochstrahlbrunnen fountain and behind this, screened by dense trees, is a Russian monument to the Red Army commemorating the liberation of Vienna. We were told that by treaty this had to be left in place despite its lack of popularity with the older population.

And if all this High Art is too much for you, there is a gallery of modern art (Klimpt) in the golden domed Secession Building. Further down the same road are buildings designed by Otto Wagner including the Majolica House (the outside walls covered with porcelain tiles). Further afield is a more modern and recent apartment block, completed in 1985, the Hundertwasser Haus. It is irregularly shaped with odd set windows, varied roof line with roof gardens, spires and domes and is brightly painted in an assortment of colours.

There are also a number of smaller and more personal museums. Tucked away in the upstairs floors of a shop in Kärtnerstrasse is a museum of glass by the Viennese firm Lobmyer. Their hallmark crystal is called muslin glass – so fine but strong that stems can be bent rather than snap. They also built most of the fine chandeliers that adorn the palaces and theatres around the country.

During the summer months, the Vienna Transport Museum runs a one hour tour on one of its reconditioned nineteenth century trams on a Saturday or Sunday. Starting from the Karlsplatz it takes a circular route around the city dodging through the normal traffic. The tour is poorly advertised but is very popular and prior booking is recommended. It costs €15 per person.

… And Too Many Parks

Vienna is a very green city. To the north and west are the Vienna Woods. Many areas of the city and surrounding countryside were developed into formal gardens. Other wooded areas were left for hunting. Now about 50% of the city is garden or parkland.

The largest open space is the Prater which was developed from the Imperial Hunting Grounds. This has been slowly developed over the last century into a recreational park which now contains a fairground, exhibition halls, race track, tree lined walks and jogging tracks. The whole place is dominated by Europe’s oldest wooden Ferris Wheel which is still open for rides.

Our favourite site was the Stadt Park – on the Stadt Ring.

… And Too Many Horses

You cannot visit Vienna without seeing the horses. Of course the most famous are the dancing white Lippizaner stallions that are to be found in the Spanish Riding School. Images appear in every conceivable form of souvenir.

Sight seeing, particularly around the inner streets of the old town, can also be done from a Fiaker. This is a four wheeled carriage pulled by two horses. The coachman usually wears a bowler hat. In hot weather the horses were seen to enjoy a hosing down with cold water and wore brightly coloured head and ear protectors.

Just recently another variety horse has been appearing in the streets and squares. This is a model horse (life size or slightly bigger), decorated in a variety of styles and colours and sponsored by trades or businesses. Berlin has a similar tradition using bears.

… And Too Many Calories

It is impossible to go to Vienna and not eat well, very well indeed!! The Viennese are said to have invented the café culture after one of the long sieges laid to the city by the Turks. They discovered sacks of green coffee beans amongst the detritus after the armies had retreated which an enterprising individual recognised, roasted and started a trend which has now become a national institution. There are hundreds of these places dotted around the city usually with both indoor and outdoor seating. The types and styles of coffee can be bewildering but your cup is always served with a glass of water. The waiters are usually formally dressed even in the somewhat down market establishments. We sampled the fare in four cafes that have social or historic overtones.

The Café Imperial is in a corner of the Imperial Hotel (Kärtner Ring). It was from a balcony of this hotel that Adolf Hitler declared the Anschluss (merging of Austrian into Germany) in 1938. I wonder what he would have made of the McDonalds restaurant occupying the ground floor of an equally impressive building directly opposite. Just behind the Opera House is the Café Sacher (also part of the Hotel Sacher) where Franz Sacher – pastry chef to Prince Metternich – invented the most famous chocolate cake - Sachertorte. Similar cakes are sold in other cafes and there has been a long running court case regarding their descriptions. Only this café has the right to call its cake “original”, others have to settle for the term “authentic”. On the opposite side of the same block is the Café Mozart. This place was immortalised in the Orson Welles’ film, “The Third Man” – which also featured the Ferris Wheel.

We also searched out one of the oldest cafes in the Bognorgasse (a side street close by the cathedral), Zum Schwartzen Kameel (“To The Black Camel” – their website confirms this translation but as it is in German I have now idea why it is so called). Founded in 1618, this was one of Beethoven’s favourite haunts where he drank and bought his supplies when he lived in the city. To this day the café also has a superlative range of Austrian wines – including the highly prized and rare red Eiswein.

Sachertorte apart, the Viennese love their cakes and pastries. On just one menu alone we found a choice of twenty three different desserts. The names themselves are curiosities and are sufficient to get the juices flowing: Esterházytorte (a gateau covered in icing), Linzertorte (almond pastry filled with jam), Mohr im Hemd (chocolate steamed pudding with chocolate sauce and cream), Mozarttorte (pistachio paste).

I always try the local dishes whenever I travel. I thought that goulash was a Hungarian recipe but found it claimed to be the Austrian National dish. One restaurant in the old city (the Goulash Museum) boasted thirteen difference variations. It is even made as a soup (gulaschsuppe). The title of the dish also gives an indication of how it will be presented. Kalbsgulasch is made with veal, often with bread dumplings; Erdäpfelgulasch contains potato and Fiakergulasch is served with a frankfurter, fried egg and pickle (beloved of the drivers not because it contains their steeds!!!). Other delights were Leberknödelsuppe (consommé with liver dumplings), Wiener Schnitzel (thin pork fillet coated in bread crumbs and deep fried) and Tafelspitz (boiled beef served with fried grated potatoes and apple – horseradish sauce).

The Viennese also enjoy a wide range of sea food despite being landlocked. (Did you know that they had an Imperial Navy once upon a time which used Trieste in Italy as its home port?). We enjoyed excellent shrimp, lobster and seafood mixed grill at the Restaurant Kervansary (Mahlerstrasse). With wine and desserts the bill was €140 for two.

The range of prices when eating out is vast. Lunch in the cafes (even those of the top rate hotels) tends to be quite cheap at about €15-20 for two courses. We did push the boat out on our last night eating at the internationally renowned Korso Restaurant (Kärtner Strasse) where the a la carte dinner with wines and afters came to about €200.

As expected, Austria brews a number of beers. The common ones – all pale lagers these - are Schremser, Otterkring, Gösser, Kaiser and Zipfer. The last is the only one that I have found freely available in the UK and is immediately forgettable. I did ask on several occasions for a Schwarz Bier and was only served it once. Produced by Hofbräu Kaltenhausen, it is a dark cloudy, almost muddy, wheat beer with a very strong hint of bananas which tasted far better than it looked

Austrian wines have also made a strong come back since the anti-freeze scandals of the 1980s. Vienna is the only capital city that still boasts a significant number of vineyards within its borders. Both red and white wines are produced, many from unique grape varieties. New wines are produced every year and are launched around September. The producers have their own certified drinking establishments called Heuriger. We took a half day (daylight) trip to the village of Grinzing (a sleepy little backwater through the day which comes alive at night) has a number of these places. We took the U-Bahn to Schottentor and the caught the 38 tram. We came back on the 38A bus to Heiligenstadt.

… And Too Many Closures

We did take advantage of a discounted package which included flights and hotel accommodation knowing that July and August is low season in Vienna. Several of the major attractions were not available. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was away on tour. The Vienna State Opera House and the Musikverein Hall were both closed for refurbishment. The opera season runs from September to June. The Lippizaner horses too were away on a worldwide tour and the Spanish Riding School (apart from the museum) was closed. At least it leaves us with a nucleus of entertainments to look forward to on our next visit.

Despite this I think we have a full, worthwhile and enjoyable visit to Austria’s capital city.

Of course we did not come home empty-handed. We bought Austrian crystal (all right Swarovski is available worldwide now but we found a 2001 Christmas snowflake for $55 – you’d pay three times that in the States!); Herend porcelain (Hungarian but not really cheating given the history); Eiswein (white and red); Apricot jam and Liquer (apricots are grown in the Wachau) and Mozartkugeln (Viennese specialist chocolates).

[POSTSCRIPT: The title is taken from the screenplay of the film “Amadeus”. Peter Schaffer put these words into the mouth of a critical Emperor Joseph II at the first night of Mozart’s opera “Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail” (“The Abduction From The Seraglio”). My section headings are gentle suggestions that he might have added if he was reviewing his home town for CIAO!]
 

...less