27 August 2013
The image has gone only you and I
It means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Oh, Vienna
My daughter made me promise to do the full chorus of this Ultravox song. Hand movements, and all. I’m not sure whether I pulled it off quite successfully, but I certainly did try
After a bit of a sleep-in this morning, we go off on our usual city tour. I’m super excited, because I have some places I want to see today.
The first stop is Schloss Schönbrunn. This was the summer palace of the Habsburg family, and was referred to as the cottage. It only has a thousand odd rooms, afterall. Much smaller than the Winter palace, situated in the city, which has about double the rooms.
The Stephansdom is located in the heart of the city, and is an impressive structure with its high spires and beautiful ceramic roof tiles. We have often wondered why, in some areas, it seems that they could not bother to clean the buildings, resulting in them being almost black. According to our local guide, it’s a ‘disease’, and the sandstone would not really be able to handle a great deal of cleaning. They do replace the blocks, but you can imagine how long it must take them to do that, one block at a time.
The Hofburg Palace, or Complex really, is like a little city on its own. It was originally a medieval fortified castle dating from the 13th century, and because the custom was that one emperor should not live in the same “wing” as his predecessors, they kept on adding wings. The complex which extends over 240,000 m² consists of 18 wings, 19 courtyards and 2,600 rooms in which nearly 5,000 people still work and live today.
We get dropped near the Staatsoper, the impressive opera house dating back to the mid-19th century. So we escaped the rain for a while, to have some Viennese coffee, and plan the rest of our day carefully. There is just so much to see. But we quickly worked out a good route. Statues, Park, Weird, Markets, Palaces, and see whereto from there.
Like most European cities, you find a lot of statues. In Vienna, they mean a little more to me. Goethe, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and Strauss – we found them all easily, the latter few all being in the beautiful Stadtpark. Beethoven used to love taking walks in the woods outside the then walled city, which I believe to be where the Stadtpark is situated today, so I loved being able to sit quietly in this beautiful park, knowing that once, such talented people wandered around here, forming yet another masterpiece in their minds.
A colleague told me about Hundertwasser, and I’m so pleased she did. Situated outside the usual tourist routes, the Hundertwasserhaus, village and art gallery, are really worth seeing. Hundertwasser believed that man was not made to walk on flat surface, because the earth is not flat, so the floor of his art gallery is not flat. I just loved the colourful buildings. And because you are almost forced to look up to take in the beauty of it, you cannot help notice all the trees on the roof.
We have now become quite comfortable with public transport in these cities, and so it was simple enough to get ourselves to the Naschmarkt, a mostly fresh fruit and vegetable market, with some restaurants, and of course, the odd souvenir shop added. What a fascinating vibe. This is clearly the place where the locals meet for a drink or two after work, so we tried to blend in, and have an early supper here. I quite liked watching the Viennese world go by. There is just such an air of elegance and practicality about Vienna.
Niel wanted to return to the Hofburg complex, to just take in a little more of it. It was getting dark, and yet there were so many people around. Then we figured out why. Waldviertel is the North-Western quarter of Austria, and they were having their tenth Walviertelpur (festival) at the Heldenplatz, at the Hofburg complex. What better than to taste some of their wine, eat some of their traditional treats, and basically just being part of a local festival.
I cannot say that I agree with Ultravox. Vienna has so much meaning….
