Vienna (Wein) Austria - History, music and cafes

In two hours, a lovely, modern efficient train whisked us to Vienna for the next leg of our journey and by late afternoon we checked in to our next residence located on Graben right in the heart of Old Town. The prices just doubled from The Czech Republic and Hungary. The Danube becomes the Donau and it's all bitte and danke, whipped cream and music. As we have only 2 days and nights here, again it is a matter of choosing what can be done. So, we decided to concentrate on music and the Hapsburgs with generous stops at cafes to rest our weary feet and eat and drink some of Austria's iconic offerings.

We walked a block and stopped in at Buffet Trzesniewski and grabbed a few open-faced sandwiches and a drink for a light lunch and then started orienting ourselves to Vienna.

The next day we tried to get an overview of Vienna by taking one of those Red Bus Tours. If nothing else, it did give us a sense of what lies a bit beyond the Ringstrasse including this weird house called the Hundertwasser that looked like something Gaudi could have done.

There are churches everywhere. There are music venues everywhere. There are palaces, now museums everywhere. The first night we tried to sit outside the Opera House and listen to the free live broadcast of Fidelio by Beethoven. But with the noise from the cars and horse carriages clopping by and the fact that it was not dark which made the screen difficult to see, we gave up and decided to buy tickets for our next concert.
We elected to hear the Weiner Symphoniker in same place where the Vienna Philharmonic plays. The Phil is on tour. The venue is as much of a draw as the music. It is the same arrangement as the hall where the Boston Philharmonic plays and was ornate and beautiful. We heard some Hayden, Mendelssohn, Dubussy and Ravel.

We even were able to drop into a beautiful church for its daily 30 minute organ recital. We couldn't

see the organist but were entertained by the amazing surroundings. Plus it wasn't 95 degrees inside the church - yay!

Interior of the Musikverein

We also visited a great little museum called the House of Music that highlighted all of Vienna's homeboys in a really interesting and approachable way. We learned of the big 6: Beethoven, Strauss, Hayden, Schubert, Mozart and Mahler. We even got an interactive dose of the physics of music and a bit on composition and conducting. I was tempted but did not push a bunch of young teens out of the way at the last interactive station. There was a screen with the Vienna Philarmonic musicians seated on stage and you could pick up a baton and try to conduct them playing Eine Kleine Nacht Musik. If you screwed it up, the orchestra grumbled and boo-ed you, if you did well, they clicked their batons on their music stands. It was fun to watch.

We did our own evening walking tour of Vienna to see the exteriors of all the major buildings. There is one building, the huge New Palace which lies in between the Hofburg Palace and the two major museums across the Ringstrasse, that made an impression by virtue of history. It was on the balcony of this Palace that Hitler addressed 200,000 Viennese gathered here to celebrate the Anschluss - the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938.

New Palace where Hitler spoke from the balcony

The next day we tackled the Hofburg Palace and jumped into the Hapsburgs. We saw amazing

collections of crystal, silver, china (when they progressed beyond solid silver and gold plates) but the highlight was the Sisi Museum. I don't even remember hearing about Empress Elizabeth called Sisi (1837-1898) married to Franz Josef at age 15. She was a woman who did not live easily in her age. She was an athlete and hated the constraints of the court. She was beautiful and really smart and increasingly withdrawn after the death of a son. In the end she was murdered by an Italian anarchist while she was away on one of her many trips away from Vienna. She was the Princess Diana of her age.

We also spent several hours walking through the Kunsthihistoriches Museum trying to take in masterpiece after masterpiece by Raphael, Caravaggio, Velaszquez, Rembrandt, Bruegels and more. It was a bit overwhelming but worth it. 

Before heading out on the overnight train to Krakow, we couldn't resist get standing room tickets at the Opera which we had toured that afternoon. For 3 Euro (about 4 dollars) we stood leaning against railings with the supertitle screens right in front of us and listened to the first act of Don Giovanni. Pretty great deal.

Interspersed with all this sightseeing, we did spend quality time in a number of Viennese cafes and restaurants and I must say, they are what they are cracked up to be. Sitting with a piece of Sacher torte in the city where it was invented with a lovely cup of hot chocolate or coffee, is hard to beat. 

There is still so much to see and do that we barely touched the surface of Vienna. Guess that means we will have to return some day.