Vienna, Round Two

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

After yesterday’s stroll among the Hapsburg Palaces in the city center, we set out this morning to see where they went for “relief” during the summer months.  Just a few subway stops from the Hofburg complex sprawls the 1441-room Schonbrunn Palace, the royals’ summer getaway.  Our tour covered only about 25 of the rooms, but that was more than enough to demonstrate that there was no roughing it at the summer digs.  While the scale of the private rooms was much smaller than that in the grand halls, it was still far over the top, as most of these places are.  The Palace Gardens are now a public park, the centerpiece of which is an enormous Neptune fountain.  The park is extensive and contains other fountains, specialized gardens, several out buildings, long, tree-lined allees, and even the city zoo.  The whole effect -- inside and out -- seems quite like that of Versailles, and raises the same questions of wretched excess and more that continue to the present day.

After lunch in the Palace Gardens, we took the U back to Karlsplatz, walked past the grand Opera House and Albertina again, and on to Josefsplatz, in the Hofburg, where we entered the Augustinian Church, the Imperial family’s parish church, and site of their weddings, baptisms, and other important events.  A closed crypt holds urns containing the hearts of 54 members of the royal family.  (Their bodies are in the nearby Capuchin Church and their entrails in the Cathedral of St. Stephen – an effort to spread the wealth?!?)

Because it’s always important to have photos of the same place in varying light (Claude Monet knew this!), we returned to Stephanslatz for a few more shots of the cathedral.

Having given some study to our transit maps, we devised a way to cobble together a Ring Road circuit of the inner city using two tram lines.  We also did a bit of it on foot, stopping to walk along the large plaza with a central monument to Empress Maria Teresa, flanked by the Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Science and Natural History.  We also stopped in the Burggarten for a look at a monument dedicated to Mozart; it overlooks a lawn with flowerbeds in the form of a treble clef.  At the Volkspark and the neo-classical Parliament, we bordered Tram 1 to complete our circuit.

We decided to continue back to the Prater, the huge park at the tram’s terminus, where we walked along the tree-shaded Hauptallee to the Wurstelprater amusement park.  The park’s most well-known feature is the Giant Ferris Wheel, the Riesenrad.  In operation since 1897, instead of seats, large cabins slowly make their rotation above the river and the city. The Riesenrad, featured in Orson Welles’ The Third Man, is perhaps as much a symbol of Vienna as the Cathedral. 

Two stops on the tram brought us back to our apartment, a Radler (beer and carbonated lemonade) on our terrace, and an end to our Viennese wanderings. 

Tomorrow, we’ll head to the mountains and lakes of Austria, swapping out the manmade grandeur of Vienna for some natural beauty.

Beautiful Vienna

Monday, May 7, 2018

After moving our car from street parking to a lot across the street, we walked a short distance to a U-bahn (Metro) station and purchased 48-hour passes, good for all public transport in the city.  Then, it was into the center city to meet a morning walking tour in front of the Albertina Museum; once again, the assembled group was comprised of travelers from all over the world.    We also couldn’t help but notice that the area was full of tour groups, and as the day went on, the vitality of tourism in Vienna was obvious. 

Just across the street from the Albertina is the city’s Monument Against War and Fascism.  A series of sculptures commemorates the dark days of World War II and Nazi’s annexation of Austria in a small plaza marking the spot where 300 people in a shelter beneath a building perished when a bomb collapsed the structure.

For an hour and a half, that small spot was the only place we walked that was not once part of the Hofburg, the Imperial Palaces.  Begun in the 13^th century, each successive Hapsburg ruler added to the existing complex and the resulting interconnected buildings seem to go on forever.  The scale, decorative elements, and enormous interior courtyards with massive monuments make for a jaw-dropping display.  The establishment of the first Austrian republic after World War I meant the end of the monarchy and the Hofburg is no longer a royal residence.  A series of museums, churches, libraries, performance spaces, and governmental offices (including that of the president) now occupy the buildings. 

After a glimpse of some of the white Lipizzaner stallions in their stables, we left the Hofburg behind at its impressive gate on Michaelerplatz.  The Church of St. Michael is on the square, as are the excavated remains of part of the Roman wall and settlement here.

The tour headed over to the focal point of Vienna and largest church in Austria, St. Stephen’s Cathedral, where we took in some aspects of its ornate Gothic exterior, notably its roof, steeply pitched and covered with about a quarter of a million colored tiles in bright patterns.  As part of a continual maintenance process, the exterior of the cathedral is being cleaned using a modern laser process – at the rate of about one five-inch square per hour!

We skirted the old Jewish quarter, site of the single synagogue remaining after the November 1938 Kristallnacht torching of Jewish places of worship.  We noted the presence of police and street barricades in the area, protective measures put in place after the 1981 bombing of a synagogue in the city.

Our group disbanded near the Danube Canal in the shadow of the oldest church in Vienna, St. Ruprecht and across the street from the site of the Gestapo headquarters, now an 
apartment block.

After lunch in a small park nearby, we took Tram 1, hoping to do a circuit of the Ring around the inner city.  Our understanding of the route led us to the Prater, so we had a look around that park before heading back to the inner city via the same tram.  Learning that the Ring Tram is currently offline for some construction, we opted to take the U to Stephensplatz, where we toured the beautiful interior of the enormous cathedral with audioguides.  

From the cathedral, we walked along the Graben, a pedestrian shopping street on the site of a ditch the Romans constructed for defensive purposes.  In the center of the street is Vienna’s entry in the Plague Column sweepstakes – a clear winner in terms of design and ornate decoration!  Speaking of ornate decoration, St. Peter’s Church, adjacent to the Graben, would hold its own in the ecclesiastical division of the competition!

We cut through the Hofburg and Heroes Square to the Volksgarten, one of the city’s beautifully maintained green spaces, to reach the Rathaus (City Hall).  Facing yet another beautiful park, the huge neo-Gothic building was bedecked with banners and flowerboxes at every window and balcony.  In the plaza below, preparations were underway for an upcoming concert.

From the Rathaus, we boarded the U to return to our comfy apartment, not far from the Prater.

Much of central Vienna seems to have taken its cue from the Hofburg, in terms of the size and design of the buildings.  The take-away impression is one of sheer monumentality wherever the eye lands; it’s as if a Hollywood set designer’s conception of a royal city has come to life.  We have another day to take more of it in tomorrow, when we expect some rain.  We’ll see how hardy we are!

Bratislava to Vienna

Sunday, May 6, 2018

After packing up and checking out of our room, we were able to leave the car in the courtyard while we spent more time in Bratislava’s old center this morning.  We walked around the Main Square again and stopped into a Jesuit Church where High (sung) Mass had begun.  Despite our total unfamiliarity with the language, the catholicity of Catholicism made it easy to know exactly where in the ritual we’d arrived (late).

Just outside the church, we met a morning walking tour of the old town and castle area.  We spent almost three hours with a small group of visitors from many parts of the world getting an overview of Bratislava’s sights.  The historic center is filled with lovely squares, fountains, beautiful buildings and statues – some historic and monumental, others amusing.  There’s one of Napoleon’s occupying soldiers leaning over a bench in front of the French Embassy, another of “Man at Work” -- a sewer worker peeking out of a manhole, and yet one more of a local citizen renowned for his ubiquitous presence on the streets and friendly greetings for all he met.

The largest square, dominated now by the Opera House, was once outside the city walls and buildings that are now on one side of the square (including the United States Embassy) were actually on land that had once been an island between a moat and the Danube River just beyond.  Nearby is the Plague Column, marking a spot (outside the walls) where the bodies of victims of the six waves of the Black Death that struck the city.  On a lighter note, just nearby was the Bratislava Beer Bike, which (if you’re among the few that care) you can see at https://bratislavabeerbike.com/ , as Tom’s camera battery was giving him difficulties at the time we passed it.

Just beyond the Plague Column, and in the shadow of the Coronation Church, St. Martin’s Cathedral, are two monuments to Bratislava’s Jews.  Standing close together are the Holocaust memorial, dedicated to the great percentage of Slovak Jews who were deported to death camps, and another erected to mark the destruction of the Orthodox Synagogue and the Jewish Quarter to make way for a highway during the Communist era.

We crossed over said highway on a pedestrian bridge from the remaining section of the city walls to the base of the Castle Hill.  Stopping for a break at a café before ascending the hill, we were joined by a young American woman traveling on her own and a Scotsman on a long weekend break from Edinburgh.  She was a social worker working in the area of refugee resettlement, and based on conversations I’ve had with people engaged in that work at home, I asked if she’d seen a decline in the population she’s dedicated to serve.  When she acknowledged this truth, the Scot asked if this were due to Trump – and we were off to the races!  He (very earnestly) asked why we hadn’t just gotten rid of him and a discussion of the realities of the current political situation ensued…

Then, it was up the Castle Hill to see the Slovak Parliament building, some of the remaining original fortification’s walls, the recently reconstructed Castle (now a museum), and the views across the Danube to the suburbs of Bratislava, and just beyond -- Austria.

After our tour ended, back in the old town center, we reclaimed our car and headed to Vienna.  In a short time, we crossed the border into Austria and found that buying the required road toll vignette was made considerably trickier than it needed to be.  The first signs for a point of sale were actually for Slovakian vignettes and necessitated a fruitless walk across a bridge to the other side of the freeway.  Why the opportunity to purchase a permit for the country we were leaving?!?

After that, it was smooth sailing to Vienna, where we became stuck in a Sunday afternoon traffic jam that had us stopping and going (mostly stopping) on city streets for almost as long as it had taken us to travel on the freeway from Bratislava.

We have a fine apartment here, and its owners were here to meet us upon our arrival.  Tomorrow, we’ll set out to see how/if Vienna has changed since our last visit.

Western Slovakia to Bratislava

Saturday, May 5, 2018

This post has been delayed, as we had a problem with Internet access last night (Saturday) in Bratislava.  Sunday's entry still to come -- once we buckle down and produce it!

After some steady overnight rain, we were back to the warm and sunny weather that has been the norm for this trip, so far.

We were headed to Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital city, but we made stops along the way in a couple of towns that made their names as mining centers from the 14^th to the 18^th centuries.

First up was Banska Bystrica, Slovakia’s sixth-largest city.  The main square is large, bordered by merchants’ and trade guilds’ homes, and  now housing offices, restaurants, businesses and hotels, and the site of several of the town’s notable sites.  The requisite Plague Column has become a memorial to the Jan Kuciak, a Slovak journalist who had been investigating the corruption of the current government.  He and his fiancée were assassinated earlier this year and there has been an ongoing series of protests in the country since then.  A leaning clock tower, Jesuit church, large fountain and black obelisk memorializing the Russians and Romanians who liberated the city in 1945 are also showcased in the square. Adjacent to the square is the castle area, with the Barbican and city tower (now housing a restaurant) and a 13^th-century church.

Then, it was on to the much quieter old town of Banska Stivnica, another mining powerhouse in its 16^th-century prime.  Even with two castles and a fine hilltop location, it’s a pretty sleepy spot these days.

Our digs in Bratislava are small, but very well located.  We left our car in our courtyard parking area and walked the very short distance to the historic Old Town.  We had a lovely time walking from square to spacious square, most ringed with busy cafes, shops, bars and restaurants.  The pedestrian lanes were full of people, as were the outdoor bars and cafes.  We walked on the short remaining section of the town walls, on a path lined with historical and biographical information of some of Bratislava’s notable figures, with emphasis on its Jewish population, decimated during World War II.

After our happy hour, we went to a nearby brewery for dinner and a chance to sample their products.  Both brews and bites won our seal of approval.

Tomorrow, we’ll head to Vienna, which is just over an hour away.