Last weekend Natalka and I took a short trip to Vienna.
Landtmann Cafe
Saturday morning we met up with Adilia, an old friend of mine from my travels to Tashkent at Landtmann Cafe. Landtmann is a postcard perfect Viennese cafe, where one can order several kinds of coffee (I had the Maria Thereza with whipped cream and orange liquor) and table service is performed by formally dressed male waiters in bow-ties. After coffee we took a stroll through a nearby park just outside the Hofburg Palace. Adilia’s adorable two-year old, trilingual (German, Russian, English) daughter Sofia kept us thoroughly entertained the whole time. Sofia also provided an engaging photographic subject for the Chinese tourists, who had begun to flood the garden grounds under the late morning sun, one of whom kindly took the picture below.
Rathaus-Platz
We joined Joe and Valerie about midday at Rathaus-Platz (Town hall) and made our way toward Hofburg Palace, the Spanish Riding School and Stephansdom, to gather tour information.
After a light lunch we toured of the Imperial Apartments and the Sisi Museum in Hofburg Palace. Luckily for Natalka, an audio guide for the tour was available in Russian…I also opted for a Russian guide, Valerie took the tour in French, and we’re not sure which language Uncle Joe took…The tour attempted to capture the lives of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elizabeth in the 19 state and private rooms of the palace. Apparently the Empress would spend two to three hours have her long hair washed and styled (with a decadent shampoo that included Cognac), while being tutored in ancient and Modern Greek. By contrast, the Emperor lived a Spartan existence, sleeping on a hard steel bed and rising each morning at 3:30am to start his day. The Sisi Museum explores the controversial life of Empress Elizabeth, who felt great ambivalence towards the official duties of her position and spent much of her later life traveling across Europe incognito. On one such journey she was assassinated by Italian anarchist in Geneva in 1898 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_of_Bavaria
Dinner at Martinelli’s
Saturday night we had a great outdoor dinner at Ristorante Martinelli, where an Italian singer performed classical songs all night. This performance inspired Joe and Valerie to venture out for a few dances captured in the picture below. Below that is a great shot of my dessert, a delicious pistachio-mint semifreddo; I unwisely
offered a taste to Uncle Joe and Natalka and ended up sharing more of it than I had planned.
After dinner Natalka and I took a long stroll home through to enjoy Vienna at night. Along the way we passed Landtmann Cafe and the Rathaus-Platz.
High Mass at Stephansdom
Sunday morning Valerie, Natalka and I attended high mass in German at Stephansdom. The atomosphere was inspiring with the morning sun illuminating the altar before us under the sounds of organ music and beautifully sung hymns in German. Even though we understood very little of what was said or sung, the entire experience was quite moving.
Belvedere Palace
Belvedere Palace was built by Prince Eugene of Savoy, a French exile, who is considered Austria’s greatest general ever (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Eugene_of_Savoy). Today the Belvedere is a museum that holds some of Austria’s most famous paintings, including “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kiss_%28Klimt_painting%29). This time Natalka was not so fortunate and had to rely on my translation skills as there was no Russian audio tour. Nonetheless, we were blessed with great weather, which made for great photos of the museum grounds, including the one below of Natalka.
Hofburg, Museum Quarter and Karlskirche (“St. Charles’ Church”)
Before dinner we took a quick stroll to our hotel, passing through the Hofburg grounds, stopping by the Museum Quarter, before arriving at Karlskirche, an amazing baroque church. It was late Sunday afternoon and our time in Vienna was running out.
Monument to Yuriy Kolshitzky
Yuriy Kolshitzky was originally from L’viv and served with Jan Sobieski, whose army played a decisive role in ending the Turkish siege of Vienna. King Sobieski gave Kolshitzky 300 sacks of coffee that had been abandoned by Kara Mustafa’s army. With this coffee Kolshitzky went on open the first coffee house in Vienna, a city world famous for its coffee tradition. Unfortunately, Natalka and I were unable to capture this monument on film (the batteries in our camera died by the time we found this monument ona tiny side street outside the Ringstrasse—the perfect metaphor for our condition after spending all day sightseeing under the August sun. Here is a picture of the monument that I found on the web.
Good-bye Vienna
