We knew that with only one full day in Vienna we had to do it "right," visiting as many places as possible without overwhelming ourselves and missing out on the experience of just being in Vienna. All of us love Billy Joel's "Vienna," so the lyrics "Slow down, you're doing fine/ You can't be everything you want to be/ Before your time" reminded us to keep seeking that balance we've been after since our holiday started over two weeks ago.
After a great night's sleep, some business (Maddie had to complete and submit her homework assignments for her upcoming Salzburg seminar, Dana had a few documents to review, and I had my blog to write) and a lovely breakfast (Vienna's mini donuts are delicious!) in the 8th floor dining room overlooking the ferris wheel we intended to ride before day's end, we hit the rode.
Our brilliant decision to grab a quick cab to the nearest pick up spot on the hop on/ hop off city bus tour wound up being a bit less brilliant when a) the actual pick up spot proved elusive, and we hunted around the roads adjacent to the Danube for about 15 minutes before the kids finally discovered it, and b) the map the hotel gave us was outdated, so the times for all pick-ups were incorrect. This was NOT the start we had intended for our perfectly planned day in Vienna. All was fine, however, when a very kind (and, according to Maddie and Daniel, very kind on the eyes) driver arrived 10 minutes later, gave us a new map, and we took our spots atop the bus for a spin, with the historic audio tour we have all come to know and appreciate in the many cities where these buses operate.
We got off at the Wiener Staatsoper (State Opera House), where Mozart conducted his first performance of Don Giovanni, memorably depicted in Amadeus, and started a wonderful walking tour with Sigfried, a colorful, informative, sometimes slightly fascist guide who spun engaging stories about everything from Mozart's performance for Emperor Franz Joseph and his beloved Empress Elisabeth to disturbing descriptions of Austrian's treatment of the Jews leading up to World War II. It was an extraordinary way to explore the Hofburg Imperial Palace and all the surrounding areas. While the Lippizaner horses are on "holiday" themselves during the summer, we were able to tour the famous Spanish Riding School, where they still live, train and perform.
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| With no performance tonight and conflicting tour schedules, we were only able to view the Opera House from outside. |
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Apparently, one of the architects killed himself when the Emperor said the Opera House looked like a train station! From certain angles, it does. A very nice train station, but a train station nonentheless. |
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| The memorial depicting Austria's treatment of its Jewish citizens leading up to the war... powerful and devastating |
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| Emperor Franz Josef |
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| The Spanish Riding School |
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| The ceilings in Europe rock! :) |
Once we were again on our own, we set out for Kleine's, one of the less pretentious and less touristy of Vienna's famed coffee houses, but significant for us as it was the setting of one of Before Sunrise's Jesse and Celine's many memorable moments in Vienna. It enabled us to get away from the crowds just a few streets away and "take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while," which is exactly what we did. Our lunch and coffee (melange, as is the style in Vienna) was leisurely,
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| Jesse and Celine sat at the corner table, where they were approached by a palm reader. |
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| so there was much talk about palm reading ;) |
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| The bathroom door was decorated with all manner of interesting stuff. |
and enabled us to stop into the lovely old Franciscan church, built in the mid 1600's, just steps away...
leading us to once again marvel at the fact that one church filled with extraordinary art, majesty and history can be completely off the beaten path, while another is buzzing with tourists.
After our respite it was back to the beaten path to walk the specialty store lined streets, explore a church or two, and enjoy the buskers, until we made our way to hop back on the bus, this time taking the blue line out to Elisabeth's "summer" palace, Schonbrunn.
We so took Billy Joel's lyrics to heart that we wound up boarding the final bus to the summer palace, which we initially feared was going to lead us to having very little time to tour it, as it closed at 6:00. Instead, our meandering led us to the perfect way to visit the palace and surrounding public gardens, which remain open until 9:00 p.m. and serve as a sort of Central Park to the residents who live in this part of Vienna. We entered the ticket office and waltzed through what must have been an incredibly long line weaving through 20 twists and turns of rope just hours earlier. Instead, we bought a reduced price ticket allowing us to take the "Imperial tour" through the 40 accessible rooms of the palace, complete with a complimentary audio tour, before turning us loose into the gardens for as long as we liked. The end result? There were only 4 other guests in the palace with us, so it was the opposite experience of what we'd had in the Sistine Chapel, and what hoards of tourists likely had just hours earlier in this same space. We were able to linger and really look at the portrait of Marie Antoinette, one of Elisabeth's 11 children, each of whom was married off for one political purpose or another. And we were able to soak in the surroudings until we were summarily kicked out, literally turning the lights off in the bathroom and announcing that the palace was closed (at this point it was well after 6:00 ;)
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| As you see, we pretty much have the place to ourselves ;) |
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| The frescos were created for Elisabeth, who was beloved by her husband, though she did not return his undying affection. |
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| The back of the palace, before we entered the gardens |
We spent a couple of hours in the gardens, climbing, of course, to the "Gloriette" perched at the opposite side of the palace and promising (and delivering) outrageous views of Vienna at sunset. The lighting provided for many wonderful photo opportunities, but I will only include a few of the dozens we took.
In essence, we frolicked as if this were our summer palace and couldn't have been any happier that we wound up closing the place down. Around 8:30 p.m., we realized we ought to consider dinner options, as we didn't know exactly where we were or how we would get to Prater and then, finally, our hotel. Dana found wifi next to the closed Gloritte cafe and insisted that he had found the spot for our one traditional Viennese dinner. While our trek out of the palace grounds and to said dinner find took over an hour, when we finally arrived at Plachutta, it was everything Dana promised and more. Daniel and Maddie both ordered the traditional tafelspitz, which was an event in and of itself, with hot plates, soup, bone marrow to apply to dark bread and an accompanying instuctional manual! The servers were warm and welcoming, the restaurant quiet so late on a Sunday night, the food beyond delicious. The Viennese coffee Daniel and I shared for dessert was one of the most amazing things I've ever tasted, and provided the much needed caffeine boost I needed to get through our final hours of the night - to wander through the Prater at closing time and to take that final spin on the iconic ferris wheel.
Vienna did, indeed, wait for us, and we couldn't have taken better advantage of our limited time here.
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