After All, This Was Vienna
- Sep 18, 2017
- 10 min read
When I was about 13 I read a book called The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson, which is set in Vienna in the early 1900’s. Because Eva Ibbotson is one of the greatest authors who ever lived, she draws you in and spends 400 pages making you convinced that Vienna is the most magical city in the world.
And it pretty much is.
Every city we visited has a distinct spirit color. Don’t ask me to explain what that is, I prefer to only think in abstracts. Because lists soothe me, here is one of all the cities and their spirit colors:
London – Red
Paris – Light Pink
Munich – Yellow? Green maybe? This one’s hard
Venice – Forest Green
Rome – Orange-ish Peach
Athens – Sky Blue
Vienna – Pale Green
And, because I don’t want it to be left out, even though it hasn’t been blogged about yet,
8. Prague – Burnt Orange
Vienna is like Paris in vibe and architecturally speaking, but it’s the green and less crowded version of Paris. Anyway, back to the narrative:
It’s time to introduce a new character into the story!!! When we got off our plane from Athens, we met fellow Capernwray-er Asher, who had been travelling with another group up until this point, and had just arrived from Rome. From there we had to get a bus to a train to our hostel, which was very nice and had exposed brick walls, which is always a win. We chilled out for a bit, then headed out to explore the surrounding territory and also get food. We weren’t in the central bit of town, but we were in a fun area with lots of pretty Victorian-ish buildings and a fancy cathedral. We found a burger place and ate there, and it was ok, but there is one thing Americans can do better than anyone else, and its burgers. Nothing can really compare. I guess Canadians are pretty good at burgers too, judging by the fact that Josie is the biggest meat-snob I’ve ever met.
Asher had heard of this really quirky little area of the city with festively painted buildings and wonky sidewalks and fun artisan shops, so we went there next. It’s kind of hard to describe, so here are some pictures:
We made our way into the center of town from there, where St. Stephen’s cathedral stands in all its gothic majesty. We went inside, and it was absolutely amazing. I felt like I was in the castle from Beauty and the Beast. Lots of black stone and high, looming ceilings. A solid 9/10. (There’s always room for improvement.)
By now it was starting to get dark, so we got some breakfast pastries and snacks from a grocery store and headed back to the hostel, and watched Sound of Music to prep for our day trip to Salzburg we’d be taking the day after next.
The following day –our only full day dedicated to Vienna itself- it was cold and rainy and windy, but we were undaunted. Our first stop was Hapsburg Palace, former home of –you guessed it- the Hapsburgs. Apparently the goal of all Austrian royalty in the late 1800’s was to out-extra all the monarchs of the neighbouring countries and perhaps even creation itself, because this place was ginormo and outfitted with fanciness from ceiling to floor. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures, as it was forbidden, but my favorite part was the ballroom with a fancy painted ceiling, except it was the kind of space that made you want to dance, but you couldn’t because you were surrounded by tourists whom you might whack in the eye with a too-exuberant arm gesture. Actually, Josie, did we waltz there? I know we did in Munich, but I feel like maybe we said to heck with the innocent bystanders did a bit of waltzing. I can’t recall. This is what I get for composing a post about something 5 months after it happened. In the palace courtyard there was an Easter market set up, with people selling painted egg ornaments and such and sundry befitting the season. A lovely place to peruse at our leisure under the pleasant glow of the April sun. But alas, the April sun was shirking its duties and was nowhere to be found, it was drizzling icy rain, and the winds were so strong that they kept turning my umbrella inside out. Regardless, we were there to enjoy ourselves some window shopping and examination of fine curios, and to heck with our limbs slowly turning numb from cold.
From there, we rode the metro (same situation as Athens, nothing stopping us from walking right on, vive la Austria) to St. Charles cathedral, which we couldn’t actually go into, but we got to admire its external architecture, with was still worth the trip. It’s white with a green dome and very elegant. From there, we adjourned to a huge open air market filled with all manner of fine food and beautiful wares laid out in an aesthetically pleasing manner, which always makes you want to buy everything in sight. We got lunch there, in a little deli type place. My memory is hazy but I think what I ended up with was just schnitzel in a sandwich bun, but hey, where I come from, they eat deep fried oreos, so I’m not exactly accustomed to haute cuisine.
We spent the afternoon riding around on the metro, popping up and looking at famous things that are good to look at, including: the Opera House, a house Mozart lived in at one point, Hofsburg Palace (idk what its significance is but it’s pretty) and an amazing coffee shop where we got espresso in teeny cups and looked out through a large window at the rainy city in all its calm romance. (Ooh, I’ve gone a bit poetic. My reputation for being exclusively absurd will be jeopardized if I’m not careful.) We then ended up drifting into an H&M in a 1930’s building which still had a lot of its vintage-ness left, including one of those old elevators that looks like a fancy cage. You bet we rode in it multiple times.
Earlier in the afternoon, we had been accosted by a tourist bounty-hunter, who offered us a really good price for a classical music/ballet variety show thing that was going on that evening. We instinctively said no, but later in the coffee shop, Asher just looked into our eyes and said, “Guys, I think we should go to that thing,” and I felt in my soul that she was 100% correct, but I hadn’t wanted to be the one to suggest it, because then if we went and it was terrible, it would be my fault. Anyway, we went, and it wasn’t terrible, it was super fun, so vive la Asher. The musicians started out playing some classical music, and then a guy and a girl came out and did ballet with the musicians accompanying them. I wouldn’t say it was legendary, but it was delightful and because music is such a huge part of Vienna’s history, it made us feel very cultured and educated.
My one goal for this entire trip was to ride a particular Ferris wheel. Not because Ferris wheels are a particularly exciting thing to ride, they’re honestly downright unimpressive, but because the novel I read about Vienna finished with the main little girl riding in this Ferris wheel along with all the people she loves and its very poignant and beautiful after everything that’s happened in the story and seriously you just need to read this book, ok, it’s beautiful. Anyway, ever since I have wanted to ride this Ferris wheel, which, fortunately, is real and still running. So, after the ballet, Asher and I headed to the amusement park where it is located. I went up to the ticket booth lady, social anxiety and communicating-while-in-a-foreign-country anxiety both kicking in, nervously asked if she spoke English (she did) tried to ask “can we buy tickets for the Ferris wheel here?” instead, asked, “can we buy wheels here?” tried again, got it right, she told me where to go to buy them, I tried to say “Danke” because it’s always polite to thank people in their own tongue, but then I also tried to say “Thank you,” and it came out “Donk you.” After that there was nothing to do but run. At least I’m pretty.
Anyway, my humiliation was in vain, because we got to the Ferris wheel only to discover that it had already closed for the night, which you think the lady would have mentioned, but whatever. We trudged back to the hostel in defeat, and vowed to return the following evening.
The following day Asher and I took our day trip to Salzburg, and Josie stayed in Vienna. Salzburg and The Sound of Music are to Asher what Rome and Roman Holiday are to me, so we were women on a mission to spend the day in a way that would make Julie Andrews proud.
The day started early with a breakfast in the hostel kitchen which was a struggle for two reasons:
Someone had stolenAsher’s milk she’d left in the fridge and put the empty jug back as though nothing were wrong
I tried to get a latte from the coffee machine and it gave me raspberry tea
So, a real hostel-life experience right there. Our train to Salzburg left really early, but fortunately the train station was pretty much right across the street from the hostel. It was a 2 hour train ride, so we arrived in the late morning. Our first stop was the fountain Maria and the kids dance around while singing do-re-mi. Besides being majestic and being in the shape of a rearing horse, it’s also the centrepiece of a beautiful garden, which we walked around in for a while and admired. It’s all part of the grounds of some noble estate, but the house itself didn’t have any movie significance so we didn’t pay much attention to it.
Next, we went to Mozart’s childhood home, which is now a museum, and because we had gotten passes at the train station that let us in to pretty much every attraction in the city, we decided we might as well go. It was pretty cool. Normal museum stuff. Knowledge, culture, that kind of thing.
By the time we got out of Mozart’s house, it was lunchtime, but we were not going to eat just any lunch, no, we were going to eat lunch at the top of an alp, just the way Julie Andrews would want us to. We got some aesthetically pleasing picnic foods at a grocery store (if your lunch isn’t Instagram worthy, what even is the point?) and got on a bus that took us to a cable car that would take us up the mountain. The sign in front of the cable car loading dock said no food, so thank goodness they didn’t check my backpack because I have no idea what to say in response to a security guard pulling a wheel of brie out of my personal belongings. The food made it safely up the mountain with us, and after exploring the snow-capped summit (a somewhat icy and slippery feat) we deposited ourselves in a sunbeam and enjoyed our fancy mountaintop luncheon. I had gotten a rose lemonade in a cute bottle that turned out to be slightly alcoholic, and I drank all of it, so I guess I’m a full on deviant now. The view from the top of the mountain was absolutely amazing, and although we hadn’t expected it to be snowy, and our original intent was to find a grassy knoll in which to recreate the opening scene of Sound and Music, it was all in all a very satisfying trip.
After our descent in the cable car, we caught the bus again and rode it to some country estate or other, the name or function of which is irrelevant, because it plays host to the 16 going on 17 gazebo, and that was what we were there to see. It’s locked and you can’t go in and jump from bench to bench (lame) but it’s still pretty thrilling to see it in real life. We would have liked to linger and walk around the grounds, but by now it was late afternoon and we had more sights to see. We headed for the center of town, where there was a beautiful cathedral and lots of tiny, winding streets full of charming shops. We also found the fountain Maria splashes her hand in whilst singing “Confidence”, and, of course, re-enacted the scene. We also enjoyed walking along by the river and admiring the city. Salzburg is seriously one of the most beautiful places, and it’s always on those “Top 10 Underrated European Cities” click-bait videos for good reason. The weather was also amazing, so that helped.
Originally, our plan was to finish our Salzburg tour with the Von Trapp villa, then catch the train back to Vienna in time to ride the Ferris wheel. However, by now it was quite late, and as it was going to take 20 minutes to get from the center of town to the villa by bus, and we had to be back at the station to catch a train that left reasonably soon, we decided to skip it for fear of the Ferris wheel closing again before we got there. However, once at the train station, Asher realized that if she didn’t see the villa, she would forever be incomplete, so we parted ways, each to our respective dreams. This meant that I rode a train all the way from one Austrian city to another by myself, like a true world traveller, and it was very empowering. Upon arriving back in Vienna, I then navigated the metro by myself and got myself to the funfair in time and without any hitchery. *from the readers bursts forth wild applause, cheering, a marriage proposal* Thank you, thank you, you are right. I am great.
The Ferris wheel was honestly not exciting at all, because Ferris wheels just aren’t, but the cars are like little boxcars that are enclosed and they are very charming, and there’s a whole little museum exhibit about how old and iconic the wheel is, and also, I was living my dream, so it was completely perfect. Also, good views of the city. So I guess, in retrospect, actually pretty exciting after all. I forked over 8 euro for a chinsy little Ferris wheel souvenir in the gift shop, because money, after all, is just paper, and they print more of it every day. I then safely made it back to the hostel (I generally wouldn’t recommend wandering a strange city alone at night, but the Germanic countries all had an extremely safe vibe). Asher eventually made it back too, although she had missed the first train she had intended to catch, and had to wait for another one.
The next morning Asher and I left for our final stop, Prague, and Josie left to go home. It was a sad goodbye, but strangely not super-sad, because sometimes when you’re with a person every day for that long, you don’t really believe you’re actually not going to see each other again. It’s weird. Then of course it hits you once you’re home, along with all the other post-Cape feelings, and you just have to curl up in the fetal position and wait for the barrage of sadness to be over. But that is another story for another day, and I must not dance around the edge of the vortex of dissipation when I still have one more adventure to tell of. Until then, beloved readers.
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