| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 10 February 2005 |
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The 200-crown fare seemed high (at first we thought he said
500, but it was 'zwei hundert'), but it was further from our hotel
and late at night.
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Today we drove to Vienna. Our morning stop was
Jihlava, which is just important enough to get mentioned in the tour
books for its town hall, its Church of St. Ignatius, and its plague
column. It is also mentioned for plopping a modern department store
in the center of its town square, thereby ruining its aesthetic
value. However, this was Sunday morning and no stores were open.
We spent some of our remaining crowns at a kiosk buying candy,
sodas, and a beer. The beer was more for the bottle than the
contents--a friend of ours (hi, Dave!) collects beer bottles and
we're trying to get him one from each country we visit. I'm
reasonably sure he doesn't already have a bottle for a beer brewed
in Jihlava. The beer, by the way, seems to be called '11%,' or at
any rate has that in big characters on the label, but smaller print
says that the alcohol content is 2.8%.
We had about 100 crowns to spend (a little over US$3) and still
had about 15 (50 cents) when we were done, even though we had an
armful of candy and bottles (including the deposits--Coca-Cola is
5.5 crowns plus 2 crowns deposit).
As we left Jihlava we saw a woman trimming her lawn with a
scythe. Even hand mowers must be rare (unknown?) here, but then
lawns are more American, I think; Europeans tend toward gardens.
Crossing the border was fast: no luggage search or passport
check (except for Mojca and Tone). The Austrian guard just waved us
through. This is *very* different from two years ago; one woman
said it took her three hours at the Czech border (entering, but that
had been fast for us as well).
We lunched in Hollbrunn at the Three Crowns. I had goulash
soup and Mark had hasenpfeffer (rabbit). We could tell we were back
in Austria--it was 130 schillings (about US$11) for this.
Austria seemed much less run-down (more kept-up) than
Czechoslovakia, particularly in the small towns we drove through.
In Czechoslovakia the walls had patches where the stucco had fallen
off or it was patched quickly.
We arrived in Vienna about 3:30 PM. We were staying in the
Austrotel, a change from the initially planned Ramada. Neither has
much charm, but few people on tours would pick charm over comfort.
(Examples: our hotel in Amsterdam had charm but no elevator. Our
hotel in Penang had charm and rats but no elevator.)
Steve and Mark went over to the train station across the street
and got 24-hour transit passes. A single ride would be 20
schillings and a pass is 45, so the pass seems like a very good
deal. (In London, a pass costs about what three rides cost.)
Mary decided to rest, so the three of us took the tram into the
center of town. The tram went down Mariahilferstrasse
('Mariahilferstra{e'), one of the main shopping streets, and stopped
at Karlsplatz on the Ringstrasse ('Ringstra{e'). The Ringstrasse is
a street (or series of streets, since the name changes every time it
crosses a main artery) that circles the center of Vienna. Just on
the inside of the Ring at Karlsplatz is the Hofburg, the Winter
Palace of the Hapsburgs. At the Karlsplatz is a statue of Mozart
with a little patch of grass in front of it with a flower bed in the
shape of a G-clef.
We walked through the Hofburg grounds and made our way to
St. Stephen's, the main cathedral of the city. Seeing a cathedral
without a guide one misses a lot, but the Frommer's guide book did
direct us to the stone pulpit with its carved figures, each with its
own personality. There was even a separate figure carved as if it
were looking out a window in the main column which was a self-
portrait of the sculptor. I couldn't find the altarpiece mentioned,
however, since it was described as being in the 'Virgin's Choir,'
and I had no idea where that was. Other than that, it was your
usual ornate cathedral.
We then started Frommer's 'Walking Tour of Imperial Vienna'
backwards from St. Stephen's. Well, we were at the end point, but
following directions backwards is not as easy as it may sound. We
had walked down the Graben and the Kohlmarkt, seeing maybe the last
10% of the tour, when we found ourselves staring at Roman ruins in
Michalerplatz. What are Roman ruins doing in the middle of Vienna,
you ask? Well, this was the northern outpost of the Roman Empire.
As we were looking at the ruins, a man and his son (?) came over and
started explaining them in broken English. This was still better
than my attempts to translate the signs using my German dictionary,
which was slow, ungrammatical, and incomplete. (However, having the
dictionary was a real help, as were the multi-language books. The
Yiddish phrase book and the Russian dictionary have yet to prove
their usefulness.) Anyway, the two of them spent about a half an
hour talking about the excavations, which were found when the platz
was being redone to change the traffic patterns. Suspicious person
that I am, I expected him to ask for a guide's fee or something, but
no, he was just interested in the subject and enjoyed sharing it.
One problem in tourism is that so many people *are* out to make
money off tourists that tourists begin to believe everyone is.
This took so long that when we saw an Underground station a few
blocks later, we decided to head back to the hotel and, for the heck
of it, to do it entirely on the Underground. (This station,
Minorites, was strange--above ground it looked like a large phone
booth. It was an elevator that just came up to the street, not the
usual stairs, etc.) We had to change trains three times, but each
time the lines were clearly labeled, not like New York. Need I also
say it was cleaner than New York?
When we emerged at Westbahnhof (the train station) we got to
watch the police move a parked car by jacking up one end and
swinging it onto the curb, then repeating the process at the other
end. This was necessary because the car was parked in such a way
that it blocked the road. A bus had gotten part of the way through,
but then couldn't go forwards or backwards, and *it* was blocking
the tram tracks in front of it as well as the traffic behind it.
What a mess! Finally, however, the car was moved (and ticketed) and
everything sorted out.
At dinner we met seven people joining our tour. Six were going
only as far as Budapest with us; one was 'staying the distance'
through Romania et al. The latter is a man from Brazil who speaks
no English, but he apparently knows Spanish, so the Uruguayan woman
finally has someone one to talk to. Dinner itself, as is usual on
many of these tours, was instantly forgettable.
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We had to scramble a bit this morning, as
departure was moved up fifteen minutes so that we would make our
'launch window' at Schoenbrunn Palace. This place is so popular
that tour groups are scheduled for specific times. (I wonder what
individuals do.) Since all we got was a Continental breakfast this
morning, rushing was no problem.
Schoenbrunn Palace was the summer palace of the Hapsburgs (also
called the Habsburgs), so it was a ways out of town. Designed in
the Baroque style by the von Erlachs, it has 1441 rooms, of which we
saw 42. We started with the apartments of Franz Joseph (born 1830,
ascended to the throne 1858, died November 22, 1916). We began with
the Guard Room, the Waiting Room, and the Audience Room (also known
as the Walnut Room because of the wood used). People spent hours in
the Waiting Room for thirty seconds in the Audience Room. The guide
particularly pointed out the chandeliers. They used to be all
candles, but around the turn of the century the Palace was
electrified, with the wiring being checked out by Thomas Alva Edison
himself.
Room number four had portraits of Franz Joseph and his wife
Elizabeth. Next was the bedroom where Franz Joseph died, including
his death portrait. He had a son, Rudolph, who died young (a
suicide, I believe). Then his nephew Franz Ferdinand became crown
prince, but he was assassinated June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo. Finally
Charles I succeeded him, but by that point it was too late; sixty-
eight years of rule by a conservative emperor had pretty much killed
the empire.
Three small but over-decorated rooms were followed by the
bedroom of Franz Joseph and Elizabeth. (He never used it after she
died, but used the room he eventually died in instead.) The
rosewood bed was 2.2 meters long but its unusual width made it look
shorter. All the rosewood furniture was donated by the local
cabinet makers.
The next two rooms were Elizabeth's rooms, followed by one with
portraits of Marie Antoinette and Caroline. Maria Theresa had five
sons and eleven daughters. The daughters were all married to
various kings, making Maria Theresa 'mother-in-law to Europe.'
Room 13 was a breakfast room containing embroidery by Marie
Antoinette and Caroline; rooms 14 and 15 were other small rooms.
Room 16 was the Mirror Room. The mirrors themselves are new,
though the frames are original. This is where Mozart held his first
concert in Vienna--at the age of 6.
Next was Maria Theresa's Room; she reigned from 1740 to 1780.
After her, the rulers are more accurately called the Hapsburg-
Lorraines, as she married the Count of Lorraine. Rooms 18 through
20 were other small rooms.
Next was the Gallery, used for balls and state functions. The
chandeliers are now electric, but used to hold 2000 candles. The
ceiling is covered with frescoes painted by Gregorio Guigielmi. Off
this room were two smaller rooms done in a Chinese motif.
Room 25 was dominated by a portrait of the Spanish Riding
School (Spanische Hofreitschule), a training school for the famous
Lippizaner stallions. (I guess the ERA 8* 9 has not yet reached the
Spanish riding school.)
__________
* The ERA is the (proposed) Equal Rights Amendment: 'Equality of
rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the
United States or by any State on account of sex.'
Room 27 featured portraits of a royal wedding, that of Maria
Theresa's son Joseph and Princess Isabella. One painting shows the
wedding feast: the royal family is eating and the other 95% of the
guests have the honor of watching them eat. There is also a
painting of a concert given as part of the festivities for which
over a hundred people arranged to have their portraits included,
including Mozart.
Next was the Blue Chinese Room, whose wallpaper was ink on rice
paper which had been patched with tape at one time and now has
horrible tape marks. |
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