| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 10 February 2005 |
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It was in this room that Charles I abdicated,
ending World War I and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Then came the Black Chinese Room, which was also Maria
Theresa's audience room, and had a hardwood floor made of fourteen
woods. The next room had Flemish tapestries.
Room 31 was the Porcelain Room, though little in it was
actually porcelain. Most of it was carved wood painted blue and
white done by Maria Theresa's husband, Francis I.
The Million Room is so called because it cost a million
florins. The rosewood trim, for example, was hidden from the
Germans in the Salzburg salt mines during World War II. The frames
surround 17th Century Indian miniatures--I could spend a whole day
here just looking at these. And the ceiling isn't painted--it's
embroidered (from Isfahan). It's gorgeous! I wish we had more time
and I wish I could have gotten close enough to see the miniatures
(though the binoculars helped).
Next were more Brussels tapestries. Peter (our guide) also
pointed out that the long hallway we were using was not what was
used in the emperors' time. Then, people used small doorways into
the center core where the bathrooms, stairways, etc., were. They
weren't 'hidden' doorways, but they were cleverly disguised to be
unobtrusive.
Room 34 was in memory of Napoleon's son, Napoleon Franz. Two
more small rooms followed, then the Throne Bed Room. The throne bed
was actually moved from Hofburg and no empress ever received people
from it in Schoenbrunn.
The remaining rooms were small and relatively unimportant.
This doesn't mean that they weren't heavily decorated, of course. I
guess simplicity was not considered a stylistic virtue. If you've
got it, flaunt it, and all that sort of thing. And, boy, did these
people flaunt it! Not that the common folk ever got a chance to see
this, but all the nobility tried to impress all the other nobility.
I guess it's like the New Yorkers of Tom Wolfe's BONFIRE OF THE
VANITIES.
After seeing the inside, we had some time to walk around the
outside in the gardens. These were formal gardens (with 400,000
flowers all precisely laid out). There was a pebble path around the
various sections--well, more than a path as it was probably fifty
feet wide. But under the pebbles was not dirt, but cement. I guess
they have sacrificed a little authenticity for ease of care these
days--and there's no nobility living there to notice anyway.
We drove to Belvedere Palace next. The palace itself no longer
has any furniture and serves (I believe) as an art museum, but most
people come for the view of Vienna from the gardens.
We got the usual dose of history as we rode around. Vienna
used to be the fifth largest city in the world (after London, New
York, Paris, and Berlin). This was back before World War I, when it
was the capital of a large empire, and before cities in developing
countries started exploding. The 'Mexico City' phenomenon was
unknown then.
(Oh, the Belvedere Palace was built by Prince Eugene of Savoy
in 1722 and finished in seventeen months.)
We finished with a drive around the Ringstrasse as our city
guide pointed out the important buildings we were passing. What he
didn't describe or identify was a sculpture near the Danube Canal
with a yellow Star of David and a red triangle on it. I quickly
noted a cross-street so we could investigate. It turned out Mark
had noted the same sculpture and was curious about it, and it was
right on the way to the Prater, so after we were dropped off at the
Opera Housa we took the Underground back. (I keep wanting to say
'Metro,' but it is labeled with a 'U.')
We found the sculpture (whose artist's name I forgot to write
down). It took us about fifteen minutes to translate the
inscription using my dictionary, which was something like, 'Here
stood the Gestapo House. It is shown in ruins, as the Thousand-Year
Reich is, and we the Austrian people declare war is hell. The man
is the eternal (immortal?) victim and the resurrection of the
Austrian people.' (I told you the method wasn't perfect.) The
sculpture itself was like a rough stone doorway with a bronze figure
of a man standing in it and did indeed have a yellow Jewish star and
a red triangle (Communist? political prisoner?) on it. It seems to
be a memorial to Holocaust victims from those, though the
inscription omits this.
After this, we picked up lunch in a grocery store and ate it on
a bench: bread, bierkase cheese, mascarpone cheese, and strawberry
buttermilk. Then we took the Underground to the Prater.
The Prater is a giant amusement park whose most famous
attraction is its ferris wheel (Riesenrad). The Riesenrad is huge,
197 feet in diameter, and was featured in movies such as THE THIRD
MAN and THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. Instead of seats it has cabins about
ten feet long and five feet wide, fully enclosed. Since this is an
old-style amusement park, where one pays by the ride rather than one
big entrance fee, we decided to ride the Riesenrad (28 schillings
each, or about $2.35). From the top you get a great view of Vienna.
We then took the Underground and a bus to the
Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Military History Museum). We
originally thought we had missed the right stop, but it turned out
that the museum is right between two stops going out; on the return
trip there is a stop right on the corner.
The museum covers the period of the Hapsburgs. It's a funny
feeling seeing a museum dedicated to the past glory of a country
that now is one of the smallest in Europe. One wonders how
Austrians feel seeing it. I won't describe all of it--one military
museum is pretty much like the next--but I will mention the Sarajevo
Room, which contains the car Archduke Ferdinand was riding in when
he was assassinated (it has bullet holes) and his cloak, still
blood-stained. He was assassinated on June 28, 1914, the day my
grandparents got married. (My mother was born April 6, 1917, the
day the United States entered World War I, so you can see my family
is strangely tied to that war.)
On the Underground back (and for that matter, on the way there)
we stopped to read the exhibits on fascism and censorship put up by
(I think) one of the museums. We also saw some pieces of building
ornamentation on display in one of the stations--sort of like Mexico
City has art in their subways. New York has graffiti.
We returned to the hotel by bus, Underground, and tram. By the
time we got off, we were about twenty minutes over the twenty-four
hours on our pass, but we *had* started on time. Okay, it was
slightly illegal.
Dinner was at the Huber Wine Cellar in Neushift, a village
outside of Vienna (more like a suburb these days). First was a cold
cut platter (with very thinly sliced ham like I haven't had in
twenty years), then a roasted meat platter (chicken at last! I'm
getting so tired of red meat), and finally apple strudel, plus a
glass of new wine.
There were musicians playing during dinner. Mojca suggested we
each tip them ten schillings, but Mark and I docked them one
schilling each time they played a non-Austrian song (like 'When the
Saints Go Marching in').
We drove back through the red light district. This is not
nearly as elaborate as the one in Amsterdam; it's more just an area
where the women stand (or walk) in the streets waiting for
customers, and customers know they can find women. It was
drizzling, but Mojca said we were only two or three blocks from the
hotel, so six of us decided to walk back. It started to rain harder
and it wasn't two or three blocks--it was more like ten or fifteen.
We got drenched. So what else is new?
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We had originally been scheduled to have the
morning free in Vienna, but Mojca thought that getting to Budapest
early would be a better idea, especially as our Vienna hotel was so
far out from the center of town. Getting in and our would waste a
lot of whatever time we had. So we left early (8:30 AM) and crossed
the border at Nickelsdorf. The crossing, again, was much faster
than Mojca expected. There were a lot of armed Austrian soldiers
patrolling the town on the Austrian side, though if someone were
going to try to sneak across, why would they do it at a border
crossing?
Money-changing was very easy; they wheel a little exchange
office up to the bus. We exchanged 200 schillings for 1184 forints.
Austrian money will be our basis through Hungary, Romania, and
Bulgaria, as travelers cheques are still too new to them (as I said
earlier). This worked out to about 71 forints to the United States
dollar.
Stop signs here (as in Austria and I think Czechoslovakia) are
in English. That is, they say, 'STOP' rather than the local
equivalent. I wonder why.
My first impression of Hungary was that it was cleaner than
Czechoslovakia, or at least that the houses were better tended. The
small towns didn't have patchy-looking houses the way Czechoslovakia
did.
We ate lunch at a rest stop at Tatabanya. There was a
restaurant but Mark and I had cheese and bread (and I had my Jihlava
beer).
We arrived at the Atrium Hyatt in Budapest and checked in.
This hotel is located right near the Chain Bridge (Szechenyilanchid)
on the Pest side of the Danube River. Until the last century,
Budapest was actually two cities: Buda on the hill on the west bank
of the Danube, and Pest on the plain on the east bank.
Mary took a nap while Mark, Steve, and I walked to the Dohany
Street synagogue, about a mile from our hotel. The Jewish Museum
next door, in the house Theodore Herzl was born in, was closed, but
the synagogue was open. This was all the more remarkable since they
were in the process of renovating it and it isn't open very often.
As it was, the pews and ceiling were covered with plastic sheets to
protect them while the leaky roof was being repaired. But the front
part of the synagogue and the general architecture could still be
seen.
The inside resembled the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam--
rectangular, high-ceilinged, etc. There were two balconies for
women along the sides, so it was basically three stories high.
After the elaborate ornamentation of the churches we had seen, this
seemed to have a much simpler beauty by comparison. Perhaps it was
the lack of representational art ('graven images'), but I think we
all agreed that our reaction to the synagogue was more favorable
than to the churches. And I suppose the fact that we were Jewish
made a difference.
On the way out we talked to the gate-keeper (who I think was
impressed that Mark brought his own yarmulke). The synagogue is
Ashkenazic (though the architecture and especially the twin towers
seemed more Sephardic), and is Conservative. In the garden next
door was a memorial with the date January 18, 1945--the liberation
of Budapest, perhaps. |
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