Advertisement
Published: June 12th 2018
Random house
Vienna, AustriaUp early for a bus tour of Vienna, culminating in a visit to the Schönbrunn Palace. The bus takes us through the centre of the old city, then circumnavigates the core on the ring road, which follows the path of the old city walls. An interesting aspect of the ring road is that it has a centre lane originally for carriages and now used by motor vehicles, a second lane originally for riders on horseback and now used by bicycles, and a third outside lane for pedestrians. Vienna is absolutely gorgeous. Our guide has us looking left and right, left and right as wonderful buildings, each worthy of hours of inspection, file by on either side faster than one can keep track them.
I have to admit that I am surprised by the prevelance of graffiti in Vienna. The walls of the canals are one thing, and some of the "art" there is not bad, but the city is awash in graffiti on most vertical surfaces. I'd hardly notice it in an American city, but in a city as venerable and gorgeous as Vienna, it seems very sad.
We eventually arrive at Schönbrunn Palace, a short distance outside the
city centre. This was the summer home of the Hapsburgs dynasty for several centuries. The palace in its present form was built mostly by Empress Maria Theresa around 1750. It remained the imperial summer residence until the fall of the Hapsburgs in 1918, when it became the property of the Austrian state.
Our guide takes us inside and through the main resplendent rooms of the 1441 in the palace. The palace immediately reminds me of Versailles. Pretty much everything we see is original. The palace was mostly spared during the last war, sustaining only minor damage. More importantly, everything moveable—furniture, statues, cutlery, paintings, etc.—was removed from the palace for safekeeping during the war. As in Versailles, many of the rooms are "themed". There is a Chinese room with gorgeous black Chinese lacquers on the wall; a Japanese room decorated with rice-paper designs; an Indian room with semi-erotic engravings; and so on. There are several rooms with enormous paintings depicting significant events at the palace, each with of hundreds of figures faithfully rendered after real people who attended. The boy Mozart is in one painting, but apparently was added later after he became famous.
The tour finished, we have
Garden fountain
Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria free time to wander around the vast gardens at the back of palace, the size of a large city park. This area is organized into large squares, with paths around the edges as well as forming an X inside the square. At almost every junction of paths, there is a statue, fountain or gazebo of some kind. The garden contains mostly greenery—trees and shrubbery—rather than flowers. But in the very centre adjacent to the palace is an open garden promenade with a wide variety of colourful flowers in the centre and a series of Roman-inspired statues on either side, stretching back to the palace. On our way out, we discover a side rose garden with many exotic rose varieties. Some of the roses are more trees than bushes, entwined in high arbours.
Rejoining our guide, we are bused to the city centre and dropped off in the heart of Old Vienna. A 10-minute walk takes us to St. Stephan's Cathedral, arguably the city's centrepiece. There are many shops and restaurants catering to the tourist trade. As we're now hungry, we pick out a restaurant that appears to offer Austrian food. (It would be easier to find a Chinese, Italian
Fountain and facade
Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria or Turkish restaurant.) The menu is German only. We order beer and pick two dishes more or less at random. Mine is julienned ham, cheese, pickle and purple onion. Vi's is a kind of hashed steak with sauce and potatoes. They both fit the bill.
Violet has realized that her purse, a special one with anti-theft features, is starting to come apart. Thus we are on a quest for a new purse. Everything we find is too expensive or not suitable, until at last on the way out to meet the bus we find something that satisfies Vi's criteria.
We shuttle back to the ship at 4:30 pm. After supper, we are treated to a Viennese waltz demonstration on board. A wonderful and entertaining couple takes us through the history and development of the waltz. The show concludes with a lesson in the basic waltz steps. I happily volunteer and don't make too big a fool of myself.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.09s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0693s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
