Final impressions of Vienna

Vienna, Austria en route to Prague, Croatia - I'm writing to you from a train transiting northwest to Prague from Vienna. These are some final impressions of Vienna we wanted to leave you with. Like some other posts, I'm going to use bullet points here because I am unable or unwilling to weave these mostly unrelated points into a meaningful narrative. Frankly, I don't think there's a good way to transition you, dear reader, from say, our experience at the historical art museum, to say, the our experience at various Christmas markets scattered around Vienna. Anyway, here it goes:

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien (Historical Art Museum Vienna)

We quite liked this museum. The museum building itself is spectacular. It was built in the late 19th century in the twilight of the Austrian empire. No expense was sparred to prop up the cultural relevance of the nation. The neo-baroque grand entry hall takes you up a stunning marble staircase with neoclassical statuary and adorned with paintings by Klimt, Makart, and others. We went there primarily to see a special exhibit of paintings by Caravaggio and statues by Bernini, who are credited with shepherding the development of the baroque style out of its artistic antecedent, mannerism. Baroque is basically the soap opera of artistic styles and artists were encouraged to go big or go home (more or less) with color, contrast, detail, drama, etc. to generate an elevated emotional response. For Caravaggio, in particular, this meant a lot of homoeroticism. The baroque style was encouraged by the Catholic church as a counter to Protestantism, which emphasized austerity. Basically, the Catholic church made it clear that the party is over here. 

Beyond this special exhibit, the Kunsthistorisches contains an enormous collection of other art the Hapsburgs commissioned or pilfered over the years. Notable artists include Bruegel, Drurer, Titian, Raphael, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velaquez, van Eyck. Unsurprisingly, much of this collection dates to the height of the Hapsburgs' rule, from roughly the mid-15th century to the mid-18th century. 

This is a great museum. We recommend a visit. Thanks to Wikipedia and KHM.at for much of the material above. 

Grand Entry Hall to Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

Imperial apartments, Silver collection, and Sisi Museum

The former imperial apartments, the imperial silver collection, and the Sisi Museum are all housed together at the Vienna Hofsburg, the former imperial palace. The Hofsburg, a sprawling complex constructed over centuries by various Hapsburg monarchs (each of whom absolutely had to add their own wing) is now divided up into government offices and museums and other public buildings. Frankly, these exhibits (apartments, silver collection, Sisi) were a bit of a bore. If you're in Vienna, I'd recommend you visit the Schonbrunn, and skip this. The imperial apartments are interesting, but a lot of the characters they talk about (Franz Joseph I, Maria Theresa, Elizabeth) were already well covered by the Schonbrunn and the tour is relatively short in comparison. The silver collection is magnificent, but you get the picture after a couple of rooms. Elizabeth (AKA, Sisi) is some kind of cultural icon in Austria and she doesn't really translate to an American audience. Apparently, there are movies mythologizing her, making her into some kind of salt-of-the-earth, woman-of-the-people-type monarch who pushed back against out-of-touch rules and traditions from a sclerotic monarchy. The museum made it pretty clear that was a lot of nonsense: she spent most of her time travelling out of Austria, assiduously avoiding anything political or otherwise related to the monarchy, and suffering from frequent depressive episodes. 

Good use of Scaffolding

Unsurprisingly, some of Vienna's many elaborate historical buildings were undergoing maintenance while we were visiting and these buildings were typically covered in part or in whole with ugly scaffolding running up their exterior. The Austrians, however, have monetized these eyesores, allowing major corporate sponsors to put up huge advertisements on the scaffolding on some of their most architecturally precious buildings. How enterprising. 

Catholicism at St. Stephen's Cathedral, brought to you by Coca Cola. 

Christmas Markets

The Christmas markets in Vienna are roughly similar to those in Zurich (and probably elsewhere): lot's of small-scale vendors operating out of tiny and temporary wooden huts. These markets are scattered around town and vary in size. The main one, outside of Parliament, covers several football fields in area. The food and drink is fun German street food, but is largely the same from market to market. The food includes lots of meat (mostly sausage), doughy stuff (pancakes, fried dough, etc.) made either sweet or salty, cheese, and nuts made either sweet or salty. Alcohol is widely available but weirdly, few people are drunk. Most of the drinks are sweet: ciders or mulled wines are common.

Relative to Zurich, the Vienna Christmas markets have a much larger share of tchotchke vendors. Most of them are selling junk (Christmas ornaments, snow globes, etc.), but a few have nice hand-crafted wares (H was a big fan of some pottery stalls).

Your lovely authors, outside an Xmas market

Overhead lighting at a Xmas market

Premier Vienna Xmas Market at Parliament. Hard to see, but Parliament building has scaffolding and a Samsung sponsorship.

Viennese Meal

We ate a traditional Viennese meal last night at a restaurant known for serving such fare. Having done it, I would say this is also miss-able. The beef broth soup with pancake strips was good, but one-dimensional. The pork dishes we got came with a very bland bread dumpling (a giant gluten gummy ball) and stewed sauerkraut. These were also boring, and rather heavy to boot.

Beef broth soup

Danube and Augarten

On our last day in Vienna, we visited Leopoldstadt, which lies on an island that bisects the Danube and the Wien river, a tributary of the Danube. I was on a mission to see the Danube (more on that later), and the Leopoldstadt was in the way.  

The most remarkable part of our visit to Leopoldstadt was the Augarten, which is a large park. Originally a hunting lodge, this was gradually expanded into a baroque park with an imperial residence over several centuries. Then the Nazi's came. The Nazi's erected the two most prominent structures in the park (still standing): flak towers. These are absolutely enormous structures, measuring about 140-170 feet tall. These towers came in pairs: an L-tower (lead tower) with command and radar functions had less firepower; and a larger G-tower (gun tower) with more firepower. They were designed primarily to defend against air raids and included radar facilities, enormous flak guns, large civilian bunkers, and lots of supplies. They also served as a last-resort defensive position against allied ground assault (otherwise known as liberation), and they proved surprisingly difficult holdouts. Apparently, the red army just ran around them, figuring it was easier to simply wait out the Nazis inside.

Apparently demolition of these towers is difficult, designed as they were to resist exactly that, and many remain. Vienna has three pairs, or six total towers. Three towers are unused by humans, though widely used by pigeons. These include the two we saw in Augarten. Among the towers currently in use in Vienna, one is is an aquarium (interior) and climbing wall (exterior), another is used by the Austrian military, and the third is used as a supply closet for art (very secure). 

Now, the Danube. Seeing as this was the most significant natural geographical feature of the city, it was my view that it must be interesting. I therefore conducted absolutely no research, but rather drew a straight line from our hotel to the river and proceeded to march the four miles or so over there, an increasingly doubtful H in tow the whole way. To be fair,  everything leading up to, and including, the Augarten (most of the walk) was very interesting. It was the mile or so after the Augarten that was disappointing, as it was mostly boring industrial or boring residential. The Danube itself has an impassable highway and train track running along its bank and so we were stymied in our ability to reach it. We were forced to go some length downstream before we found a bridge with a walking path over it. It was at that point that we were able to confirm what had already become clear: the Danube (at least from where we were situated) is very boring. 

Imperial Residence at Augarten

Nazi Flak Tower. I believe this was a larger G Tower.

Miscellaneous

• H attended a Christmas concert in St. Stephen's cathedral. I also intended to go, but my stomach protested, making it very clear that it (my stomach) preferred that I spend most of my evening on the toilet. So, I can't tell you much about the concert except that it was classical chamber music that H describes as "operatic" performed in a remarkable setting: St. Stephen's is a catholic cathedral and Vienna's most prominent religious landmark. As with many cathedrals, it's quite awe-inspiring, though I unfortunately didn't spend a lot of time taking in the details due to my stomach discomfort, though I can report that it most definitely does not have a bathroom.
• Weirdly, Vienna is littered with scales, for like, measuring the weight of humans. Each of these costs 0.20 euro for a weigh-in. You'll see them randomly scattered on streets, particularly around train stations. Apparently, these were introduced in the late 19th century as a sort of industrial marvel. Later, they were promoted as a public health tool, with gender-specific ideal weights. In the 1970s, people realized public fat-shaming was not productive and many scales disappeared, but there are still a surprising number still around. (Source: Secret Vienna)
• H and I have noticed that blankets are widely available at bars and restaurants with outdoor seating. This allows patrons to eat outside - and smoke - even in the dead of winter. 

Note blankets on chairs and blanket user, top left.

Vienna State Opera House. We didn't go, so I don't have any detail to share, except that the building is pretty.

Lovely photo from H of a small church near the Wien river

St. Stephen's Cathedral

In case you were just itching to know what you weigh...