First week in Vienna

Theseus Temple Vienna

Votivkirche

We have been in Vienna for a week now.  We have a very nice apartment conveniently located near a subway stop and other public transport, and within comfortable walking range of our German classes.  It is not even uncomfortably far to walk downtown.  There are lots of grocery stores, restaurants and other shopping within a few blocks.  The apartment is two large rooms with high ceilings, on the inner courtyard of a five story building, so it is quite quiet, but there is also not much difference in the light between a cloudy day and a sunny one.  But, in fact, the weather has been quite pleasant, mostly in the 60s and occasionally in the 70s.  There have been a few light showers, but no long periods of rain.  

Mozart

Schubert and Beethoven memorials

The German classes take up a lot of our time right now.  Ron has classes in the morning.  There have only been 4 people in his class, but this week it will have 8.  My beginners’ class meets in the afternoon; 90 minutes of grammar and 90 minutes of conversation.  Last week we had 10 students – 3 Swiss, 2 Russians, 1 Czech, 1 Mexican, 1 Australian, and 1 English.  This week we lost one Swiss and the Czech and gained a Swiss, Greek, and American.  I feel like I am doing OK with the grammar, but it is still really hard to build up vocabulary.  

It is interesting to have to explore the city separately.  It is a good stretch for me.  We have both been

Brahms

tending to explore around by subway and tram and then on foot, but not to go into the museums yet, because we don’t really have time.  I have been going into churches, almost all of which have been interesting to some degree or another.  Ron has been seeking out memorials and statues to composers and writers.  We also sought out the Theseus Temple in the Volksgarten, which is looking all nicely cleaned up.  Vienna is a big city with around 3 million people, so it is larger than DC.  It is even more monumental, given its imperial history.  So even just looking at the outsides of buildings is interesting.

Mayer am Pfarrplatz heurige

This weekend we took a fun expedition to the other side of the city.  We are south of the city center, and we took a tram to the northern district of Heiligenstadt.  There we got on a bus to go up into the hills.  We were trying to find a particular heurige or wine restaurant.  We asked the bus driver if we were on the right bus to Pfarrplatz, and he said yes, but neglected to tell us that the stop was not called that.   We did not bother to consult our map.  It actually turned into one of those fortuitous travel adventures.  We drove on and on, through the town of Grinzing which is chock-a-block with quaint restaurants, and up to the top of the hill and the end of the line. We emerged to a spectacular view of Vienna, although the day was somewhat hazy/smoggy.  The whole area is a park with lots of hiking trails and even a farm petting zoo.  There was a very broad paved path which looked like it was a way to walk all the way back down into the city.  There were a couple of restaurants there with lots of outdoor seating.  One of them seemed to be having a festival to celebrate the new wine harvest.  I think the local radio station was there providing music and commentary.  The music, however, was 50s American country – friendly but odd.

Beethoven

Beethoven Haus

After wandering around for a bit and consulting our map carefully, we got back on a bus, and successfully found our restaurant, Mayer am Pfarrplatz.  They bottle their own wine, at least some of which is grown nearby.  They were also featuring the pumpkin harvest, so we had cream of pumpkin soup and pumpkin risotto for lunch, both very good.  Heiligenstadt used to be a distant suburb and had a mineral spring, so it was a place people went in the summer for their health, including Ludwig van Beethoven.  The restaurant claims he stayed there in 1817.  A half a block down the street is another building in which he may have stayed which has a few rooms converted into a museum.  It highlighted his Heiligenstadt Testimony, which is a despairing letter he wrote to his brothers about his health and growing deafness.  He talks about how he feels isolated from people who now think of him as grumpy and misanthropic.  Not only does he miss hearing birds singing, for instance, but it is also an embarrassing disability to have as a musician, even though he does in fact continue to write beautiful music.

Karlskirche

Karlskirche altar

Saturday evening we went to a performance of the Mozart Requiem in the Karlskirche, which is an amazing Rococo church downtown.  The wall behind the altar has a huge golden sunburst with Jesus ascending to heaven.  So the setting was spectacular.  The church also has an echo which lasted 2-3 seconds, which provides a dramatic close to the musical passages.  The chorus was 13 people including the four soloists.  The orchestra was small but quite adequate for the space.  All in all, a very satisfying experience.

Sunday afternoon we went on a tour given by the school of the Hapsburg palace area in the heart of the city.  We went around the outside of the complex and saw a number of things which we hadn’t caught ourselves yet, so it was well worth doing.  And we have a better idea of what to go back to.  The tour was in German.  She did a good job of speaking slowly and clearly, and since I have been reading some of the history, I could follow it a little, and Ron did some translating for me.

Lipizzaner Horse Stable

We have a number of musical performances planned and other sightseeing, so there will be more to write about later.

Schonbrunn Summer Palace