Day 85: Vienna

August 12, 2012

Despite the wonderful prospect of seeing Vienna for the first time, we started out with the wonderful prospect of having a whole day for our laundry to dry. So we did a wash, and chewed the fat with our fellow camper/cyclists, before thinking about heading into the city. We have now thankfully come far enough that we can impress the others with the distance, and not just with our goofy bikes.

Talking cycle touring with people from Hungary, Italy, and !!

We forgot to look at the sheet that the camping office had given us about how to get into the city, so we just strolled 5 minutes over to the train station. We expected to talk to a ticket agent there about going to the city, and most importantly, going back to Germany in a couple of days. All we found at the Klosterneuberg station, though, was a ticket machine that we did not even want to attempt because of the language barrier.

Fortunately a young man nearby noticed us puzzling over it, and gave us a quick lesson, including the “English” button! For 4 Euros we bought two tickets into the city (10 km away). In the city, we hopped the U-Bahn for a few stops, to near the core of the interesting stuff. No one asked for our first tickets and we neglected to buy any for the U- Bahn leg, since there was a gaggle of people clogging up the ticket machine. It is an honour system here. We learned that mostly people have annual passes, at much reduced daily prices, and that checking for (and providing service to) the one time only users is low priority.

As we travelled in, we noted –as we have in so many other wonderful cities – that the outskirts are normally modern and ugly. Vienna was not so much ugly as drab. There was little to foreshadow the wonders to come.

Even when we got out of the S-Bahn at Schwedenplatz, not very far from St. Stephens cathedral, the de facto centre of the magnificent old city, the buildings were not so exciting and the shops were peppered with pizza or kebab outlets.

Second look, also mundane, except the ice cream shop in the background turned out to be very old and famous

However, in 200 meters we hit our first wonderful thing. It was a Greek Orthodox church, sandwiched among other buildings. We took the liberty of stepping in. There we found a totally different style of decoration from the Roman Catholic churches we had been visiting. Of course, inscriptions in Greek told us little, but it was still interesting.

Along the early part of the Donau we had briefly made the acquaintance of two cyclists who turned out to be from Vienna. As so often happens with people you meet on the road, they invited us to look them up when we got to Vienna. We had done that, and had a rendezvous with the couple, Christiane and Robert, near city hall, at noon. That did not give us much time, and we found that we were marching right through the middle of the most mind boggling stuff, scarcely able to look at it, and getting frustrated as a result.

Talk about scads of tourists! Many were in groups, with guides waving flags.

First look at St Stephens, in the heart of the old town

Things changed when Christiane and Robert collected us off the steps where we had been waiting. Out on the road we had really made only the briefest acquaintance with them. Christiane had said she was a “teacher”, and Robert had not actually said too much at all. Now we found two extremely erudite and interesting people. Robert, a free lance computer consultant with clients all around the city, also had an interest in history, architecture, and politics. He was able to give us the inside story on much that we were seeing as we strolled towards a place to eat. Christiane was just a “teacher” like the Pope is just a “priest”. In fact she is the director, conductor, and who knows what else of the Vienna Children’s Choir, and had formerly been an opera singer. I need to verify these facts exactly, but I think she is in charge of 70- 90 or something music schools, and does things like coordinating a concert given by all schools in unison. (When we parted, she gave us a CD of a recent concert (we think) and a booklet about it. We are a bit vague because we have not yet had a chance to really look at it.)

The place we strolled to was the Central Café, just one of scads of elegant coffee houses, for which Vienna is famous. I decided on Weiner Schnitzel, just so as to be able to say I tried “Vienna” schnitzel in Vienna. At the Central it is properly made from veal, while pork is the standard in other places. Dodie had goulash, another standard, which she declared excellent. My schnitzel, while ok, was actually easily beaten by the one the lady had prepared for us in the little restaurant at our first camping in Switzerland. One of the keys is pan fry vs, deep fry. It has to be pan fried, in y now expert opinion!

The pastries were something else again. I had the house torte, while Dodie had something named after Gustav Klimt, a bon vivant and painter from here, around 1900. These were excellent, and whatever the creation was that Christiane got, she loved it!

Robert was able to share many facts about the town

This says something like you may pass until we say you can't

These punschkrappen have candied Violets

We parted from our new friends after about three hours, so grateful for the chance to sit with some true Vienna residents, and for the time they had spent showing us around.

Now we shifted to the walk on/walk off bus, and spun around the city, trying to get oriented. The closest comparison to Vienna is Paris. That is, it features large, ornate, mind blowing buildings, housing government, church, and music places. The streets are often wide, and the plazas grand. There are giant, fanciful statues everywhere, and the bus tour has maybe 40 major sites to talk about. (I will get out the pamphlet later, and try counting them!)

Vienna is a smaller city, overall, and the major sites are that much more accessible and concentrated. In the core areas, cars are not much in evidence, and so do not risk ruining the place and the experience. Rather, horse drawn caleches are common, and add a romantic air.

Especially late as it is, it would be crazy to try to describe all there is to see and experience in this wonderland. So here, anyway, are some of our photos, with captions as possible. I hope you will get the general idea at least. Tomorrow we are going back for another kick at the cat, and so another look at the city will get posted here as well. I will also try to make that more focussed...

Vienna buildings - this site featured in the movie The Third Man

Jewellery and expensive fashion in many stores

The Sacher, the Demel, and the Gerstener are the major old pastry places

Our Demel bill - ouch. However the coffee was the best in a long time!

An all sugar wedding dress in Demel's window

Buildings in Vienna - dome in the winter palace

A demonstration downtown for Syrian freedom

Inside St Stephens: two kinds of people - those up front were praying believers, those behind the gate were just taking in the scene

A good looking sacher torte at Zanoni. Gotta try it soon!

Starbucks, yecch, but actually, authentic USA style junk.

McDonald's interesting names for their actually authentic poor quality food.

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