Rosie and The Operator are headed to Vienna, the city of beautiful decadence and the capitol of Austria for a three day visit. We have never visited this city before and have been told it is an incredible must see.
We are self driving from our overnight stop in Levoca, Slovakia and most of the four hour journey flashed by quickly in a combination of secondary road and motorway. The morning was clear and crisp, the Slovakian Tatras Mountains made an appearance for us, showing their snowy tops on the horizon as we followed the range across the country to Austria.
Rosie is excited as we drove into the center of Vienna , this city has been on Rosie’s bucket list for a long time. Everyone Rosie has ever spoken to about this city has said it is just magical and now, here we are about to experience it firsthand! We parked our car under a square one block over from where we were staying and paid the most expensive rate we have ever done anywhere in the world for 24 hour parking. 68NZD, per day! Don’t tell anyone, it is a bit embarrassing. You certainly are in the big smoke now Rosie, our tiny Opal Corsa was keeping esteemed company alongside a Porsche, Lamborghini, BMW X6, Ferrari, Bentley, various Mercedes models and other European exotica.
We are staying in the JudenPlatz area of Vienna and were a little early to meet our apartment key holder. So, what else could we do but sit down in the square at a bar right outside our front door and wait 20 minutes quietly supping in the sunshine. Our apartment was behind the statue on the third floor of the third building in. This very handy restaurant and bar was on the corner and further along down the alley between the buildings was the most amazing pastry and coffee shop.
We are staying an easy stroll away from most of the sights we wanted to see in Vienna. So, lets get out and about and have a look around.
Vienna is magnificent! Rosie is going all out and going to say it is one of the top five big hitting cities in the whole wide world after only being there for five minutes! Every single building is huge, wide, tall, opulent and richly decorated with statuary or decoration. Every single building is so extraordinary that when viewed side by side they all just blend together and become ordinary so stated The Operator.
The avenues were wide and buzzing with people as we wandered towards the Cathedral. On the way there we took in the cities stunning Plague Column. It is truly majestic and in true Viennese style so, so, so huge and elaborate. This 69 foot baroque mercy monument was erected after the great bubonic plague of 1679 that killed 76,000 inhabitants of the city! The backstory on the link is pretty awesome.
Across the square is this impressive building, Rosie is not sure if the blackened frontage is one of the rare carbon encrusted ones in this pristine city…or if it is supposed to give the impression of being…dirty.
Anyway, on the corner of the building, up high, unnoticed by the masses who walk past staring at bigger, grander things is a glass tubular case which holds part of an ancient tree. This is the Stock im Eisen (Staff in Iron) which is the midsection of a tree trunk from the middle ages where nails have been pounded into it for good luck.
These nail trees were common throughout Europe in the middle ages. It was thought that the practice of sacrificing something what would have been at the time a fairly valuable item, a metal nail, done as an act of thanks or in the hope of good luck and safe return if going to war or a journey.
The spruce tree has been dated to the year 1400, with the first nails driven into it while it was still alive. It was cut down some 40 years later. This 7 foot fragment has been on display on this street corner since 1548. Rosie does love a good yarn and backstory….but it was bloody hard to get a good photo of the lump of wood through the glass with a million reflections. Boy, oh boy….those nails did look huge, handmade and ancient!
Just a little further off the beaten track is another odd scrap of history that tickled Rosie’s fancy. On one of the oldest city streets in Vienna is this scrap of medieval street art that has survived since 1509. According to archives most of the ‘fine houses’ in Vienna at that time were covered in colourful murals inside and out, depicting religious motifs and scenes from everyday life, including humor and political drawings. Over time they have all been painted and covered over.
This small scrap was left uncovered when it was refurbished in the 1800s….it shows a wolf playing backgammon with a cow wearing spectacles, the legs and red tunic of a man stand over them keeping the flies away with a swat….its bizarre, yes. Plus it took Rosie and The Operator soooo long to find LOL.
Just around the corner from the medieval graffiti, in the oldest square in Vienna, suspended high above an alleyway forming a bridge is The Anchor Clock. It was built in 1911 and is an Art Nouveau design. During the course of twelve hours historical figures parade across the bridge. At noon, everyday all of the figures come out and parade accompanied by music from that era.
Back to more traditional sightseeing and here we are, outside the Cathedral of St Stephen in the center of Vienna!
This Cathedral does not look as huge and imposing as they normally do because it is surrounded by equally impressive hugeness on all sides. What does set it apart is the colourful, beautifully tiled roof….and the scaffolding with the Samsung 1o advertising on it…really! Typical Rosie luck.
Inside the church it is a warm beige colour, the colour of the natural stone it was built from in the 12th century. It is the perfect colour for reflecting the light from the windows high above and giving the interior an ethereal warm glow.
Looking down towards the far end of the church, the light dissipates and like a tunnel it gets dimmer and dimmer. Rosie has been into a lot of churches lately…and she means a lot…they all have their own originality and beauty even though the standard recipe is the same. What sets this church apart and draws your eye and has your jaw gaping is the incredible suspended artwork of floating ‘rocks’ above the main isle.
It is just beautiful! The colour of the paper mache ‘rocks’ match the light and colour of the church so perfectly. The floating art looks like a beautiful heavenly celestial body itself floating above the heads of the faithful. The floating formation works so well with the tiled, cheque floor in drawing your eyes up towards the holy alter. The perfect marketing ploy for revering God employed by the Catholic Church through the ages. Rosie could not stop taking photos!
We also visited the North tower of the cathedral, it is not the tallest out of the four towers and is the only one that is unfinished, but the bonus, it has a lift taking you to the lookout point over the city and it gives you a really good view and photo opportunity for the tiled rooftop. Rosie opted out of manually climbing the 364 stairs of the tallest tower on the South Side. Been there climbed that in many other churches, there are not that many ancient churches with a lift so lets make the most of it.
Well the views were spectacular, of course and as for the tiled roof….you judge!
Our next stop was The Kaisergruft or The Imperial Crypt. It is housed underneath a rather innocuous church in the Campuchin Monastery. This burial vault was built exclusively for the internment of the one of the most famous dynasties in world history – The Habsburgs, who resided in, and pretty much built the Vienna we see today whilst ruling over most of Europe from 1438 until their downfall during WW1.
The first Habsburg was laid to rest here in 1633 and, since that time 149 further members of the family, including 12 Emperors and 19 Empresses all have their impressive caskets lying here side by side.
It is not a creepy place, instead it is quite stark and rather crowded….with bodies. Most of the amazing sarcophagus coffins lie side by side in quite close quarters, row upon row.
The coffins themselves are quite amazing themselves in the detailing and lavishness.
The largest memorial is in a domed chamber dominated by a huge double sculptural coffin that holds the Empress Marie Theresa and her husband Emperor Franz I. The Empress was the only female Hapsburg who ruled the dynasty, and she did that for 40 years. The coffin is Baroque in its gigantic detailing and the Empress, apparently being the ever practical woman that she was had it sculpted to her liking well before her death. The royal couples effigies lie on top whilst the scenes on the sides of the coffins show images of their political life.
The same chamber also houses many of her 16 children. What a great walk through this crypt was!
Around the corner the stairs of the Albertina Art Gallery are just amazing, you can only see the decoration only when you go up them…it was funny to see the looks on people’s faces coming down, when they got to the bottom and turned around to see what everyone else was taking a picture of.
In the courtyards around this giant complex of buildings are sculptures and fountains on par with Rome and these charging giant horseman all have the most amazing and vibrant copper green patina to them like all of the statues in the city.
This is how classy Vienna is…a mobile champagne bar in the square…just in case you get caught short and need a quick re charge of the batteries.
To be perfectly honest Rosie does not even know, or cannot remember what a lot of the buildings were, but they were magnificent in their size and grandeur and Rosie is just reeling.
The Hofburg Palace (below) was incredible in its size and setting and it was like stepping back in time when the horse and carriages ferrying tourists on a tour of the city clip clopped past the front wing. There were also a couple of wigged and knickerbockered men selling classical theater tickets outside the entryway fitting right into the sense of travelling back in time.
The Hofburg Palace was built in the 13th Century and has been expanded many times over the centuries. For over 600 years this was the primary Imperial Palace and official residence of the Hapsburg family that ruled over most of Europe until 1918 when WW1 ended their monarchy.
But wait, the palace extends out the back and there is more grandness to behold. Today this sprawling complex of 18 wings, 19 courtyards and 2,600 rooms in which over 5,000 people still work in today, including the President of Austria still buzzes with life.
Just around the corner is the area of the city known as The Museum Quarter. Once grand palaces of royalty and the aristocracy which have been transformed into some of the world’s best museums and art galleries.
The buildings are a spectacle to behold and it made a really nice wander around. Rosie is surprised how much of Vienna still allows cars to whiz around in the old part, most other grand cities in the world have banned traffic and it would be a pleasure if Vienna did the same. The grand buildings just are not the same with mass car parks in front of them.
This triumphal arch then takes you into the beautiful Maria Theresa Plaza where directly in front of you is the huge commemorative statue erected in 1888 of the Lady Empress herself flanked on either sides by near identical grand buildings. Get this, they were formally the Royal Stables!
They have now been transformed into the Natural Museum of History and The Art History Museum. It is an incredible sight to behold and once again so, so huge and Rosie cannot get over the wealth of the day.
A piano accordion has been playing a lively tune whilst Rosie has been walking around taking her photos. Rounding the large statue of The Empress she sees who is playing so skillfully and does a double take….OK, that is funny and weird…and would be so hot and annoying…but each to his own.
Across the road and inside the courtyard more Museums and Galleries are clustered, it is a mix of modern, trendy and old. Colourful interlocking plastic chairs are stacked in the courtyard and large signs hang advertising exhibitions. These stairs too are painted and funky on the front face…as you would expect ascending to an art gallery.
Carrying on our stroll down the road, a wing, yes, a wing, it is that big, of the Vienna Town Hall peeps out between the buildings….it still takes about 5 mins for Rosie to walk around it to the front of it.
Noooooo, it is undergoing reconstruction and has a scaffold and a huge wrap around the beautiful central spire. Never mind, you win some you loose some. Luckily one of the best apple strudel cafes is just across the road.
Time for a coffee and a break. Cafe Landtmann is a local institution that has been operating as a cafe and churning out its handmade Apple Strudel since 1873! Now Rosie has already been sampling the strudel in this town, this is so far her 4th piece and she can say hands down this was the best she has had in Vienna. A clear cut winner to be sure.
Along with the strudel Rosie and The Operator have been sampling alot of coffee. Vienna is big on coffee and takes it all very seriously. There are alot of different styles to choose from and sample. All coffee is strong, dark and bold. It always comes on a silver tray with a glass of water and a spoon sitting across the top of the water, balanced to perfection in the hands of the glum looking, rushing waiters. A Weiner Melange (below) is similar to a cappuccino and is what you order with your cake or strudel.
Rosie’s favorite…An Einspanner – a cup of cream and you pour the espresso over the top and watch the cream float ….delicious! Rosie loves the whole little ceremony and display.
A KleinBrauner or a GrossBrauner (small or large) espresso with a small jug of heated milk on the side so you can add how much milk you like was Rosie and The Operators go to morning starter. The Operator likes a dash of milk, Rosie likes the rest.
The Juden Platz where Rosie and The Operator are staying was in the heart of the Jewish district where 65,000 Jews were taken and exterminated by the Germans during the war. It is a quiet square compared to the hustle and bustle which is only a couple of streets away. There are plenty of terraces, restaurants, cafes and bakeries and we had most of our meals locally just steps away from our door. Vienna is quite expensive and these local meals were some of the cheapest we had and some of the most delicious!
This lunch special started with a creamy zuchinni soup and the main course was a Tirolergrostle….which Rosie had to google first before ordering to see what it was….what a delight it was to discover that it was a version of bubble and squeak with a runny egg on the top! There were fried potatoes and about three different types of sausage and ham fried throughout it. The Kraut salad was crunchy and only slightly sour with cumin seeds in it adding an interesting taste. Yummo!
Everything we saw today was so easily walkable and according to her iphone stats Rosie trotted a daily total of 10.7km and did on average 14,235 steps. Yes, Rosie certainly earnt another giant strudel with lashings of whipped cream for pudding!
Tomorrow we are going abit further afield to visit the Royal Residence of Schonbrunn Palace and then a 1 hour drive up the road along the Danube River to visit the Abbey and the small town of Melk.
