Vienna - A Fading Grandeur (Part 1)

Well I will start this blog writing about the cities I visited most recently - starting with Vienna.

The capital of Austria and erstwhile home of the Habsburg Dynasty - once the dynasty that preceded over the mighty Austro-Hungarian empire, is a beautiful European city designed to quite simply, impress you a lot. The architecture is an immense mixture of styles presented to you in varying stages of grandeur. I visited this city with my parents and hence, I was unable to witness some of the 'other' aspects of Vienna - the nightlife and the more avante garde areas. Nonetheless, I shall attempt to convey my humble impression of this beautiful city in the next many (not few i.e.) lines.

Day 1:

We arrived in Vienna after a long and tiring flight. The plane had been held up at Frankfurt because of a double booking blunder on Austrian Air's part. However, with the characteristic grit and determination to explore which marks my father (and my little self) as a great traveler, we proceeded straight to the hotel and after taking an hour to freshen up, proceeded straight out. We took the train to Schonbrunn Palace - not really knowing what it was. The reason we went there was because a classical music concert featuring compositions by Mozart and Johann Strauss (not Richard)  had been booked for us there. Additionally, a tour of the palace had also been booked. Being generally enthusiastic about palaces and music, I was quite happy with this arrangement.

One thing that strikes you is that Vienna has 3 modes of public transport for a relatively small city. It has a population of approximately 1.7 million people and yet, they get around using Trams, Buses and an Underground. May be I was visiting Europe with the weight of literature on the European debt crisis on my head - but all this seemed kind of wasteful.

Schonbrunn Palace was indeed worth a visit. It had an audio-guide tour (I love audio-guides!) and was laid out much like the Palace of Versailles - you moved from room to room while the person inside the guide (as I like to think of them) told you interesting bits of history about each room. The primary members of the royal Habsburg Dynasty that feature in almost all the Viennese tours about are Maria Theresa, Franz Josef and his enigmatic wife Elisabeth or Sisi. Maria Theresa was the Queen Victoria-esque figurehead of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A matriarch with a long period of rule, she sired 16 children of which the most famous was Marie Antoinetter. Franz Josef comes much later - I mention this because for the longest time, we thought Maria Theresa was Franz Josef's mother. All quite confusing really. Franz Josef was the king of Austria in the early late 19th and early 20th century. He lived a frugal, disciplined lifestyle and his desk with all its attendant stationary and iron bachelor's bed are all carefully preserved. You can almost imagine the workaholic king rising at 4am every morning and going to work immediately at his desk. His wife Sisi was, as my Dad pointed out, an early Princess Diana. Uncomfortable with the trappings of the conservative Viennese Court, she spent most of her time travelling. While she and her husband had great regard for each other, they marriage was more like an 'open relationship' (as Facebook calls it).

Her apartments and Maria Theresa's were beautifully decorated. Maria Theresa especially had a fondness for Chinese art and a few rooms were done up in exquisite Chinese lacquer work with Chinese pottery. In terms of grandeur and sheer jaw dropping opulence though, the Palace of Versailles scores much higher. The key highlight of the Palace was its lovely gardens. There is a central lawn with a hill on top of which a magnificent 'Gloriette' - a structure akin to a ceremonial or triumphal arch, sits. While the beautifully laid out lawn with its arrangements of tulips and the Gloriette overlooking it a are quite a sight, I just loved the woods surrounding the hill and the cute little pathways that meandered through them. We chose one of these pathways to go down after having huffed and puffed (my parents more than me) up the hill to reach the Gloriette. This is when we encountered the mutant squirrel. This squirrel was large and red and as I understand, quite a common species in Europe; but to us it was rather uncommonly large and red. It was also ridiculously tame and came and sat at our feet, its forelegs held up expectantly for a nut or two. Sadly we had nothing to give it and my mother was quite alarmed by its over-familiarity.

Europeans are quite obsessed with fitness and there were a large number of people jogging up and down the hills, within the woods and along the numerous pathways. As we were leaving the gardens, a large club of joggers descended on the peace of the park - the incredibly fit Vienna marathon runners in front with the poor, out of shape (in Europe that still means you are quite thin, you just pant more and jog a little slower than the rest) stragglers at the back. Other pleasing features of the gardens included a maze and a large set of criss-crossing pathways laid out on either side of the flat lawns usually ending in a glasshouse or a statue or some other oddity. All the bushes and trees were perfectly pruned - I am still not too clear what my stand is on pruning. While it is great for aesthetics, it is quite harsh on the plants.

We ambled in a congenial fashion to the restaurant and feasted on strudels. My father had vegetable strudels while my mother and I polished off an apple strudel with whipped cream each. I had eaten strudels at the Edelweiss Cafe in Mysore but do not recall how they were there. These strudels were obviously quite excellent. A strudel is basically a light puff pastry with apple fillings - and we enjoyed ours immensely. Strudels had of course been approved by Julie Andrews in the song 'Raindrops on Roses' from 'The Sound of Music' (a movie which everyone in Austria seems to think is pretty blah) which has contributed to much of our fascination with strudels and Austria itself.

But another cause for my fascination with Vienna is that it is one of the 3 protagonists (as I like to see it) of one of my favourite books 'An Equal Music'. While most of the story takes place in London, Vienna is mentioned often and affectionately and I was longing to see that side, the musical side of Vienna. And so we trooped to the Orangerie to watch the performance of the Schonbrunn Orchestra. This orchestra with its repertoire was quite obviously designed for tourists - much like the Kathakali performance we saw in Cochin. A set of dramatic and popular pieces were chosen and some levels of entertainment were added by putting in a couple of charismatic opera singers and dancers. This however did not prevent my Dad from falling asleep. But that was to be expected from him at least. My mother and I thoroughly enjoyed the concert. There is something amazing in the way the movement of 'horsehair on acrylic' as Vikram Seth describes it can produce such a mellow, smooth sound. There is something even more amazing about how 10 - 15 of such temperamental instruments at varying pitches can come together as one voice to produce such incredible harmonies. Add a small horn section - a tuba and a clarinet and the result was brilliant. I am not well versed in Western Classical and to me the performance was wonderful. The orchestra really kept us going with their energy and occasional theatrics, especially in the encore (not something you would expect from classical musicians). The first time I heard the tenor (I guess that's what he was) was also quite amazing. His voice seemed to emerge from somewhere in his belly - I couldn't quite believe he was producing such a sound. I don't think I will ever like opera - of course, these singers just performed small pieces from large operas without the usual scale and sets, but it was definitely something different and strangely appealing (I guess I'm just waiting for something like what happened to Amir Khan in 'Dil Chahta Hai' to happen to me). And then there were the dancers. These consisted of an aging man and woman - the man's pants fitted very badly in some areas, enough said. They waltzed through a couple of pieces and hopped around energetically for a couple of others - quite a nice if somewhat eccentric touch. The highlight was when the orchestra played the 'Blue Danube' waltz. As the first notes of this famous tune by Johann Strauss drifted out, I was transported. The orchestra played it beautifully and in that setting (i.e. in Vienna, the classical music capital of the world etc etc), it created a magical mood. I was ridiculously moved while listening to that piece - I could have cried. It was akin to watching 'Chicago' at Broadway. I will now stop with the superlatives, I promise.

The Palace facade

As seen from the Gloriette Hill

The Gloriette in all its glory. It is worthwhile to mention that it houses a souvenir shop

Mutant squirrel!

The pretty woods

The set places of the Schonbrunn Orchestra, before they came on stage

We stumbled out of the Palace at around 10.30pm - my Dad from sleepiness and my Mom and I from general happiness to hail a cab, tired and happy and quite amazed at the splendor and culture of the Austrian capital. And this was just our first day.