Vienna - A Fading Grandeur (Part 2)

I really should settle into some sort of schedule for posting. I have started my new job and pretty soon, you will find the fancy posts about Europe ceasing, to be replaced by posts on Central/ Western India as I move through these areas for my sales stint. I for one am quite excited. While the obvious territory to hope for is Goa, I would love to go to Chambal or somewhere like that :). But for now, we'll go back to Europe.

Day 2 was spent in Salzberg but I don't think we did justice to the city at all. So I am going to skip over this day. I will hopefully go back an explore that city more thoroughly. Just a couple of mentions though - we saw some spots where 'The Sound of Music was shot and I listened to 'The Hills are Alive' while driving through those very hills. That was quite awesome! So this brings us to...

Day 3:

This day was meant to be spent relaxing in Vienna. We discovered that our hotel was within walking distance from the city center and in a rather uncharacteristic fashion, set out at the late hour of 9:00am for our exploration of the city. Breakfast was had at the Opera Cafe (the cafe attached to the Opera i.e.) - quite expensive; but of course, the croissants were delicious. All bakery, especially croissants are delicious in Europe, as must be obvious to most people. This reminds me, I had a wonderful Danish pastry on the way to Salzburg as well. So back to Vienna. As we got up to leave the Cafe, we were confronted by - men dressed up in 'Mozart' costumes trying to sell us concert tickets! Basically, in front of every building of repute, we encountered a couple of men and women trying to sell tickets for Mozart and Strauss concerts. And mind you, these were respectable venues. We found them outside the Opera, the city palace, the St. Stephen Cathedral and so on - buildings of note in the city. I am wondering if this is indicative of the level of interest in classical music in the city that was once its home. I am sure several tourists like us would be interested in watching such concerts - may be these are concerts aimed only at tourists (the Schonnbrunn one certainly was), but still! What a demeaning way to promote something so core to your culture! Can you imagine mamas and mamis (I am not sure what costumes they can wear) standing outside major katcheri venues in Chennai or Bangalore going 'Saar, katcheri tonight. Local temple artists - Thyagaraja + Dikshitar compositions. You want to buy?' It was similar to chaps at Times Square New York selling passes for cabarets and comedies on the road. You get my general feeling about the thing.

We ambled along the sunlit street toward a towering Gothic Cathedral which we found out later was the St. Stephen's Cathedral. I also found out much later (i.e. now) that it is the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna. It was a beautiful cathedral - but then most cathedrals in Europe are beautiful. It had some lovely chapels and elaborate stained glass work. Do forgive me if I am unable to appreciate its other artistic and architectural merits - I don't have quite the knowledge for that. After emerging back in the sunlight and shaking off a few more concert ticket sellers, I checked the map on how we might reach the Hofburg palace (is that correct grammar?). This palace was the summer residence of the Hapsburg (I know - you can confuse the two names quite easily) dynasty - Maria Theresa, Franz Josef and Sisi and all that.

We reached the palace after passing through the high street with all the major fashion brands. My Dad was obviously very taken in by this street and wanted to have lunch there later. We proceeded to a promising looking facade at the end of the street. This facade quite lived up to its promise; after a conversation with one of the ticket sellers ("Madam you want to watch a Mozart and Strauss concert tonight?" "No thanks, we leave tonight. What is this building?"), we established that it was indeed the famed palace. Now funnily enough, none of us had done any research on Vienna -  we merely went to the palace because it looked big and imposing on the map. And it was quite big and imposing. It was in fact made up of several big and imposing buildings, with a nice central lawn and something called a People's or Mass garden or something similarly demeaning. We went inside and bought tickets to see the Imperial silverware collection, Sisi's palace (my Mom had by now, become enamoured of Sisi's rebelliousness) and the Imperial Apartments.

We first went for a audio-guide tour (yaay!) of the silverware collection. Believe me, I had not expected such a large and elaborate collection of dishes! If you thought the Vessels Museum at Vishalla in Ahmedabad was elaborate (most of you are probably scratching your heads and going 'What?' right now), this was ridiculously opulent. It turned out, Franz Josef had brothers and  various other relatives. And they all required their own dinner pieces. Silverware was also gifted quite freely across various royal families in Europe. There were dinner sets having complicated connections with Napolean and Louis XV (not so complicated this one; if you remember, Marie Antoinette was Maria Theresa's daughter) as well as a dessert set presented by Queen Victoria to the Hapsburgs. This set was so dainty and delicate that it could never be used! It looked wonderful though. There were plates done up in different themes - flowers, animals, Bible scenes and Austrian landscapes. There were sets from China and Japan. There were exquisite candelabras - so delicately sculpted that it was difficult to believe that the piece in front of you had a solid form. There was a ridiculously long center piece with multiple trays for sweets meats and vases for flowers and so on - all plated in gold. The most interesting bit of trivia we got from this tour was this little nugget - during the war, a lot of solid silver and gold dinner sets were melted down to make coins. In order to overcome the indignity of not having these sets any more, the imperial household made sets of ceramic and had them plated with gold and silver. I am glad they saw sense because I find it hard to believe that the European public would allow solid gold dinner sets of that size to survive with the Euro Debt Crisis happening so near by. So in short, Imperial Silverware Collection - totally worth a visit.

After some general disagreement on lunch (my Dad wanted to go to the cool street, I wanted to save time and eat at the Museum Cafe; my Dad won), we assembled at the entrance to the Sisi Museum at 2.00pm for our guided tour. Our guide was quite the historian - full of interesting facts and bits of trivia, he also possessed some solid knowledge about the imperial family. Unlike some of the guides you come across in America, he did not sound like he had mugged up a script. The Sisi museum itself was built to sensationalise Sisi. Her personal effects were preserved in glass cases while on the walls, anguished quotes about marriage being a trap and a torture were printed. Sisi was the original appearance obsessed woman. She was extremely conscious about her figure and frequently went on crash diets. She also exercised a lot and apparently, did some particularly manly exercises just to annoy her mother-in-law (my Mom loved this). She had ankle length hair which took hours to be brushed and while it was being brushed, she learnt languages. Quite a cool woman she was. Her death just made her all the more enigmatic (in fact quite like Princess Diana - loads of similarities between the two except for the length of hair). She was assassinated by an Italian anarchist in Geneva. They had the actual murder weapon on display as well as the coat Sisi was wearing on that day. As you can imagine, we came away feeling deeply for Sisi, after having never heard of her prior to coming to the Museum. Sisi has also apparently been immortalized in some Hollywood movies - though these are quite historically inaccurate.

We then proceeded to the Imperial apartments but I will not bore you too much about those. The Schonnbrunn apartments were more elaborate in my opinion. They were interesting though and we heard about Sisi's son who committed suicide and some more members of the Hapsburg Dynasty. We stepped out into the palace courtyard and spent some time chilling on the lawn in front of the palace. It was a lovely, sunny day and a lot of people were lying around on the lawn. A couple directly in front of us decided to make out in the missionary position (I am not kidding!) causing the 3 of us to avert our eyes. However, in the other direction, was a chap who decided he couldn't bear the heat and was busily taking off his shirt and pants. Europeans - not very private people it seems. It was quite nice on the grass, under the sun though and after having an unsatisfying lunch at a cafe in the garden (I was started to tire of strudel by then and was longing for butter chicken), we decided to take a tram outside the imposing Austrian parliament back to the city center.

Europeans are not private and are also very trusting. We boarded the tram and no one asked us for a ticket. There seemed to be no visible place we could buy tickets from except the tram driver who looked too busy, well driving the tram. There was no visible mechanism for even checking that we had a ticket. So we quite happily rode back to the beginning of the city center (near our hotel) and got of the tram - jubiliant and quite relieved to have got a tram ride for free. It was a huge risk but eh - with their multiple modes of public transport, the Austrians get enough money without fleecing us poor Third World country people anyway.

I bought a pizza slice off a roadside counter and muching it, we headed back to our hotel to collect our luggage. Our next destination was Nice and the famed French Riviera. I was excited and had great plans of cycling around a fair bit and visiting some of the cute Riviera villages. Did I manage to do that.........?

On that intiguining note, I will conclude this post.

P.S.: For the majority of you who feel this note is not in the least intriguing, I agree, it isn't really. But one has to try, no?

P.P.S: I now have an office laptop which doesn't have any photos of the trip :( :(. But I am sure with my vivid and evocative writing and your own vivid and evocative imagination aided by Google image search, you will get some idea of what the places I went to looked like.

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.