Continuing the tradition of touring European cities with Australian friends, I met
Doug in Vienna just before Christmas last year. Doug is wonderful to travel with - we visited Madrid together in 2005 - so I was looking forward to spending some time with him as well as discovering somewhere new. Arriving the day before Doug, I took the opportunity to visit the
Gasometer district where three bricked gasholders were renovated as the centrepiece of an urban renewal project to become a shopping centre, commercial offices, and residential apartments.
I like Austria. It's like Germany, but classier, I think. The architecture in the old part of Vienna is very grand. We stayed at the
Hotel Regina, just around the corner from the Freud Museum. The museum is housed in Freud's apartment, occupied by the psychoanalyst and his family until they made a timely move to London shortly before WW2. There is a museum at Freud's house in London, which also contains most of his possessions, so the museum in Vienna offers recreations mixed with a few original items. There are also many photographs and displays charting his career and life.
Doug introduced me to the marvels of bus tours in Madrid - they are so good for covering a lot of ground very quickly - so I booked a similar trip for us in Vienna. The tour took in
Schönbrunn Palace, which was the summer palace seat of the House of Habsburg. (The winter palace is Hofburg). I think it's marvellously extravagant that the family had a summer and winter palace in the same city. The tour of Schönbrunn was interesting at the time, but rather forgettable it seems, as I'm struggling to recall any detail almost a year later. As they say, once you've seen one palace...
We also toured the
Vienna State Opera House. This was a wonderful tour, commencing with the grand entrance hall, taking in all the public areas, and continuing back stage. The Opera House is situated in the old town, now pedestrianised, and at the time of our visit, decorated with beautiful Christmas lights. Having heard much about Viennese coffee houses, I was determined to visit a traditional establishment. Our tour guide suggested
Cafe Hawelka, where the cigarette smoke was thick, and the coffee strong.
I love the European tradition of a Christmas Market. It really feels like Christmas to me to wander around in the freezing cold, in the shadow of decorated trees, buying sweets, alcohol, pastries, coffee, and other little treats. Vienna's main
Christmas Market is in the plaza in front of Rathaus (the town hall). But there were also smaller markets at Schönbrunn Palace, and in the heart of the old town.
On our last day in Vienna, we caught the subway to
UNO-City, on an island in the Danube River. UNO-City is the campus of buildings that comprise the United Nation's operations in Vienna (along with New York, Geneva, and Nairobi. Nearby there is also a huge observation tower, the
Donaturm, with a revolving restaurant. Doug and I enjoyed a leisurely lunch here, as we took in the sights from above. I had the
Wiener Schnitzel, as it had to be done some time while in Vienna.
The last stop on our little tour of Vienna was Prater Park. This 19th century amusement park has a huge ferris wheel, the
Riesenrad, as its centrepiece, and was a set-jetting destination for me. Vienna is the location for Carole Reed's
The Third Man (1949), the story of Holly Martins' (Joseph Cotten) search for his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in post-war Vienna. When Martins eventually tracks down Lime, and discovers the truth about his pal's now-crooked ways, Lime's defence is delivered with a "greed is good" monologue while both men ride the Riesenrad. The amusement park also figures in
Before Sunrise (1995), and the first Timothy Dalton Bond film
The Living Daylights (1987). It is here that Saunders, Bond's MI6 contact in Vienna, is brutally murdered when (the rather hot) Necros rigs a sliding glass door to become a high-powered weapon.
All of my Vienna photographs are online at Flickr, and can be viewed in a
slideshow.
