Tuesday, 1 October
VIENNA (Wien)
If Only Beethoven Could See It Now
It was hard to leave Hallstatt. "Hallstatt, ich muss dich lassen"[97]. We even considered spending one more day there and visiting the ice caves, but we decided we better just move on. So we did, on to Vienna. On our ferry ride over to the train station, we met an American named Suzanne Morgan, and she `followed' us all the way to Vienna. It was wonderful to share with her the travel experiences we'd had so far, and to hear her opinions on cities we were planning on visiting later on. She was another Rick Steves' follower[98], so exchanging our joys and complaints about, and perhaps poking a little fun at, good ole RS provided hours of entertainment on that train. Once in Vienna, we parted company and, though we had said "Auf Wiedersehen" to one another, we never ran into her again. I guess we should have said "Guten Morgen"[99].
Vienna is nothing like I'd always imagined it, but that is because I've somehow always imagined it as it was in Beethoven's day. Of course, I knew that it was a big city now, and that the cobbled streets, horse carriages, and Baroque opera houses would be gone[100]. But it still came as a bit of a shock. Luckily, later on, I came to love it on its own merit. But at first, we were overwhelmed by its size. If only Beethoven could see it now!
Luckily for us, Vienna has the best public transportation system in the world, insofar as I've seen in my travels. It is extremely extensive--we traveled from the cemetery on the far reaches of the city to the city ring and many places in between on the subways, express trains, and outdoor trams. It is very organized--each line is not only named by number and its final destination and direction, but color coded on the maps and the cars themselves to make it very difficult to accidentally get on the wrong train. And, best of all, it's extremely affordable--our 72 hour, all you can ride tickets cost only $13. Seeing that most subways cost about $1-$2/trip one way, you can see how we definitely got our money's worth on those wonderful subways.
After we bought our subway passes[101], we
called the first room listed in RS's book, and found a double with bath and
toilet for $62. People think Vienna is expensive? We took one of the cute, red,
outdoor trams and walked the remaining block to Pension Funfhaus, through what
first struck me as a very bad neighborhood. Was it also bad in Beethoven's day?
But when we walked into our room, with a huge ceiling, bright, airy windows
and,...what is that....oh my, I can't believe it....HEAT
, we started to
relax. This room was about three times the size of anything else we'd stayed
in, and we found it bitterly ironic that we finally had a working heater on the
hottest day of our trip. We even had to open all the windows to cool off!
To help us get oriented and at RS's suggestion, we took a `free' tour of the city by using our tram pass and taking Tram #2 around the ring[102]. With our trusty RS guidebook to point everything out for us, we started to realize that maybe Vienna wasn't as big and scary as we thought. What a low-pressure way to see the city at a glance! And to think that we could have hired somebody to do this for $25 per person.
The tram left off at the Staatsoper (State Opera), and so we decided to take
the guided tour. Though we had to wait in a huge line to buy tickets and then
another line for English speakers, it was worth it. We learned that the
architect who designed that beautiful place committed suicide due to its poor reception
by the public, yet now people come from around the world to see it. Not exactly
sweet justice, is it? The stage is twice as large as the audience space, and we
could recognize the half of the opera house that was restored after being
destroyed by our bombings in W.W.II. The Vienna Philharmonic, the official
orchestra of the theater, still permits of only male musicians as it has for
centuries. The only women allowed in the orchestra are the harpists-- even then
they must sit in a dark alcove with only their hands lit to disguise their sex.
Welcome to the Dark Ages! Ah, but we also found out that there would be a
ballet with music by Hindemith, Tchaikovsky, and Stravinsky that night, so we
knew what our evening's entertainment would be!
We then decided to try and see as much else inside the Ring as possible. We went to the Fremdenverkehrsamt[103] and picked up a copy of Vienna A to Z. This was a very useful book that made sense out of Vienna's many historical sights. Rather than a plaque with 47 different languages on it at every sight, there was simply a flag and a name, which you could look up in your own book in your own language. We didn't try to see everything, since there are some 340 of these markers in the greater Vienna area, but it was fun to look one up whenever we chanced upon it. It was also a great guide for the bigger sights, too, when there wasn't any English information.
The famous St. Stephen's was, surprisingly enough, such a place. To find out
more about this giant cathedral in the very center of the ring, we had
to piece together information from RS and our A to Z book. But, as
beautiful as it was, we didn't stay there long, since the giant organ was being
tuned[104]. So, avoiding the annoying Mozart
peddlers[105], we headed for, yes, again,
McDonald's. Oh, but this one was a real experience: we actually ordered a beer
to go with our FischMac and Hamburger Royal[106] --I just had to take a picture of all this
unusual food! But since mine was a grill order, it was taking a while, and so
when our cashier[107] brought it to us, he
apologized for its tardiness with a free pie. Sehr Toll!
We soon went back to our room to change for the ballet, realizing that the neighborhood was safer each time we walked through it. We finally got to use our fancy clothes we'd been dragging along all this time!! So Doug donned his dress shirt and tie, and I slipped on my velvet dress and put my hair back in a low bun, and we headed for the Opera for a budgeter's delight--one of the 500 standing room spots that run for $2-$3 each. We got one of the first ones on the floor, and then waited in line for about 30 minutes before we got to `grab a spot of rail'[108] 45 minutes before showtime. The first row had been saved for ballet students, but we got the next row back...not bad for 30 AS. At first, we were amazed that we were the only ones dressed up, but dismissed it, thinking that people who bought cheap seats couldn't afford the proper attire. But as we watched the `rich' folk filter in to fill the `real' seats, we realized that we were by far the most formal of anybody there. Though it was nice to see people smile at us, we knew that we could have left our fancy, heavy clothes at home in America.
Attire notwithstanding, we really enjoyed that night at the opera. Surprisingly enough, the Stravinsky was the most conservative piece on the program; I also found the Tchaikovsky overrated, and the Hindemith the most exciting and effective piece of the evening[109]! We also got to know the people around us. Behind us was a Russian-looking Austrian boy who had lived near us in Roseville, CA for some time. Small world again. He adored the ballet, and luckily he translated a few of the program notes for us during intermission (because that first piece just hadn't sounded like Stravinsky)! Those bratty, snotty French ballet students that made up the first row only stayed through the Tchaikovsky, and screamed for what I thought the most boring dance on the program. There was also a couple of men from Chicago who were a lot of fun, and who laughed with us as we each bought a three-sips-worth bottle of coke for $3.80--more than the cost of our tickets! I also visited the restroom, where a woman was waiting there each time to help straighten out the straps of my backless bra and to give me a glass for water out of the tap. What an adventure it all was!
And to think our 40-minute tour of the opera that afternoon cost twice as much as an entire evening of ballet and memorable culture shock! You just can't put a price on stuff like that .
On to WIEN TREK II