stokebailey

We hope your team wins.

annhig

DAY 4.

As we had tickets for the opera in the evening, we hadn’t wanted to be out all day, so we’d scheduled our visit for to the Schoenbrunn for the morning, and we'd hoped, most of the afternoon. Also like many European cities, Vienna is a bit dead on Mondays, but I knew that the Schoenbrunn was open, so off we tramped, through the rain via the U-Bahn line 4, “Sissi” passes in hand. “Thank you”, girl at the Hofburg who sold us these tickets. Not only were they considerably cheaper than buying the tickets for the Hofburg and Schoenbrunn palaces separately, but they enabled us to by-pass the very long lines at the entrance, avoid the timed ticket system, AND gave us access to the longer tour of the palace, the ?Imperial, rather than the shorter one. However, a word of warning – there is nothing to tell you where to go or what to do! You just have to follow your nose and present your ticket at the turnstiles past the ticket office.

Once inside, the tour follows the usual form of such visits. We had opted for the “self-guided” tour, but guide-book in hand, and reading the many information plackards around the palace, gave us a pretty good idea of the lives of the Imperial Family. Actually, we thought that the Hofburg was more interesting and presented more vividly, but this was still very good. Two things stood out – the hall of mirrors, the room with the pictures [very good] painted and drawn by the children of the imperial family, and [LOL] the fire-screen decorated with pictures of the saints collected by the Kaiser’s mistress. Oops – shades of the Monty Python spanish inquisition sketch– “three things stood out”….

After an hour or so following the tour route we came to the end and had to decide what to do next, given that the rain was not getting any less. Who was it said that there is no bad weather, just bad clothing? Macs donned and brollies in hand, we ventured forth, determined to inspect the Gloriette –a rather superior summer-house standing beyond the top of the formal gardens which stretch away from the palace windows. We managed to get part of the way under the shelter of the trees [which are regularly marked with signs warning against sheltering under them in thunderstorms] and inspected the several very impressive fountains which decorate the grounds, but in the end there was nothing for it but to slog uphill against the torrents. In good weather, the views from the top [€2] of the Gloriette would be glorious, but we didn’t even bother. There is a café and loos too. On the way down we decided against the zoo, and the other gardens for which you have to pay extra as we couldn’t see much point, and we were amused to see that the downpour not withstanding, the gardens were still being weeded and the lawns cut. I had visions of the gardeners drawing lots on days such as these, with the winner of the short-straw getting the task of collecting up the grass-mowings in the wet. Urg – a vile job. I particularly liked the mowing machines that had grass-collection boxes that flipped over so that the clippings could be tipped out without taking them off the machine, and I enjoyed telling DS about the mowing carrying on in the rain – fat chance though of him copying their example!

After restorative coffees in the café [lovely comfy sofas and warming melanges] we tramped damply back to the U-bahn and on the way back, tried to decide what to do next, the rain having made our visit rather shorter than we’d expected. According to the guide –book, the Kunsthistorischesmusem [KHM] shuts on Mondays, and though some of the museum quarter museums were open, frankly we didn’t fancy any of them. THen DH had a brainwave, and we decided that today was the day for a proper Viennese lunch. He’d spotted a place right opposite our hotel that he rather fancied, nect to the Griechbeisel and I wasn’t going to argue, so as it was past 2pm by now, we headed straight there. A feature of many restaurants all over Austria is the convenient custom of serving food all day – “durchgegend warme Kuche” is the sign to look for. Although the pub/restaurant that had caught DH’s eye didn’t sport one of these, we went in anyway, and there was no problem with getting a table and a menu. So far so good. Even better, they had “Tafelsptiz” – the boiled beef dish beloved of the Kaiser which he is said to have eaten every day of his adult life, which I’d been wanting to try since we arrived. This turned out to be good, but better still was DH’s venison stew, complete with my favourite spaeztle [german noodles]. Yum.

By now we were thinking that we could do with a bath and a rest, and a cup of tea of course, before we got ready for one of the highlights, at least so far as I was concerned, of our trip. As soon as we booked our flights [and even before if I’m honest] I was looking at the website for the opera [www.wiener-staatsoper.at] to try to work out how to get tickets. Not that we are great opera-buffs, but in our child-free city travels in the last few years we have seen performances in Prague, Budapest, Madrid, and Florence, so I didn’t want to miss out in Vienna. So far as I was able to make out [and not even the English-version website was very clear] if you want to book in advance, you go on something called standby, which involves specifying what price-range you are prepared to fork out for [the choices being translated as breathtakingly expensive, exorbitant, expensive, moderate, or lousy view] and then waiting to see what they deign to offer you. We ended up with tickets in the exorbitant category, at the back of the stalls, for a performance of Aida. If you don’t want them, you refuse the offer and start again.

As the performance was due to start at 7pm, we wanted to get there by about 6.30 to enjoy the atmosphere, and the hotel kindly called us a taxi, as otherwise we’d have been wet-through by the time we got there. Was everyone in Vienna driving to the opera that night? It felt like it. But we got there in time to enjoy walking into the building, jostling to leave our macs and umbrellas at the garderobe, and ordering interval refreshments. To my mind, part of the pleasure of the opera in Europe is the fabulously decorated theatres, and truth be told, Vienna’s does not shine in quite the same way as Prague or Budapest, but it was still pretty impressive, and I love the excited babble of voices in many languages, the posh mixing with the jeans-clad, the hush as the orchestra tunes up and starts the overture, the thrill of hearing the soloists for the first time as they strain to hit the top notes.

What can I say about Aida? If you are an opera fan I won’t be able to tell you enough, and if you couldn’t care less, I’ve already said too much. So far as I’m able to judge, the singing was technically superb, and the staging was magnificent - no elephants, but plenty of fake pyramids, slaves, armies, and dancers. The individual TV screen in the back of the seat in front giving English or German surtitles was a great help in keeping up with the plot. But I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief, to the extent that at times, I found it hard not to laugh, due to the casting. Rather than the slim, dark girl that the role of Aida, the Ethiopean slave girl conjures up, we were confronted with a veritable Walkyrie, tall, blond and very buxom. However good she was at singing, she just couldn’t BE Aida for me. How many small dark divas are there? Probably not very many, and the ones that there are could make a career out of singing Aida. But apparently, not in Vienna.

One attractive feature of Vienna is the proximity of the U-bahn to any place you may happen to be, and the opera is no exception – the entrance is less than 50 metres from the doors of the opera- house. In fact, we were more or less swept down there by the crowd, all wanting to escape the rain as quickly as possible, and before we knew it, we were back at Schwedenplatz, and home.

Tomorrow – a wet day too far.

yk

Hi ann, I still cannot believe your bad luck with the weather. Reading your description of walking up to Gloriette in the midst of a rainstorm... yikes! All I can say is that we had the perfect-weather day at Schonbrunn - deep blue sky without a cloud in the sky.

Your description of a Wagnarian blond singing Aida gave me a good chuckle.

BTW, I just remember this recent thread - the OP is asking for help/opinions regarding stand-by tickets for Vienna's Staastoper. Perhaps you can help?
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ketbooking.cfm

stokebailey

Ann,

I love your range of ticket prices at Staatsoper.

re casting: I saw the mature Monserrat Caballe in Don Carlo once, as the young love interest. I knew she was supposed to faint at one point, and the suspense for me was wondering how she could sink her rotund self unconsciously to the floor. (She ended up sinking onto a chaise longue instead.) Of course we're supposed to see beyond all that superficial stuff.

stokebailey

ahem. Ann. Was it so wet that you can't bear to think about it?

Your loyal readers are waiting.

annhig

sorry stoke.

i think that you may have hit the nail on the head.

you may also have noticed that there have been some cricket matches on which have been occupying my time.

they are over now so I will do my best to get down to it.

stokebailey

Oh, yes. Cricket matches! Unfortunately the Ashes doesn't get the press coverage here that you might think, and if something's not on the front page I tend to forget about it.

Take your time, no pressure. Well, hardly any.

annhig

<<Unfortunately the Ashes doesn't get the press coverage here that you might think>>

LOL, stoke, I don't imagine that it gets any coverage at all.

Day 5 is half finished.

annhig

here it is...Day 5.

By now, we were running out of things to do in the wet, but decided that as we hadn’t seen the “KHM” [Kunsthistorischesmuseum] yet, now was as good a time as any. But first we [or more accurately I] wanted to see the Imperial furniture depository, which comes free with the Sissi card. This is place the imperial furnishers would come to if they wanted a change of sofa, a new carpet, or 500 chairs for a banquet. The Sissi theme is strong here, with several rooms arranged as sets from the various films made about her, along with clips from the films, which I can’t say I have actually ever seen! They are obviously strong on the “misunderstood young girl married into an unsympathetic dynasty/ill-treated by her mother-in-law” theme. The overwhelming feeling is of fantastic opulence and choice – how many styles of footstool does one family need? But also it’s a great opportunity to follow the history of furniture – from elegant Georgian –style through the heavier “Victorian-type”, to more modern Biedermeier examples. Some pieces looked frankly more valuable and more intricate than the ones we’d seen in the palaces – perhaps they are still swapping them around.

I loved it, but DH wasn’t too fussed, so after an hour or so we moved onto the KHM, which is housed in one of a pair of identical buildings facing each other back on the Ring. The other one houses the Natural History museum which we didn’t get round to. Once we’d found the way in [not obvious – we had to wait for some people to come out] it turned out that not for the first time, the over 60s get a better discount than Vienna-card holders, with full-price being about €10 pp. We started with the medieval art and worked our way to the future, through Rembrandt, Raphael, and Titian via Bosch, Gainsborough, and a whole load of others. Highlights for me were definitely the three Rembrandt self-portraits, and a Heronymous Bosch that I don’t think I’d seen before.

As well as the collections of fine art they have some pottery and historical artifacts like jewelry, but we got bored with those VERY quickly, [our fault not theirs, we were getting pretty jaded by now] and after a sandwich and melange in the café, and another looong wait for the bill, we left. Actually, that’s not quite true, while we were there, we tried to talk to the people we were renting our car from, to confirm that we would be picking it up at about 5pm, rather than the 12 noon we had originally said. We had arranged it through autoeurope, and it turned out that the car we had chosen was with a firm called “Buchbinder” down on the wonderfully-named “Schlacthausgasser” [slaughterhouse or abattoir street]. Normally autoeurope have worked very well for us, but this time, we could only get through to the hire company through autoeurope – which didn’t bode well. The plan had been to pick the car up the day before we left Vienna and park it near-by the hotel so we could make a fast getaway, but parking round the hotel wasn’t free til after 8pm, so we’d decided to pick it up in the afternoon and drive out into the countryside and have supper before driving back into town. Of course, that plan had been rather reliant on good weather, and what we had wasn’t even close, which is why we wanted to delay the pick-up. Eventually we got a message through to the hire office itself, which grudgingly confirmed that they would be there at 5pm. All this took about as long as it took to get the bill, which means they both took a REALLY long time.

Despite the rain, we wanted to walk back through the centre of Vienna for the last time, so we splished and sploshed out way round the great buildings and monuments and churches, but didn’t find anything that really grabbed us. The rose garden near the Hofburg would be spectacular in decent weather, and there were a number of interesting squares and churches, but truthfully we were all “Vienna’d out” so we trudged back to the hotel and had a cup of tea, before setting off to pick up the car.
It took only 15 minutes or so to go the 5 stops on the metro down to Schlachthausgasser, and another 10 to walk up the road to the hire office. This is where the fun started. There are very few care-hire offices in central Vienna but I assume that those there are, such as the ones at the main railway station, have staff that speak English. Not so this one. After 4 days in the city I wasn’t doing badly with my German, but the staff at Buchbinder were clearly intent upon testing it to the full. After saying who we were and that we were there to pick up our car, first of all we were “offered” a different make and model to what we’d reserved – a Fiat punto rather than a VW golf. Although we had really wanted a Golf [and had picked this office because they said they had one] it was made very clear to us that they either didn’t have one or if they did, we couldn’t have it. So we went and looked at the Punto, and were unable to find fault with it, however hard we tried, so that was that.

So then it was onto the formalities. I handed them our reservation form with our name and address on it, and they insisted on me spelling them out so they could enter them on the computer. My knowledge of the German alphabet was given a good work-out, and our house’s lack of a street number was met with frank scepticism. Foreign hirers are obviously a bit thin on the ground in Schlacthausgasser. Meanwhile, DH kept asking me to check that the car had got A/C, although we had already seen that it had – I think he was just feeling left out by the fact that the rest of us were [mis]communicating in German! There were three girls dealing with us – I called them the grumpy one, [who had told us we were not having the Golf and then flounced off to polish her nails] the dozy one [who was of course the main one dealing with us] and the efficient one [who was there in a strictly training capacity]. Then we got onto the subject of insurance. We were rather shocked to learn that we were required to provide a credit card chit for €700 to cover any damage caused by us that the insurance wouldn’t cover; this had never happened before and we have hired cars quite often including through autoeurope. DH was getting very teasy now, and insisted that we phone autoeurope direct to check that this was OK. So I forbore to remind him that he was the one who decided that he wanted to go with this lot [as they were cheaper and now we knew why] and phoned them, only to have them point out, thankfully in English and not on speaker-phone, that actually according to the small –print, they could ask for €2000! Please don’t flame me about this – we had left car hire very late, and now we were paying the price. At least the deal was cheap - €330 for 11 days, including return to the airport.

Eventually we got everything sorted and were ready to depart. Which direction should we turn in to take the road OUT of Vienna? This question was met with the blankest of looks, which I suppose should not have surprised us, but somehow did. We usually start off with DH driving and me navigating but for some reason we swapped over this time, so I got the honour of driving us out in a strange car with a gear lever [I drive and automatic] into the rush-hour traffic. As we wanted to go out of town towards, if not actually to Baden, it seemed obvious to head away from the centre. WRONG. Of course the map of Vienna we had ended just where we were and the pan of Vienna on our Austria map wasn’t detailed enough. GPS – pah – who needs it? US. We quickly got snarled up in the one-way system and we headed who knows where until by chance we spotted a sign to Baden. Hurray – well half a hurray as the traffic as still snarled up but we were going in the right direction.

Downtown Vienna, at least to the south is not a thing of beauty, especially not in the wet, and after 30 mins we were getting a bit fed up; however I saw what I was looking for and went for it – the sign to Gumpoldskirchen. “Gumpoldskirchen?” I hear you cry [that is, if you can pronounce it – try breaking it down into “Gumpolds” & “kirchen” – easy, itsn’t it?] I’d read about it in Fodors, learning that it was a wine village in pretty countryside with some Heuriger – just the spot for a glass or two of wine and supper. As the weather was vile, we didn’t bother with the village and headed straight to the Altes Zechhaus [thanks, Fodors which recommended it – have a look at www.krug.at] where we enjoyed some really good white and red wines [not very much as we were driving back ot Vienna] and a great buffet, the highlight of which was my roast duck – yum. On the way out, we picked up a leaflet which told us that there was going to be a wine festival in about a week’s time – shame we’d be missing it. Still I stuck the leaflet in my handbag - you never know when something will come in useful.

Back in the car, we struck off back for Vienna, not wanting to be too late as we had still to pack and we wanted a get an early getaway in the morning. Even at 8pm, the traffic was still heavy, but not as bad as it had been, and I suppose that it took us about 45 mins til we hit the Ring and REAL trouble. As we were staying on the eastern side of the centre, we had planned to drive ant-clockwise round the ring til we found a likely-looking side-street. Silly us – why hadn’t we noticed in the 4 days we’d been there that you couldn’t do that? Why didn’t we just turn round and come at it from the other direction? No idea. It would certainly have been easier and quicker than doing what we did which was to turn up a side street and try to work our way across the town centre, left, right, no, I said right, oh bugger it’s a dead end, left, left LEFT, etc.etc.
Eventually we did find our way back to streets we sort of recognised and found a parking place, which we grabbed. Would the car be ok there overnight? By then we neither knew nor cared. We were fed up with rain, fed up with Vienna, and fed up with each other. Ouch!

We slouched back to the hotel and packed, then to cheer ourselves up, we took ourselves out to find a bar, and typically on the night before we were leaving, we found a really nice one just around the corner after the next corner. It had a good mix of locals and tourists and was just our cup of tea. Or more accurately, glass of gruener veltliner.

Tomorrow – Umleitung, umleitung.

yk

I miss my Viennese melange!!!

stokebailey

Ann, there's no one I'd rather be lost with in rush hour rainy Viennese traffic (later, reading about it, that is) than you. I don't know that own marriage would not survive such a drive, gruener veltliner or no gruener veltliner.

I had never heard about Sisi before. I always like feeling sorry for beautiful young lonely empresses.

Great reading. Thanks!

annhig

hi stoke,

I had sort of heard of Sissi before but there is no escaping her once you get to vienna - Princess Di was definitely the "sissi de nos jours" right down to the unsympathetic in-laws and the eating disorders. Her end was perhaps even sadder - she was stabbed by an ?italian fanatic whilst on an incognito trip to Switzerland, and it wasn't even realised that she was injured until she got back on the lake steamer and started collapsing. by then it was, as they say, too late.

yk - so do I. the standard UK "milky coffee" doesn't quite hack it, though at something like €3 a cup, they were too expensive to develop too much of a habit.

I'm now spurred to try to get some more done - thanks for the encouragement.

sap

Thanks, annhig - bookmarking (and topping for travelanywhere)

annhig

gosh, I thought I'd got further with this than i did.

truth to tell, the rest of the trip was no greater success than our stay in Vienna; we squelched round Melk, got were wet in st. Wolfgang, were soaked in Salzburg, and drowned in Durnstein.

the best thing we did was to change our itinerary, and instead of tramping round the Tirol in the rain, we went to Salzburg [where there were buildings to run between between the showers] and then made for Gumpoldskirchen [remember it?] where they were having a wine festival. and what a festival it was - 20-30 producers, plus the Heuriger of the village, plying their wares, with food, umpah bands, and generaly jollity. it kicked off at about 12 noon every day, but we went out on a day trip [we'd booked a room at a B&B in the village before we arrived] and returned at about 6pm to join in the fun. for our trip we took ourselves off to Baden to see the Rose Gardens [famous except in Baden, aparently, as they were well hidden but worth finding when we got there] and then to walk a footpath in the Wienerwald that Beethoven also trod. this made a great end to our holiday, not least because IT HAD STOPPED RAINING!

our last day, not without some relief, we drove the 30 minutes to Vienna airport, then caught the bus that runs between there and Bratislava airport to get our flight home - where it was raining when we arrived.

Personally I woould quite like to return to Vienna, but the likelihood of getting DH back there is small. Actually nil. I'll just have to go by myself!

grrr

<<anything else? - oh, yes, car hire. ... but it turned out that picking up a car in Vienna was remarkably hard going. the plan was to pick up the car on our way out of Vienna, and return it to the airport 10 days later. However, there appear to be no car hire offices inside the ring, and very few in the centre itself.>>

Toatlly wrong. Hertz is on Kaerntner Ring, Europcar on Schubert Ring. Next time, look for zuip code 1010 which is the Inner City.

annhig

grrr - you will see that a) i didn't organise the car hire, and b) i do accept that there are a few inner city hire offices - sadly we didn't use them.

Anyway I'm not sure that "on" Kaertner Ring" and "on" Schubert Ring techincally count as being "in" the ring itself, but hey, why be picky?

thursdaysd

Sorry you won't get DH back to Vienna, but it's not so bad on your own. Definitely looks better in sunshine, though.

grrr

On the Ring is within the Ring - take a look at Google maps.

The Ringstrasse consists of Parkring, Schubertring, Opernring, Kaerntner Ring, Schottenring, Dr. Karl Lueger Ring...

Any adress "Opernring, "Kärntner Ring", "Schubertring" etc. is ON the Ring and IN the Ring.

annhig

grrrr - grrrr

easytraveler

ann: this was such a fun read!

Sounds like an "unforgettable" trip!

Thanks for pointing me to this TR and thanks for the details which are going into my notebook for Vienna!