As you may have guessed from reading Andrew’s railroad post, we took a “Wagon Lit” or overnight train from Venice to Vienna. This was great fun and allowed me to have all sorts of Agatha Christie dreams. Fortunately, there were no murders on board and no small Belgian men with egg shaped heads investigating. We arrived in Vienna to spend Christmas with my mom and her sweet heart Roger. We arrived early in the morning and then spent that day exploring Vienna, which was ridiculously cold, and checking out the famous Stephens Dom Cathedral. The next morning Andrew left for Bucharest and Mom, Roger and I had the city to explore. We visited Schoenbrunn palace and learned about the history of the Hapsburgs. We also spend a day in art museums where I discovered three new artists I loved that I had barely hard of before: Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Koloman Moser, and Egon Schiele. In fact, I loved the Leopold art museam so much, when Andrew returned from Bucharest, I took him back with me.
Vienna is the most grand city Andrew and I have ever visited. It is monumental in a way that even Paris isn’t. Walking around you can really tell that this was a seat of a major Empire for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Vienna is grand, it has tremendous art, it is Freud and best of all it has Christmas markets.
Austrians sure know how to make a cold winter evening sparkle. A Christmas market, or Chris Kringle Markt, is a collection of stalls strung with lights with the occasional heating lamp or civic display. The markets sparkle and are filled with food, ornaments, hats, candy and often really bad Christmas music. (Note: almost every market played this song. Do you realize we are in Vienna here, home of amazing music? The country that brought us such Christmas classics as Silent Night, felt the need to play George Micheal over and bloody over again) We could buy Gluh Wein (hot spiced wine) and a sausage of some kind and stroll among the lights, stalls and around extremely excited children. One market had both a train and a pony ride.
On Christmas Eve my mother terrified both Andrew and Roger by insisting we were going to follow the Austrian custom and light real candles on our Christmas tree. This was Roger’s response.
It was a beautiful 15 minutes of candle light before we decided to stop temping fate and blew them out.
On Christmas day we went to see Der Fledermaus ballet at the Vienna Opera. Both the performance and the building were fantastic.
Andrew and I took an afternoon to ice skate at a downtown rink. There are a few important things to note about ice skating in Vienna in winter:
1. The rink is in the middle of unbelievably beautiful buildings
2. The rink is about 2 times bigger, if not more, then any outdoor rink in San Franscisco
3. Rented Ice Skates are always uncomfortable
4. At large rinks in San Francisco the center of the ice is reserved for lessons and folks who want to do tricks. In Vienna the center of the rink is reserved for a bar where you can buy more gluh wein and stand at tables watching the other skaters.
Vienna is grand, it has tremendous art, it is Freud and best of all it has Christmas markets.
Austrians sure know how to make a cold winter evening sparkle. A Christmas market, or Chris Kringle Markt, is a collection of stalls strung with lights with the occasional heating lamp or civic display. The markets sparkle and are filled with food, ornaments, hats, candy and often really bad Christmas music. (Note: almost every market played this song. Do you realize we are in Vienna here, home of amazing music? The country that brought us such Christmas classics as Silent Night, felt the need to play George Micheal over and bloody over again) We could buy Gluh Wein (hot spiced wine) and a sausage of some kind and stroll among the lights, stalls and around extremely excited children. One market had both a train and a pony ride.
On Christmas Eve my mother terrified both Andrew and Roger by insisting we were going to follow the Austrian custom and light real candles on our Christmas tree. This was Roger’s response.
Yep the fire extinguisher is working
On Christmas day we went to see Der Fledermaus ballet at the Vienna Opera. Both the performance and the building were fantastic.
Andrew and I took an afternoon to ice skate at a downtown rink. There are a few important things to note about ice skating in Vienna in winter:1. The rink is in the middle of unbelievably beautiful buildings
2. The rink is about 2 times bigger, if not more, then any outdoor rink in San Franscisco
3. Rented Ice Skates are always uncomfortable
4. At large rinks in San Francisco the center of the ice is reserved for lessons and folks who want to do tricks. In Vienna the center of the rink is reserved for a bar where you can buy more gluh wein and stand at tables watching the other skaters.
Andrew warming up at the center rink bar
5. Children learn to skate by pushing giant penguins with skis. It keeps the kiddos balanced.
A few days after Christmas we boarded the single most lovely train I have even been on and went to Salzburg.
A few days after Christmas we boarded the single most lovely train I have even been on and went to Salzburg.
No comments:
Post a Comment