VISITS TO VIENNA
November 2021
July 2017
VIENNA NOVEMBER 2021
A personal account of a short visit, by Doreen
It was with
great excitement that we prepared for our few days holiday in Vienna,
despite
trepidation about COVID.
Everywhere we
went, even if only for a coffee, we were required to show our Covid
certificates and wear approved masks (FFP2); sometimes we were even
required to
fill out forms with our details. When about to enter the Jewish Museum
a
security guard outside (female) told Eitan he couldn’t enter because
his mask
was not the regulation one. Fortunately a soldier informed Eitan that
he could
buy one inside.
Our hotel was
situated in Friedmannplatz, next to Judenstrassse, where two people
were
murdered by terrorists in 1981. In front of our hotel a year ago in
November another
terrorist killed 4 people and injured many at this very same square,
just hours
before the city was to enter lockdown for covid. Each time we passed
the tree
with memorial candles there were silent people honoring the victims.
We read my
account of our last visit to Vienna and determined to do some of the
things we
didn’t manage the first time. (See below for our
2017 visit)
So we did visit
St Stephen’s Cathedral. You don’t have to be Catholic to be impressed
by the
soaring height of the roof and the magnificent interior.
We attended a
performance of Carmen at the State Opera House. Excellent singers but
we didn’t
like the modern production at all. We also attended an evening of
Mozart with
singers and dancers. After all we were in Vienna; but no sachertorte
this time
but at least affelstrudel and a little night music - and of course a
local wurst from a stall in the street. Their sausages are
street
food like our falafel.
We visited the delightful
Hundertwasser museum. His vitality and exuberance are amazing but we
found his
philosophy even more endearing and he definitely held ecological views before they were generally
accepted.
We also went to
Belvedere Museum to see Klimt’s The Kiss and the Lady with a Fan. At
all
souvenier shops there are cups and scarves and purses with The Kiss
emblazoned
on them.
On our last night in Vienna we ate dinner at
Porterhouse
Restaurant. Excellent. But the delight of the evening was a young
Chinese
couple from Shanghai, sitting at the next table, with whom we got
talking. They
have been married for 1 year and being totally impressed that we are
married
for 56 years they asked us for advice. The young man took it very
seriously and
wrote all our suggestions down in his phone. We do hope they visit us
if they
come to Israel.
We walked for
hours and enjoyed this break from routine so much, before travelling to
Slovakia
where Eitan will be busy as the Reviewer at the European Bridge
Champions’
Cup.
VIENNA JULY 2017
A personal account of a short visit, by Doreen
On our way to the
European Youth Championships in Samorin Slovakia we stopped in Vienna.
Initially I didn’t want to visit Vienna as I well remember that on our
last
visit a number of years ago we heard a group of people singing a Nazi
song not
far from our hotel. And I recall pictures of the enthusiastic
reaction of the
Viennese to
the annexation of Austria by Hitler in 1938.
Our hotel was in the
Jewish Quarter near the only synagogue to survive Kristalnacht. The
synagogue
was connected to buildings on either side and unlike other
synagogues was
not burnt for fear of damaging the adjoining buildings. The square in
front of our hotel is
called
Judenplatz where there is a plaque remembering two Jews killed during a
terrorist
attack in 1981 on their way to a barmitzvah ceremony at the synagogue. There is a huge community centre there as well.
We visited the Jewish
Museum. For many years
anti-Semitism was rife in Vienna after WWII
until Michael Haupt became mayor in 1994 and acknowledged Vienna’s
responsibility in the destruction of Viennese Jewry.
Today the Jewish Community has about 8,000
members. Interestingly enough about a third of the community are Jews
from
Bukhara Turkmenistan who emigrated to
Israel but eventually chose to settle in Vienna. During
our two days in Vienna I saw only one
man with a kipa; on our second day we heard a lot of Hebrew –
obviously
Israeli tourists.
Theodor Herzl lived in Vienna where he was a
journalist for the Neue Freie Presse. He was sent to Paris to cover the
trial of Alfred Dreyfuss wrongly accused of treason. When he heard the
crowds screaming "Death to the Jews" he changed his whole outlook on
the solution to the 'Jewish Question,' becoming
the father of modern political Zionism.
He was buried in Vienna in
1904. In his will he asked that should a Jewish State be founded that
his body be interred in Jerusalem. In an emotional ceremony his body
was brought to Mount Herzl in Jerusalem in 1949 with representatives
from all the Jewish villages bringing soil to cover his grave.
At the Jewish museum in Vienna Theodore
Herzl’s bicycle is displayed as well as a
picture of him
with his bicycle in 1902 – not the severe statesman we know from the
iconic
poster of him in front of the walls of Jerusalem
The other thing that caught our attention was a
map dated 1529
showing
one of the two Turkish sieges on Vienna. The failure of the first siege
put a
stop to Turkish expansion under Suleiman the Magnificent (the man who
built the
walls we see around the Old City of Jerusalem today) who had already
conquered
and
annexed part of Hungary.
Near our hotel was Daniel Moser,
a coffee
shop advertising
the best coffee in Vienna. It also
happened to have delicious bagels and mozzarella but best of all was
the sign
by the toilets!
I visited Vienna
Secession, which was an art movement formed
in the late 1800’s. Its first president was Gustav Klimt.
Representations of
“The Kiss” and his other paintings are all over Vienna, on coffee cups,
dishes, scarves, umbrellas
and
posters. The Kiss is in Belvedere a palace we didn’t manage to visit
but his 1902 frieze interpreting
Beethoven’s 9th
Symphony is in the Secession
building.
The end of the symphony expresses man’s yearning
for happiness with the choir singing Friedrich
Schiller’s Ode
To Joy ending with “This Kiss to the Whole World.”
Another part of the frieze entitiled ‘Intemperance’
with its fat lady particularly
spoke to me - but the last scene of Ode to Joy is more famous!
We managed to attend a
performance of Piber Meets Vienna to see the Lippizan horses at the
Spanish
Riding School winter quarters. The stallion pageant is performed only
in winter, while
in
summer the mares with their foals give a performance in this amazing
building dating
back to 1792 to the reign of Emperor Charles VI.
Many of
the young horses were dark brown,
surprising as their parents are all white. It seems that they are born
dark
brown but shed their hair which gradually turns white. When we approach
horses
we are always warned not to put our hands near their mouths because
they can
bite. Here the foals were frisky but the mares were very gentle and
allowed
the
audience to pat them.
Besides walking a lot
through the beautiful streets of Vienna we did a lot of eating! A fun place is Naschmarket – a long narrow
food market with a vast array of restaurants and stalls selling many
different foods.
At a fine dining
restaurant overlooking the Danube River, I choose fish wrapped in a
banana leaf
while Eitan chose ….. Vienna Schnitzel.
His verdict: when in Vienna eat sausages from the street stalls.
I on
the other hand was on a quest to find the perfect frozen yoghurt,
But wait, what about
the Mozart chocolates sold everywhere? Feeling very virtuous we didn’t
try
those,
after all they are sold all over the world. But Sacher Torte? I stood
in a
queue in the boiling sun to get a table at the Sacher Café, home
to the Original
Sacher Torte. It was good but not amazing so we had to go to the nearby
Mozart
Café
the next day to try their version of Sacher Torte. The Original Sacher
Torte is based on a secret recipe from 1832 which is kept in a safe. It
details the ingredients as well as the order of the various chocolates
needed in the 34 different steps to make the cake which when
baked is spread with
apricot jam and covered with a firm chocolate icing.
Having
eaten one of the 360,000 big slices made every year, my verdict: when
in
Vienna eat apfelstrudel.
Vienna in summer is a place of
outdoor coffee houses and cafes and beautiful shopping areas. It
demands more time than we had to attend a concert of Mozart's music,
to enjoy a boat ride on the Danube, to visit Sigmund Freud’s
house or the towering St Stephen's Cathedral which always
gave us our bearings, or to visit the excellent art
museums, Hundertwasserhaus and villages, and of course “the Kiss” by
Klimt at the Belvedere Palace.
In the end,
despite my initial misgivings, I
decided Vienna was well worth another visit.
