Vienna, Austria

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

This is a long blog, so skip it if you are not interested in Vienna.

Today we had 2 tours booked, so we took handy tram #1 to meet at the office of the first tour, which was a walking tour from 10:30 to 1:00. There were about a dozen people on this tour with us. Our leader was Andrea and she was very good. It rained pretty hard at times, and she was always looking for places to get us out of the rain. Some of the houses were built with "through" walkways, so people could get from one street to another. She also took us inside an old mansion which is now being used as an auction house. The door to the carriage house was fancier than a mansion back home.


We tried to stay at the front of the group so we could hear her better and so our views wouldn't get blocked by the sea of umbrellas around us. One girl in the group seemed obsessed with being fashionable rather than practical. She wobbled around in a pair of stylish high heels, and when it started to rain, she wrapped them in plastic bags (while on her feet).


There are 29 districts in Vienna, our tour covered district #1, which is the old town in the center of Vienna. We saw the old city hall, the old Jewish Quarter, Parliament, the Hofburg Imperial Palace, Heroes' Square, St Michael's Square, and the tour ended at St Stephen's Cathedral.

We learned a few interesting facts:

- The Jews were persecuted in Vienna long before WWII, and repeatedly expelled, but kept being asked back because the city needed money lenders.

- The older Gothic style churches tended to be tall rather than wide. They included vertical lines in the architecture to draw your eyes upwards, and a tall spire. They believed that the taller you got, the closer you got to God. We saw one Gothic church made of sand and what Andrea called "chalk"stone, she said it was weaker than limestone and you could scratch it with your fingernail (no, we didn't try it). Amazing that a church like that is still standing after hundreds of years.


- The Ring Road that runs around the Old Town of Vienna used to be a city wall. We saw one part of the old city wall still intact. It was right beside an apartment that Beethoven used to live in, but they don't make a big deal of this because apparently Beethoven never paid his rent and lived in 67 different apartments.


- There are still traveling theaters in Vienna.

- If a building has red and white flags on it, that building is historically protected. It is very difficult to make any renovations to these buildings, including replacing windows.

- There is a huge memorial to commemorate all the victims of the plague.

- She took us into the Volksgarten, part of the Hofburg complex, which has over 400 different kinds of roses. You can "rent" a rose plant for 2 years; for those who do, there are labels where you can write a dedication of your choice.

- Hitler came to live in Vienna in his youth. There are 21 universities in Vienna, and they are free. Hitler tried to enter art school but twice failed the entrance exam. He was forced to live on the streets for 2 years, and this is when he became very highly anti-Semitic, because he saw the wealth of the Jews in the area.

- Vienna is considered a top city in the world in which to live, with low crime rates and low unemployment (5%). As much as 57% of jobs are single person companies, such as tour guides.

- The Lipizzaner horses perform in the Hofburg palace complex, and train daily. The show has been ongoing for 4 centuries. You can pay half price to see them train instead of paying full price to see a performance. We did not feel we needed to see them, since we saw them perform when they came to Kitchener several years ago. They always use stallions for the Lipizzaners. The young horses are born dark, and mature to white.


The tour ended at the St Stephan's Cathedral, which is very impressive. It sits directly in the center of town, high above everything else. It was originally built as a parish church in 1147. The tower was built in 1430 and was the tallest in the world for 2 whole months at 444 ft tall. The church is Austria's most significant Gothic building. There are still several masses a day, and 10 masses on Sundays. The steeple has 343 stairs that you can climb to get a view over all of Vienna. We didn't have time to climb up, but we did go inside for awhile.


We just had enough time to find a restaurant for lunch, then we headed back to the same tour office for our second tour of the day. We were very thankful that the rain stopped for this tour. This one was a bike tour from 2:30 to 5:30. There were only 5 of us on the tour, us and 3 Australian guys, and the guide Horst. Frankie was the only girl, and she was bound and determined to keep up to the guys, which she did. It was nice having a smaller group, Horst usually has 15 to 20 on the tour, and then you have to wait 2 or 3 lights for the whole group to get through a stoplight. This tour took us around the Ring Road and out of the city a bit, for a total of 12 to 13 km. The tour included the City Hall, the Imperial Court Theater, Parliament, Maria Theresa Square, the Opera House, St Charles Church, Stadtpark, Hundertwasser House, Prater, the Giant Ferris Wheel, and the Danube Canal. Because we were a small group which gave him extra time, Horst actually took us to the Danube River as well.


Here are the interesting facts from the bike tour:

- Across from the Parliament, there are very young trees. The reason: the old trees were falling into the ground! The Turks had dug tunnels that the Austrians didn't know about. The weight of the old trees made them fall in.


- We rode through the Prater, a very large park (it took 15 minutes to cycle straight across). It was built as a royal hunting ground. When kings had wives who didn't produce heirs, they would take their wives hunting with them and there would be an "accident". Thus he could find a new wife legally (divorce was forbidden).


- There is a large ferris wheel in the Prater. The name: Giant Ferris Wheel. It has been there since 1898. It takes 20 minutes to go around, 7 of which you are out of sight of anyone else. They have had to start cracking down on young couples during these 7 minutes.....


- There are Frank Stronach posters all over Vienna. This is Belinda Stronach's father, and he is running for office here.

- Anton's bike was named "Willy Wonka", and Frankie had "Fresh Prince".

- The oldest house we saw was called Basiliskenhaus, from 1212. The house has 3 floors for living, and 4 floors for a cellar.

- The streets around the Ring Road are all filled-in moats, from when the Ring Road was the city walls.

- There is an interesting house we saw called Hundertwasserhaus, built in 1983. The architect believed that straight lines made people sick, so the house has round corners and windows of various sizes. It is a social housing project, and a popular stop for tourists.


- The Danube used to be a delta, but it has been transformed into a river and a canal.


We enjoyed our bike tour a lot. Vienna is a very bike friendly city. There are separate lanes for cars, for trams, for bikes, and for pedestrians. Each of these lanes has its own stoplights.

After the bike tour, we walked down Karntnerstrasse, the main shopping street of Vienna, comparable to Fifth Avenue in New York City. We only window shopped, except for a few small gifts for Frankie's parents. We found a restaurant with a live xylophonist for music. When the restaurant dimmed the lights, they attached lights to the menus so people could read them.