Vienna - Light as a Confection

We were in Vienna for three days and the city felt like the light, frothy topping on coffee or the whipped crème on my hot chocolate. In fact, one of my best memories of Vienna is sitting with Michael on a busy pedestrian street at the Sacher Hotel (the creator of the Sacher torte), on a cool autumn afternoon, under an umbrella with heat lamps glowing, while we sipped coffee and hot chocolate (with Starbucks in the background!). Delightful.

Vienna is filled with beautiful buildings housing a wealth of museums and palaces. It wasn’t possible to see them all but we did our best to sample the highlights while soaking up the ambiance. Music is everywhere, too. As the home to Strauss (Viennese waltz), we were never far from music. In fact, we stayed just behind their opera house - a large, ornate building delicately lit at night. We toured the opera house which is richly decorated in the foyer and galleries. However, the main auditorium was bombed in WWII and was reconstructed in the 1950s. Unfortunately, it looks like it was reconstructed in the 1950s. It’s a wonderful venue for performances but lacks the regal decoration we enjoyed inside La Scala.

When we arrived in Vienna, we strolled up the wide pedestrian street lined with large, ornate buildings and filled with the comings and goings of throngs – young, old, kids and us. The air was crisp and cool and the sun was already setting at 4:30PM. There were hot dog (wurst) stands around every bend as well as young men selling warm, roasted chestnuts. Shop after shop sold beautiful Viennese pastries – layers of chocolate, fruit, and crème – each beckoning to be tasted. Some shops made marzipan candies shaped for the holidays – Kris Kringle, Christmas trees and made the shops look like miniature villages. The wide streets were filled with outdoor cafes where the locals snuggled under heat lamps enjoying pastries, coffee and wine. It was an infectious scene.

We came into the large plaza that houses St. Stephen’s cathedral. The cathedral, the largest in Austria, has a towering spire (that Wil and I climbed the next morning), a spooky crypt (the Mike and Wil toured) and a nave filled with grand art. Inside, the cathedral was very dark as the building and stained glass would benefit from a good scrubbing (cleaning the delicate architecture was underway). As we left, the spire was hit with the final rays of intense afternoon light.

The major sights in the old part of Vienna are linked by parks and I did my best to run through all of them. The leaves on the trees were russet with great piles of leaves mounded beneath. Pathways wound through the parks past statues of Mozart, Strauss, and Schuman as well as statues of Franz Josef and his wife, Sisi.

It was supposed to rain while we were there but day after day the mornings were crisp, cool with only spotty clouds overhead. And the city was preparing for Christmas. Extravagant lights were being installed over the streets and in the parks. Seemingly every square would have a Christmas market. Workers were busily constructing little, brown houses that would transform into gift boutiques the following weekend.


Of the many sights in Vienna, we took in what we could and some days we each went our own ways to select from the delicacies that Vienna has to offer. We all enjoyed a trip out to Schloss Schonbrunn Palace – the summer home and garden for the past Viennese royalty, the Hapsburg family. The palace looked like a less ornate version of Versailles and with grounds to match. This is where Mozart played his first concert at age six. Inside, you begin to get the feeling of how intertwined the royal families were throughout Europe. Marie Antoinette was a child in this palace before she was shipped off to France. Another was sent to rule Mexico and yet another’s assassination precipitated WWI. It’s quite a legacy. On another day we saw the Imperial Apartments at the palace in downtown Vienna. It’s more of the same – ornate rooms filled with formality and ritual. Walking through the opulent rooms it’s tempting to say, “It’s good to be King.” But, after hearing their stories, I’m not so sure.

Vienna is also chock full of museums. They are housed in an immense “museum quartier” as well as being scattered through palaces here and there. Of course, Wil had his choice of museum offerings and I’m sure he reaped more from it than any of the rest of us. After breakfast at Cafe Mozart, we each set out to explore the museums and the city. I was thrilled to discover several new artists (Klimt, Mosser, Schiele) whose work I was previously unfamiliar with. The most well known was Gustav Klimt. I’d seen photos of his work and was – well, underwhelmed. But, like all art – there’s nothing to compare with the original, and knowing the history of the art and artist helps, too. The Secession Building – a work unto itself – houses Klimt’s moving frieze and the Belvedere Palace has many of his works most notably “The Kiss.” Klimt’s art includes a mix of very realistic portraits overlaid with ornate graphical design many times done in gold leaf. It sounds odd but to stand in front of the work was to be deeply moved. It was worth dashing from museum to museum to see all the Klimts I could find in Vienna.

The experience of Vienna wouldn’t be complete without the music. While there’s no way to compare to the experience of La Scala, the music that signifies Vienna is completely different. It, too, is light, airy and….just plain happy. We went to a musical performance at the Kursalon – a graceful building from the 1860s whose inside was buttermilk-colored walls and heavy white trim throughout the deeply coffered ceiling. The music – a mix of Strauss and Mozart – was created by a small ensemble of three violins, a cello, bass, flute/piccolo, clarinet, piano and percussion. Where La Scala was dramatic, the mood here was comfortable, easy and enjoyable in its simplicity. All of the selections were classic music but each was light and floaty like a Strauss waltz. In fact, Strauss played in this hall and his statue was in the garden just behind the building. The music was interspersed with ballet and a few arias. The first aria was from The Marriage of Figaro – ironic, as that was the opera that my dad took me to as a teenager. What a nice footnote to the drama of the La Scala experience. All in all, the music provided the final topping to our sweet and delicious stay in Vienna.

Oh – before I finish with all this sweetness and light – I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that not all the food was about sugar. Mike and Wil consumed a pig’s worth of wurst, sausage, schnitzel, hot dogs and other wieners. I tried a wurst and I have to admit it was excellent, but I think I’ll stick with the Sacher torte that Siena and I shared! There’s just nothing like a rich, dark chocolate cake with a hint of raspberry served in a beautiful city and shared with good friends.