Viennese whirl
MUSIC, espionage, cream cakes, great art, apple strudels, architecture, sausages. Yes, we’re in Vienna.
This Monday, October 26, Austrians will celebrate — as they have done every year since 1955 — their country’s emergence as an independent and sovereign nation after World War II.
Austria was the recipient of two pieces of serendipity after the war. They managed to escape being part of the Communist bloc as the Iron Curtain descended across Europe. Austria was almost absent-mindedly overlooked when it came to negotiations between the Allies.
Secondly, they were perceived, rather fortunately, as victims of Nazi Germany, not willing partners.
But the Austrians have repaid that glossing-over of history, that serendipity, very well indeed.
In the early years of the 20th century Vienna was basically Europe. It had become a fertile hub of culture, a centre for arts and music, blissfully unaware of what was coming menacingly down the tracks.
After the war, Austria, now part of the West, became a more edgy place, surrounded by the Communist Eastern Bloc — but remaining an exemplar of Western freedom. No wonder so many spy novels and films were set in Vienna.
YOU can follow in the footsteps of Harry Lime or Magnus Pym (Le Carré’s Perfect Spy), wander through its old streets, poke your nose into every courtyard and cobbled alleyway. You’ll marvel at the mediaeval buildings surrounded by baroque domes, Romanesque spires and classicist columns.
On Salvatorgasse, especially look out for the gothic Maria am Gestade, finished in 1414. This is the church which Joseph Cotten runs past in The Third Man. Burg Kino, Vienna’s oldest cinema, shows the film two or three times a week. Just mind your back. Vienna’s number one landmark, the bombastic St Stephen’s Cathedral ( Stephansplatz), is one of Christendom’s finest buildings. In normal times they regularly stage concerts here, so you can give up yer ould sins as well as listen to outrageously up lifting music, amid grandeur and spirituality.
Vienna has l ong been an intensely musical city, home to Mahler, Schubert, Strauss, Haydn and Beethoven. The Figarohaus (Domgasse 5), was the des res of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Now the Mozart Museum, it’s a good place to get into the mood for a concert by the Vienna Mozart Orchestra who regularly stage concerts at the Staatsoper, the State Opera House. Some of the greatest collections of world art have been assembled here in Vienna. In the vast Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts) the works of Breugel, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens and Raphael compete f or space. Meanwhile, the efforts of local boys Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele are scattered liberally about Vienna, most notably in the Upper Belvedere. This palace, is itself an aesthetic marvel, the ultimate in up-yours architecture. But of course there’s more to Vienna than just music and art.
DR Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, l i ved and worked on Bergasse from 1891 until 1938. Now the Sigmund Freud Museum, this is the very home of the Freudian slip. That’s when you say one thing, and mean your mother.
The bungee jumping, ejection seats and turbo-boosts (don’t ask) at the Prater Park, playground of the Viennese for centuries, are worth a miss. For that matter the rickety 105-year- old Ferris Wheel, as seen in The Third Man, isn’t for the faint-hearted either.
On the other hand the Hauptallee, the main artery lined with chestnut trees, is ideal for a stroll — or bike ride — and leads to the Prater café. Austr i a remains one of the world’s cream- cake superpowers, and several hundred cafes are ready to serve you. This is the pinnacle of pastrydom; desserts are taken very seriously here.
To that I say whole-heartedly — Happy Austria Day on Monday, Austria!