Autumn 2019: Vienna: Episode 4

As we know all good things must come to an end, as do quite a few crappy ones too. But did this mean that I was just going to sit around the hotel room and mope all day instead of getting out there again? Well, to be honest, when I did my weather check this morning and found that the temperature at 9 am in Vienna was 1 degree above zero, the thought did cross my mind. But your Dave is made of sterner stuff than that, gentle reader, and so putting on two layers of clothing under my coat, I set off to brave the elements. Which might perhaps explain why the zip of my coat bust as I sat down on the first U Bahn train of the day. Brownie points to me for not deciding to write the whole day off after this ill omen, I think. 

So, where to first? Well, my 72 hour travel pass would be running out in a couple of hours, and so it made sense to me to get another 24 hour pass first. After all, by the time this one runs out at about half nine tomorrow, I plan to be in the airport. So a train and a tram ride took me to the Schonbrunn, so that I could tick off another one in my I Spy book of Viennese Palaces. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t mind betting that Vienna can boast one of the world’s highest rates of PPHP ( palaces per head of population). This one, the Schonbrunn, was supposedly the favourite residence of the penultimate Emperor of Austria, the famous Franz Josef. It weighs in at a measly 1441 rooms, but then it was only supposed to be the Habsburgs’ summer palace, so they can be forgiven a little. Interesting man, Franz Josef. You have to feel sorry for the fact that his only son, Rudolf, shot himself in a suicide pact with his mistress at the Mayerling hunting lodge, and his wife was shot dead by an anarchist in Italy. Mind you, that has to be tempered with the knowledge that even if the decision to take the actions which led to the First World War were those of his ministers, he seemed pretty happy about them. And the fact that he greeted the news of the assassination of his heir, Franz Ferdinand, by saying that this was an act of God tends to mitigate against that much sympathy. 

The Schobrunn manages the tricky feat of being monumental in scale, and at the same time being elegantly beautiful. I did consider making a sketch of it, and I wouldn’t have minded taking a walk through the gardens, and having a go at the maze. I do like a maze. However it was such a misty and murky old morning, as well as being absolutely cold enough to freeze der balles off ein messing-affe

which put paid to that idea. Instead, I took a long tram ride to Schottentor. When I’d passed through on the tram sightseeing tour a couple of days ago we’d been shown a very tall church, supposedly inspired by Cologne Cathedral. By this time the weather had reached the balmy height of 6 degrees, and so I quickly sketched the one you can see. You can’t miss it. It’s the one with the church in it. I don’t know why, but for some reason I must have decided that the place was the Karlsplatz. Wrong, he Karlsplatz is several stops along the tram line. Never mind.

I was getting hungry by the time that I finished the sketch, and luckily there was a Chinese fast food stand by the tram stop. Well, I say Chinese. To be honest, serving fried battered chicken and chips in a noodle box, with chopsticks doesn’t really make it a Chinese meal in my book. What the hell. I’d like to say it was delicious, but that would be an utter lie. The food itself was great, but they insisted, despite my protestations, in covering the chips with half a ton of salt. What’s that? No, of course I didn’t throw it away. There’s people starving in this world, you know.

 Off the point completely, I realise now that it’s high time that I mentioned the scooters.

To put it simply, the Viennese do seem to have a thing about scooters. And when I say scooters, I’m not referring to little motorbikes, but to the stand on it and scoot along with your foot type. I wouldn’t say that they are quite as popular here as bikes are in Amsterdam, but it’s not that far off. They’re everywhere, and people even take them onto the U Bahn with them. There’s even a scheme whereby you can rent an electric scooter all over the city, reminiscent of the old Boris Bikes in London. Could it catch on here? Well folks, just remember that you heard it here first.  

Now, you remember I said about the Natural History Museum? When? Oh, do pay attention, 007. In Tuesday’s post I mentioned that I was going to have a look at the Natural History Museum when I’d finished at the Kunsthistorisches, but having spent 4 hours in the latter I decided to give it a miss and postpone it until today. Well, I’ll be honest with you, I was in two minds about whether I really wanted to visit today, but in the end I was so glad that I did. Right, allow me a little digression here. I was once told that all men have a thing. Oooh, Matron. No, it was in an INSET day in school, and the remarkable thing isn’t so much that I remember this from more than a decade ago, but that I still remembered it when I walked out of school on the same day. How should I put this – the number of memorable INSET days I’ve found the least bit memorable in my 3 decades of teaching can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And two of the fingers aren’t needed for the counting either. Still, I remember on this particular day there were two trainers from outside, one of whom was a qualified medical doctor, and he was talking to us about stress. And he said that all men have a thing, that is, a consuming interest into which they put a huge amount of whatever time and energy they are left with outside of school. Well, gentle reader, I’m lucky enough that I’ve had several things in my lifetime. Behave yourself. But the first one that I can remember, the first all consuming interest that I can remember having, was dinosaurs.

I was already heavily interested the first time that my Mum took me as a very small boy to visit the Natural History Museum, and I can still remember the excitement of walking though the doors into that magnificent hall and seeing Dippy the Diplodocus in all of his glory. Incidentally, he’s in Cardiff at the moment. So while it wasn’t quite the same excitement, I still loved seeing the dinosaur exhibits in the Vienna Museum today. I sketched a triceratops skull– another of my favourites – while getting some very funny looks from other visitors. Well, look, nobody was stopping anyone else from taking photos, so I can’t see what the problem was with making a sketch. Or as you can see, two sketches.

Why the dodo? Well, the fact was that I couldn’t get a good enough vantage point to sketch the Dippy clone – like Dippy this is a plastercast of the original fossil donated by Andrew Carnegie. The dodo is interesting anyway. Poor sods. Put yourself in their position. You’re king of the island of Mauritius, with no predators to worry about, then a boatload of Portuguese sailors hoves into view. They give you a name which means stupid (although this is disputed – some would have it that the word dodo comes from the Dutch for Fat Bottom. Charming) Within a hundred years or so of the first settlers on Mauritius, you’re all gone. In fact, gone so completely that the last known stuffed dodo was destroyed in a fire in the Oxford Museum, and only a couple of bits remain to be seen. If you’re looking for a symbol of the impermanence of things, it’s a pretty good one. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair. 

When I came out of the Museum, mentally patting myself on the back for having taken the plunge and gone in, I had one self imposed task left. On Tuesday when I’d finished in the Museum I’d walked into the centre through the Hofburg, and taken a bite to eat in the Burggarten, where I’d seen the rather wonderful Palm House, which you can see in one of the sketches with this post. At first glance it looked to me like the sort of place from which you’d expect a Jules Verne airship to emerge. Dating from the first couple of years of the 20th century, what we’d maybe call Art Nouveau is called Jugendstil here. Quite ironic really. Jugendstil translates as something like young style, the irony being that nowadays old style would probably be more accurate. I love it.  

Wherever the sun had been all day, it had now set, and with my coat flapping open, and my hands moaning about the cold, I set off back to the hotel. When I opened the door to my room, something struck me as not being quite right. Nothing had moved while I’d been out. Everything was exactly where I’d left it. Then, at about half past six, there was a knock at the door. A very nice lady, with a cleaning trolley, spoke to me in German, and then, in English, asked if I’d like my room cleaned. At half past six. In the evening. I considered giving a sarky reply, but merely shook my head and said Nein danke. Which I guess was exactly what she was hoping that I’d say, considering the way she went skipping along the corridor to the next room.  

So that’s it, dearly beloved. My flight is at 11:05 tomorrow morning, and my aim is to be in the airport by 9. So no time for more foolishness tomorrow. Thanks for being with me, and if you’ve enjoyed it at all, then why don’t you come back for the Spring 2020 edition from . . . ah, that would be telling! Auf wiedersehen.