Autumn 2019 - Vienna Episode 3

Now look, I know that you’re all itching to hear about the tram museum, aren’t you? Well, all good things come to those that wait. Let us first, though, begin with the Hundertwasserhaus. Gesundheit. 

I set out at 9 this morning, and, knowing that the aforementioned tram museum doesn’t open until 10, I walked for about 20 minutes to see a rather rum concoction called the Hundertwasser House. You can see it in the sketch, and I have to say that the sketch doesn’t really do justice to how odd it actually is. The House was the brainchild of artist Friedenreich Hundertwasser. After making a number of television programmes outlining his views on architecture, he was invited in 1977 by Leopold Gratz, then the Mayor of Vienna, to design an apartment block.
His working relationship with the architect Joseph Krawina was stormy to say the least. I’m not surprised, mind you. I can just imagine what some of their conversations might have been like:-
“So then Fred, let’s talk about some of these ideas you want to incorporate into the house.”
“Ja, ja, all ist gut.”
“Now, you want as many roof gardens as is humanly possible?”
“Nein.”
“Nine? Oh well, it seems a bit excessive, but I’m sure we can – “
“Nein. No. Not gardens. Forests.”
“I see. Roof forests. And while we’re on the subject of roofs . . . an onion dome. On a skyscraper. What’s that all about?”
“The onion as der symbol of life itself, the tawdry outer layers, yet with each new layer unwrapped we come closer to der shining pearl of understanding. . .”
“Hmm. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, Fred, but have you seen a doctor recently?”
In the end the house was finally opened in 1985, although it took a court case ending in the noughties to have Krawina recognised as its co-creator. 

The house really is a most remarkable looking thing. What you can’t see in the sketch is around the other side where the entrances on the ground are all rounded – not an angle in sight, and look like the kind of place you’d see Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry emerging from. Well, on a sunny day, anyway. On a murky day like today, Smaug seemed more of a possibility. In all fairness I should probably mention that the house is an extremely popular tourist attraction, and by the time I finished my sketch, it was absolutely thronged with camera happy tourists.  

Today was a cold day in Vienna, colder than yesterday, and the wind was cutting. So I dashed off that sketch in about 30 minutes, and then sought the nearby U Bahn station and rode the train the two stops it took to get me to the Remise tram museum.

What can I say? I loved it. Now, when it comes to museums, I’m not that fussy – as opposed to art galleries. I like them all, but especially I like them if they tell a story, and the Remise definitely told a story. Yes, it was the story of the Vienna tram system, but in essence this was also the story of Vienna in the 20th century, and it was a story that I probably learned more about here than anywhere else I’ve been in Vienna. The museum is illuminating about the struggles Vienna faced after the peace treaties after world war I, and is also quite candid and honest about the period between the Anschluss with Hitler’s Germany and the end of World War II, for example. 

I sat down, and made the sketch you can see with this post. To me this shouts from the rooftops that it’s a product of the 50s – at one point Vienna had some trams which had been scrapped from New York running in the post war period, and I’m sure you can see the influence in this. 

It was while I was sketching that a very nice Hungarian lady with a large brood of children in tow came and sat down. The kids were bouncing – literally in the case of one who was sitting on the other end of my bench, and the way they started to unpack a picnic gave me a hint that they weren’t going to be getting up any time soon. How do I know they were Hungarian? Well, she started talking to me about the sketch, and my lack of understanding of German or Hungarian led to a longer conversation. Her family lives in Budapest, and they had just come for the day because one of the boys loves trams. I predict he’ll go far. The round trip is between 3 and 4 hours apparently. We did actually get onto the subject of Brexit, which she summed up rather succinctly with,
“Well, we do have some stupid people in Hungary too.” I couldn’t top that and so I didn’t try. 

It was about a 20 minute walk back to the hotel, which kept me from freezing, and gave me the opportunity to put on another layer of clothing. The day had already been a great success, and I wanted to maintain it as much as possible. So the next step was to take a tram from Schottentor U Bahn station to the Belvedere Palace. Alright, I know that this has been a bit of a tram-heavy episode so far, but I’m just trying to tell it like it is. And I have to say, that with the sun out, standing in the back of the tram in the standing only area as it trundled along the Ringstrasse just left me with a massive grin on my silly old face. I can’t help it.  

As for the Belvedere, well, that was the second museum of the day. Put simply, the Belvedere is a palace built as the summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy. However, what we’re interested in about it today, is that the Upper Belvedere – the main palace – is the home of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. I think it’s probably fair to say that The Kiss is, along with Mozart, one of Vienna’s real star turns. Never mind all the other great paintings in the museum, the signs, which direct you to it, make it perfectly clear that most people are there for Klimt’s greatest hit. And it is a wonderful painting, no doubt. But what was just as interesting was looking at some of Klimt’s other work, and seeing just what a great traditional portrait painter he was as well. Of all of his paintings, though, even more than The Kiss I was drawn to his Judith. This is a painting I’ve seen reproductions of, but never knew it was supposed to represent Judith of Judith and Holofernes fame, nor that she is actually holding the severed head of Holofernes. Incredible.  

With tempus busily fugiting, I left the Belvedere, and headed back on the tram to try to squeeze in another sketch. This time I got off opposite the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which you may recall from yesterday’s episode, and walked along to the Hofburg, where I sketched the geegee carriage. I did wonder whether one horse was asking the other how the accordion recital had gone the day before. 

I treated myself to a melange – a Viennese coffee – on the way back to the U Bahn, which was well needed since the light had faded by this time, and the clearness of the sky suggested that it was probably going to get a lot colder any time soon. So there we have it, dearly beloved. A very good day indeed, and one more full day left. Tune in tomorrow to see where Fortune – and the U Bahn – takes us. Goodnight Vienna.

Autumn 2019: Vienna: Episode One

Good morning, hello and welcome to the first episode of the Autumn 2019 edition of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook. This time we’re in . . . Vienna! Yes, dearly beloved, it’s another bucket list destination. Why was I so keen to come to Vienna particularly, though? Well, we’ll come to that.

So, my daughter Jenn offered to drive me to the airport yesterday morning. Then her partner, James, an all-round good egg, reminded her that he goes to Swindon first thing on a Monday morning, and so I slept at Jenn’s on Sunday night, and James drove me to the airport yesterday morning. By half past 5. Yes, I know, normally getting up at 4 in the morning would knacker me as far as the rest of the day was concerned, but actually I’d gone to bed really early at Jenn’s and for about the only time I can remember, it worked, and I had a really good night’s sleep. 

In fact most of yesterday was like that. Let me give you an example. Have a look at the pictures at the bottom of the page. Notice anything? How dare you! No, what I meant was that I didn’t make a sketch in the airport. The reason? I didn’t have time to get bored which meant I didn’t have to sketch. Now, I know that there are many out there who won’t believe it but this next bit is true. My Easy Jet flight did not leave at the advertised time. No. It left a few minutes early. Then the non priority passengers such as myself were ushered onto the plane at exactly the same time as the priority passengers. Then I boarded the plane and found that without paying any extra, I had been given a seat towards the front right beside the window. It was as if I had entered some weird parallel dream world in which things worked out exactly as they were supposed to. Well, if that was the case, then 5 minutes into the flight the real world suddenly took over. There was this kicking on the back of my seat. Kick kick kick. I sat up indignantly, and turned round, and there was a very young mother with a very young toddler, smiling apologetically at me. No, as it happened, I didn’t demand that the cabin crew provide them with parachutes and eject them over the south coast. I sat down and put up with it.  

So, we arrived in Vienna about 15 minutes ahead of schedule, and I had no problem locating the driver for my transfer to the hotel. He smiled, which is always a good sign, I think, even though he was expecting a chap called Clark David, and when I asked if he minded if I went to the information desk to buy a 72 hour travel pass he shrugged his shoulders, and replied, “Sure. We have to wait half an hour for the others, anyway.” Not actually his fault, but a combination of my early arrival, and a late Easy Jet arrival from Dublin created the delay where there should have been none. Good old Easy Jet. If they can’t get you one way, they’ll get you another. 

Well, anyway, the very nice Irish couple we were waiting for and I were all staying at the same hotel, and as we chatted I found out that one of them was the very best kind of schoolteacher to be, that is, a retired one. My first impression of the ladies in reception was that they were very professional, an impression only slightly dented by the fact that even though I had printed proof that my room had been booked under my name, they still asked why I wasn’t Jenniffer. This time it took about a second or two to clear that up. Check in wasn’t until 3, but at least they gave me a pass to the luggage room, and so, having dumped my bag, armed only with sketchbook and kindle I set off to make a preliminary exploration of the city. 

I don’t know if she did it deliberately, but Jenn had booked me into a hotel which was only a 15 minute walk away from the Vienna Tram Museum. Sensible girl. It was with a sense of gratitude that I walked along to the museum, only to find out that it only opens on Mittwoch, Samstag and Sonntag. I believe that means Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. It certainly didn’t mean Monday, anyway. So that’s the first activity for tomorrow pencilled in. Only slightly daunted I decided that I was going to get a tram fix today anyway, and a metro fix while I was at it, and as the Untergrundbahn Station was only a short walk away I took the U Bahn to Schweden Platz station. Incidentally, I did play the Meaning of Liff - what do the names of the stations mean game. Or tried to. The only one I came up with was Stubentor – a very short Transformer.

 Schweden Platz is so named because after the First World War, Austria was in a bit of a state. In fact it was in a lot of a state. Without going into too much detail, the division of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire in the peace treaties left Austria with a capital, Vienna, far too big, and with far too great a population to support. After the war, Sweden took thousands of Viennese children to Sweden, fed them up, looked after them, and then sent them back to Vienna. In gratitude, the people of Vienna named the Schweden Platz thus in their honour. Nice.

 Of course, I was more interested in the Schweden Platz because it was the place to catch the Ringstrasse tram tour. This is the rather lovely old tram in the picture. The Ringstrasse is the inner ring road of the capital, and reading my guidebook it tends to divide the cities sights between those within it, and those without it. Quite a nice little tour as well, and it was one of those which give you free headphones for the commentary. It only lasted about 25 minutes, but one thing it did prove to me, which is Vienna does have a thing about Mozart. Walking around later, it occurred to me that in the centre of Vienna certainly, it can be quite difficult to get away from poor old Wolfgang Amadeus. On the tram, whenever the lady doing the commentary stopped talking, her voice was replaced by the strains of Eine Kleine Tram Musik. Later, when wandering around the old town, it was pretty difficult to escape from the gifted one’s painted phizzog on shop signs. All of which did strike me as slightly ironic, considering that Mozart wasn’t treated quite so well in Vienna when he was actually in the land of the living. Tellingly, the commentary made the point that although Mozart was born in Salzburg, he lived and worked in Vienna for the last 10 years or so of his life, and is buried in Vienna. – Ah yes – I thought to myself smugly – but I bet you can’t tell me where his grave is, knowing full well that he was given a pauper’s burial in a communal grave, and so we just don’t know exactly where his remains lie.

 Still, I enjoyed the tram tour. From the Schweden Platz it wasn’t a long walk into the Old Town and the Stephansplatz. The Stephansplatz is so named after the Cathedral of St. Stephan, the biggest church in Vienna, and one of the tallest churches I have ever seen. This is ecclesiastical architecture of the shock and awe variety, and I probably quite wisely decided that it is not a building to tackle sketching on your first day in Vienna. My neck is already stiff just from thinking about how to reduce it to fit it onto paper. Watch this space. From there, though, it’s just another short walk to the Museum Quarter, with the world famous Spanish Riding School, and more museums than you can shake a stick at. I will admit that I did have a fit of the giggles when I saw that one of them was called the Sissi Museum. This is apparently dedicated to the life of the Empress Elisabeth, the consort of Franz Joseph, Sissi being her nickname rather than his description.  

So, back to the hotel to check in. I was standing by the reception at 2 minutes to 3, mentally daring the receptionist to ask me to wait for 2 minutes. She didn’t. She did, however, ask me to fill in the same form I’d filled in earlier, and then again ask me where Jenniffer was, but again, this was all cleared up fairly easily. So up to the very nice room for unpacking, and a breather. 

I had a nagging sense in the back of my mind that I’d forgotten something, and that took shape, and the shape it took was that of a Ferris Wheel. I knew I’d have plenty of time to see the famous Ferris Wheel in Prater Park on another day, but what the hell, I wanted to see it then and there. So, back to the U-Bahn, this time to Prater Stern station. Prater Stern, incidentally, is a perfect phonetic rendition of the correct official response to the words “Piers Morgan is in the boat behind yours”. If like me you’ve ever seen the film, “The Third Man” it’s very difficult to not hum the Harry Lime theme the first time you look at the famous wheel, and I couldn’t resist as I made the sketch you can see here. I had to work quickly because the sun had already set and the light was fading. I was a little surprised how relatively small it is compared with the London eye for example.  

So then, after a wander through the park, then back to the hotel. The closest U Bahn station to the hotel is called Kardinal Nagl-platz, who incidentally is one of the regular characters in the Vatican TV version of Sesame Street. I wanted to pick up just a few bits and pieces from a nearby supermarket if I could find one. Now, let me ask you this. For the dedicated cheap skate such as myself, what would be the perfect discovery? That’s right, a Lidl right next door to the hotel. So I bought my bits, took them up to my room, took them back down again when the key didn’t work, went back to reception, thought about telling them that Jenniffer’s key wasn’t working but thought better of it, got a new key, and came back to the room. And having been overcome by fatigue, that’s pretty much where I’ve been ever since. So that pretty much concludes episode 1, gentle reader, and hopefully I’ll post episode 2 this evening. Guten Tag.

Stockholm Thursday 28th February

So here we are, dearly beloved, with the final instalment of An English Fool Abroad With his Sketchbook, Stockholm Edition. I had a number of plans for this morning, none of which involved going beyond walking distance from the bus terminal where I was going to get the bus to the airport. Why? Well, you see, the thing is that I wasn’t entirely sure when my transport pass would run out. I know that we touched down on Monday about 11am local time, and that it takes a good 20 minutes or so to find the train and take the train into the centre of Stockholm, and the first thing I did when I got to the Central Station was buy a 72 hour pass. Which is okay, as long as you remember that those 72 hours start from the moment that you first use it. And I wasn’t sure when that was. I reckoned that I was certainly good until about 11:45, but after that your guess was as good as mine, since I didn’t both to check what the time was when I used it on Monday.

Now, you remember how I said yesterday that the sun was conspicuous by its absence? Well, today was worse. Officially we were due a high of about 5 degrees, and it may well have reached that in places which were sheltered from the wind. The only trouble was, there wasn’t really anywhere that was actually sheltered from the wind today, or it certainly felt like that. It was one of those winds which seems to blow in all directions at once – it was always in my face no matter which way I was walking. Add to that the fact that it was what you’d all a lazy wind – so called because it’s too lazy to go around you so it goes right through you instead – and you’ll appreciate that I was glad that I was wearing my ‘last line of defence’ jumper. The only reason I was is that it’s too thick to cram into my rucksack, and I couldn’t leave it at the hotel today. So, it’s an ill wind, as they say – even if it’s a lazy one at the same time.

I said my farewells to Gamla Stan earlier, and walked across the bridge on the south side for once, towards an area called Slussen. This is where I made today’s sketch. When you get right down to it, Stockholm does a very nice line in spires, and I really liked this view, even if the bridge was in the middle of a building site – yes, that is a crane on the right hand side of the sketch. This was a very quick 25 minute job, since that wind seemed to be getting lazier all the time. In fact I never felt that I could stop moving for the rest of the morning. Well, not until lunchtime. I was heading vaguely back towards the bus terminal when there was a distinct waft of warm air from a turning in front of me, which is how I came to enter one of Stockholm’s biggest shopping malls. Really not my cup of Darjeeling when you get right down to it, but at least I managed to sit down for half an hour, and sample the Swedish delicacy of varmkorv med senap for lunch. That’s hot dog with mustard to you. 

So time marched onwards, and by about 2:30 I was down to my last 80 kroner – which judging by my experiences in Stockholm would maybe get me a cup of coffee in the airport if I was lucky. (it did – just). I’d already bought my bus ticket in the morning. I didn’t want to mess about when I arrived, so I took the Arlanda express train on Monday, but now, armed with my experiences of three days in Sweden I felt bold enough to take the bus. Well, that and the fact that it was precisely three times cheaper than the train, even though it only took twice as long. Now, when I arrived at the airport on Monday, I didn’t actually notice that there was more than one terminal. When I got on the bus I noticed that it was going to stop at terminal 5, then terminal 4, then terminals 3 and 2. What you’re supposed to do if you’re going from terminal 1 I have absolutely no idea. I also had absolutely no idea which terminal I was going to be flying from. Thankfully the bus had free wifi, and I have to say that Arlanda airport’s online information about departures is a hell of a lot more comprehensive than Bristol’s or Cardiff’s.

So here I am. I have maybe an hour and a half before we get on the plane and say adjo to Stockholm. I’ve enjoyed my time here, and I worked out earlier that it’s the most northerly city I’ve ever visited in mainland Europe. Have to say, mind you, that it certainly felt like it today. The sarky security guard in the airport took one look at my last line of defence jumper and said, “You have discovered that it is not summer in Sweden yet, I think.” Ho ho ho. Laugh, I thought I’d never start, and I didn’t. If you’ve been with me since Monday, thanks, I’ve enjoyed your company. Here’s to the next time.

Stockholm Wednesday 27th February

Good evening. So nice of you to join me again, at the end of my last full day in Stockholm. Well, you remember me saying yesterday about how sharp the winter sunshine is here? Not a problem, today, thanks. Still rather mild for the time of year, but it meant that the wind was that little bit sharper today, and you couldn’t warm up in the sunshine, because there wasn’t any.

I nearly made a bit of a fool of myself on the pendeltag into the city this morning. Even though it was well gone 9, the train was full, and I was standing throughout the ten minute journey. No problem with that, except that after Stockholms Sodra, the last stop before mine, I suddenly found myself crowded by two very large pushchairs. I was wedged up against the door on the left, while the right hand doors had been opening at all stations. I tried suggesting to the parents involved that they might like to let me out through the universal language of the raised eyebrow, but either I was ignored, or it means something quite different in Swedish. I was just checking how much of a leap it would be to mount my high horse, when the train started pulling in, and the platform was actually on my side.

So, then, working on my city to do checklist, by yesterday evening I’d ridden on trams, commuter trains, the T Bana (metro) and buses, but not yet boats. So I took care of that this morning with a couple of rides across the bay , island hopping. Hence the sketch of the ferry I’d just got off when I got to the Djurgarden. There’s still a ton of ice all around Stockholm, but it’s broken up into huge chunks which you just watch floating by as you slip across from one island to another. There’s worse ways to spend your time.

Museum of the day was the Historiske – the Swedish History Museum. The first thing which came to mind when I arrived about 10 minutes before it opened was that it must be the Swedish equivalent of half term this week, since there seemed to be tons of kids waiting in ones and twos with parents and presumably grandparents. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the Historiske. Highlights included the Gold Room – which is basically a room full of gold objects – like the Dutch the Swedes are a commendably literal people. I studied Old Norse as part of my English degree, way back in the mists of time all those decades ago, and as with any body of literature it really helps if you learn at least a little about the historical context. So I found some of the Viking artifacts fascinating. Not that the museum is only about Viking history – far from it, that’s only one small part of the story. To be honest, it was one of those places where you suddenly look at your watch and realise that two hours have gone by since you came in.

From there back then to my favourite part of the city, Gamla Stan, where I made my only watercolour sketch of this trip so far. Once again, it was a little bit of a frustrating day for the exhibitionist type of urban sketcher, considering that all of my sketches today had their observers again, and once again absolutely nobody passed comment on them. I made three of today’s sketches on the Gamla Stan, in a period of about an hour and a half, starting with the Riddarholmskirk , and finishing with the Riksdag entrance. By the time I’d finished I literally was so cold that I couldn’t feel my fingers.

Having said that, though, I’ve had proof that it is still mild for the time of year. When I first arrived at Alvsjo, where the hotel is, on Monday,

coming out of the Pendeltag station I saw a huge mound of dirty, gritty snow piled up in the centre of the square. Both yesterday and today, when I’ve emerged from the station at the end of the day there has been a huge puddle seeping away from the mound, which has noticeably shrunk since Monday.

Well, that just about wraps it up for this episode. Tomorrow I fly back in the later afternoon, so there’s still time for foolishness in the morning. Watch this space.

August 20th - Elche Hospital

I promise you that I won’t detain you for long this evening. So, we were hoping that John might well be coming out of hospital today. Jen set off quite early in the Smart car, while I stayed in the Casa Me Duck. Well, be fair, had I gone as well, then I’d have been clinging to the roof rack on the way home if John had come out, which would have been doubly difficult since the Smart doesn’t actually have a roof rack.

While Jen was on her way, John rang. Right, John had an appointment arranged for a procedure on his back, and this was arranged months ago. They arrived in John’s room early doors today to take him down for it. He was all prepared, even though he was sure it had been cancelled. When they were about to do the procedure, they had a look at the medicine they had been giving him. One of the things John takes is Sintron, an anticoagulant. Jen had made sure that they were fully aware that if John was having the treatment on Monday, then they could not give him Sintron on Sunday. If they were cancelling the procedure, no problem. So what did they do? They gave him Sintron last night. So when they realised they’d given him Sintron last night, they cancelled the procedure and wheeled him back up to his room. Lord Sugar might well have said, John was ‘not an ‘appy bahny’.

As for me, well I accompanied Jen to the hospital on the later visit, when we took the big car just in case. No such luck though. We can only hope that he’ll be out tomorrow. As for me, well, no real sketching opportunities apart from this Ambulance in the car park.