Friday 29 Nov 2019
We started our day with a free walking tour of the city. The spot we met used to host a building with an underground bunker for 300, however, during WWII during the air raids the building collapsed and killed everyone inside. To honor he victims nothing has been built on the site since. 100 feet away or so is a memorial honoring and remembering all of those who were affected during the war, germans, jews and civilians alike. There is even a sculpture depicting a woman giving birth, signifying the children, born and unborn, who lost their innocence because of the war. Below the memorial is a Jewish man on hands and knees, scrubbing the streets with a toothbrush. Although this is a very visual depictuon of the discriminations Jews faced during the war, many protest the statue-- how can Austria honor the Germans and the Jews in the same sculpture?
After leaving that contentious spot, we learned about the Austrian mentality for architecture: build it one way and add to it again and again. Because of this, many buildings have sections of baroque, neogothic and classical styles. Speaking of architecture, there's quite a story behind the opera house. Kaiser von Josef commissioned architects to build it. He gave them an unlimited budget and didn't ask to approve any of the plans before building. This resulted in an opera house that the Kaiser thought looked like a train station. He said as much, not to the architect but to someone else, and it resulted in the architect's suicide. The kaiser never said an unkind word ever again in his life.
The palaces of Vienna were home to the ruling family, the Hapsburgs. Maria Teresa was one of their most powerful and influential rulers. Before her father's death, he commissioned a document stating that Maria Teresa was fit to rule the kingdom, even though she was a woman. She had to defend this title time and time again, but had a circle of close advisors and confidantes who helped her stay in power. She had 16 children, all of who lived in the castle with her.
Her first daughter was her favorite and therefore was allowed to marry for love. All of the other children had arranged strategic marriages to help keep power in the family. Maria Teresa's elder son was frivolous and with money, so when his brother came into power he tried to limit the extravagant spending by enacting laws that allowed only one candle per funeral, and instead of elaborate golden caskets built with elevators (like his mother's), he designed a reusable wooden casket. Once the body was held over the earth, a lever was pulled and the body was deposited into the ground, leaving the casket free for the next funeral. The Hapsburg family had odd funeral rituals as it was. Their hearts were carved out and taken to the cathedral inside the winter palace and the intestines were carved out and taken to the cathedral inside the summer palace, before they were buried in the elaborate family crypt. While living, the Hapsburgs enjoyed luxury. Each family member was given 50 servants, all of who lived inside the palace, so at one time the castle was home to 5,000 people. With this many people the castle had to be quite large, however the floor plan wasn't ideal. The kitchen was located on one block but the dining room was in another. Servants had to run the meals back and forth from the kitchen to the dining area which resulted in most of the food being cold. During a normal dinner, 7 courses would be served. But, during official royal dinners there were 14. The male emperor at the time was known for eating incredibly quickly (7 courses in 30 minutes) which was problematic for the guests because they were expected to let the emperor have the first and last bite. Guests were never able to finish their meals and therefore it became a running joke that dining with the emperor really meant enjoying dinner afterwards at Hotel Sacher, a hotel that still exists today and claims the creation of the sachetorte, a famous chocolate and apricot cake. Their rival, cafe Demel, claims that an apprentice from their kitchen stole the sachetorte recipe and brought it to Hotel Sacher. The rivalry still exists today. Speaking of famous sachetortes, Maria Teresa had a major sweet tooth. She had no time to wait for the servants to run food from the kitchen to her quarters, so she had a bakery built underneath her chambers. Initially there were stairs leading to the bakery, but in her old age Maria Teresa gained quite a bit of weight and was unable to walk, so the stairs were replaced by a ramp.
In addition to having their own kitchens and bakeries, the Hapsburgs had their own cathedral with their very own Viennese boys choir. The boys were only allowed to sing from the age of 6 until their voices changed and then were retired. While being part of the choir, the boys had to attend school and keep good grades. Girls were allowed to attend the school, but not to sing in he choir. To this day the boys still sing in the church, but, are hidden from view because their voices are what's importsnt, not their faces (and then the choir can charge big bucks for private performances).
The Hapsburgs fought a lot of battles during their time but rarely won. There are two statues erected to honor the battles the Hapsburgs did win. One was against Napoleon. This was an important battle because up until this point everyone felt that Napoleon the conqueror was undefeatable. This victory changed the mentality of ruling families throughout Europe.
The Hapsburgs wanted to give back to the people, so created a public garden for them. In the gardens were halls where the the young generations danced the waltz (but not the traditional English waltz, but rather a faster more ,"risque" version of the waltz that the emperor disproved of). This is now known as the Viennese waltz.
It is here in the gardens that there is also amonument built to Sisi, Franz Joseph's wife from Bavaria. She was incredibly vain, so much so that she only drank raw meat juice for sustenance, laid fresh veal cutlets on her cheeks to avoid wrinkles and bathed in milk to keep her skin soft. She wouldn't allow anyone to paint her after the age of 30, for fear that she would be seen as old. Although Sisi sounds extravagant, her life was far from easy. Her first daughter died when she was only two years old. Sisi withdrew from her son, Rudolf, who was constantly at odds with his father, and allowed her mother in law to raise him. When he reached adulthood he took a mistress but soon after committed suicide with her. Sisi was distraught and left Austria so she could travel the world. She traveled for many years but died alone when she was stabbed in Geneva. Her husband was devastated.
After visiting the gardens we walked to one of the main squares (during the time of the Hapsburgs it was used for public executions, but today there's a Christmas market there) This was also the first site for arms storage. Initially if Vienna was attacked, all of the common folk would run out with their guns and pitch forks to fight but that was clearly deemed ineffective, so a massive arms depository was created.
Close by is the Jewish quarter, which includes a memorial of thousands of books without names, representing the thousands of Jews who died during WWII. Advocates of the Jewish community appreciate that this memorial is for only Jews and does not include Germans like the one from earlier on in the tour.
Last but not least we visited St. Stephen's Cathedral. It has a famous, beautifully tiled roof with a double headed eagle. The roof and church interior were badly damaged from a fire during WWII, however all of the Austrian provinces gave money to restore the church to its original glory.
After the walking tour we grabbed a table at Demel to try the world famous sachetorte. I had franziskaner coffee with mine and it was oh so delicious!!
Coffee and cake were lovely, but the Christmas markets were calling our name. We went to our tour guide's fave spot first and enjoyed kasekrainer, aka grilled sausages with cheese in the middle, for lunch. Mmm fabuloso!
We topped it off with some gluwein and a walk around the market stalls.
We met ladies with tons of cheeses and spreads on offer, but the most interesting thing they sold were small wine beads. Imagine alcoholic gel coated capsules in poppable pill sized form. Just what the doctor ordered. We also enjoyed talking with an okarina maker. Okarinas are like small wooden flutes that are famous throughout Austria. Next door was a vendor selling homemade flavored moonshine. The samples were definitely delicious, but since he didn't have any travel size bottles it just wasn't something our carry on savvy selves could stomach purchasing.
After finishing our walk through the first market we decided we couldn't be one and done-ers, so we continued on to two more markets.
The second was HUGE and filled with so many lights, stalls and activities (there was even a ferris wheel and small nativity carvings here) while the third offered a respite from the crowds with plenty of tables to enjoy our gluwein in peace.
Dinner was definitely necessary, and after heading to a few different places we finally found a keeper. It was off the beaten path and offered really authentic, tasty food made to order. Callie, Andrew and I shared three different dishes that made the long trek in the rain oh so worth it.
To finish out the evening we played cards at an Irish pub and nommed on some Dondi's (you always want what you can't have!)
