Well
– i was a little lazy in Vienna – thanks to my being put up in
the apartment of a family friend and to her fantastic hospitality.
It was nice to live a semi-normal life for a while. As a result of
the laziness (not keeping my journal properly due to me actually
having a life every evening) the memories are a little hazy. Doesn't
help that i'm writing this more than a month after it happened (I'm
actually in Lecce, Italy in a B&B). But i will still attempt to
regale you with tales about the beautiful city.
From
what i do remember Vienna is a very very nice place to visit.
Everything is elegant, organised and ordered – the city was built
up in a nice neat spiral. Public transport is excellent (metro,
tram, bus). They even have a couple of trams which take you round
all the main sights, conveniently all positioned in a ring. I love
it when they make it easy to play lazy tourist, and for so cheap too
– no 30 Euro open-top tour bus for me thanks!
It
is a very white city (by which i mean the important buildings are
white, ethnically it is definitely colourful which a few Wieners like
and others don't so much, a trend i have observed in many a Western
European city). I really like white buildings, when the sun hits
them they really gleam and catch your eye. I was particularly
impressed by the:
Greek-revival-style
Parlament, (thanks Lonely Planet),
the
Hofburg (once the city residence of the powerful Hapsburg dynasty,
NOT David Hasselhof's Austrian residence)
Karlskirche
(a really beautiful church elegantly situated in a garden plaza)
Of
course the many gardens and cityscapes themselves were impressive
too.
On
a more bizarre theme there is also the KunstHausWien – in a
building designed by a guy called Friedensreich Hundertwasser
(henceforth known as Mr H). The building looks like it was designed
by a 5 year old on acid and is absolutely MAGIC. The floors are
uneven, not all the walls are straight, trees grow from balconies and
rooves, and there is are many colours (glass, metal and ceramic
tiles) – the idea being to move away from boring unnatural
straightlines concrete box architecture and move more towards nature.
I have to say – i like the concept – it felt right walking on
curved floors, like walking on a forest floor.
Likened
to Gaudi, MrH (who was actually an artist by trade) also designed a
public housing village, a sewage-processing plant and others in his
unique style. He spent a fair bit of his life in New Zealand living
in an ecologically-friendly way on his bits of land. My hat's off to
this guy i had never heard of before.
I
also checked out the Essl museum (really an art gallery not a
museum), which had a great exhibit on Israeli/Palastine art and some
other nice contemporary art though i ended up missing most of the art
works cos they were in a whole other building, 5 mins away – not
sign-posted or anything. I wasted a lot of time trying to find the
rest of the rooms which didn't exist. It only cost me 1 Euro though
(including the bus out there) – hey, if they assume i'm a student,
i'm not going to say no!
Then
there is a delicious permanent market - containing every fruit,
vegetable, antipasto and ethnic meal imaginable (known as Naschmarkt)
and a cool butterfly house (great to escape the rain in)...etc...
Thanks
to my host i also managed to consume many a wonderful Wiener meal
(mmm those chocolate-filled pancakes, Wiener spritzers and
schnitzel), some wonderful Vietnamese and Andrea's beaut curry. We
also managed to see Mama Mia (they have a movie theatre with films in
their original language), shop in Stephansplatz, and visit the Prater
(a theme-park it is free to get in to, a novelty in Western Europe),
where we rode on the Reisenrad (a giant ferris-wheel where Orson
Welles gave his “peace, Switzerland and cuckoo clocks” speech).
Overall
i had a great time even if i didn't get around to doing all the
cultural stuff Vienna has to offer (classical music concerts,
museums, the opera, you name it).
