Schön Wien

I got back “home” to Bregenz tonight after a weekend in Munich, but before I write about that I should probably catch up on last weekend in Vienna.

We took the 8 hour train ride overnight on Thursday. This meant six people crammed into a single cabin, three bunks on each side, which allow the luxury of sitting up only if you don’t mind your neck being smashed against the ceiling at a 90°. Needless to say, I was happy to see the familiar friendly grande cups of Starbucks a few blocks after we got off the train in Vienna.

We didn’t waste any time and spent a couple of hours at the Leopold Museum, perusing art we have been studying in class. After lunch we moved on to the Belvedere, an even larger art museum.

The Belvedere

I got a little bit of exploring in before six of us headed to Vienna’s soccer stadium with  for Rapid Wien’s match against Paris St. Germain. We eventually elbowed our way to some tickets, ran to the opposite side of the stadium (barefoot) to the right entrance, and settled in for a true European experience, my first professional football match. The crowd was small by European standards, but they made far more noise than most American football crowds. One end of the stadium was set aside especially for the die-hard Rapid Wien fans, complete with a cheer conductor who coordinated the chants, songs, and flares that kept things lively throughout. Rapid Wien lost, but the experience and the giant pretzels were definitely worth the trip.

After the football game

Saturday we started out bright and early at the Secession, which houses (among other contemporary works that I didn’t get) a fabulous frieze by Gustav Klimt based on the composer Richard Wagner’s interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The afternoon was free for several hours wandering the massive market, full of fresh fruits, vegetables, spices, meats, fish, nuts, dried foods, cheese, breads, and plenty of restaurants and clothing stands. The smells and the sounds and the abundance were incredible; I wish I could do my grocery shopping here! The three of us bought little snacks as we wandered through, the most unfortunate of which was the small chunk of cheese, which tasted delicious but whose stench followed us around persistently for the rest of the day. We also climbed the wobbly scaffolding to the very top of the dome in St. Karl’s Church.

That evening we all attended Attila, our first opera of the trip, for our music course. Dressing up was fun, and it is amazing how much more meaningful and enjoyable an opera is when you have done some background studying about it.

view of the city from Stephenskirche

The next two days in Vienna rushed by with another (huge) art museum, The Kunsthistoriches, a night view of the city from a ferris wheel, gelato, two trips to the fabulous Schönbrunn Palace (once for the mazes and once for the zoo), more gelato, shopping, a tour of the State Opera House, and climbing the tower of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Vienna is an incredible city, with monumental architecture around every corner and a vitality that reminded me of New York City. I would go back in a heartbeat.