Guten Tag, Meinen Freuden,
No pastry again today. Would you settle for some gelato? I used to have it in Paris all the time, but in Vienna you get twice as much for the same price! Today I had a sublime combo of hazelnut, chocolate, and chestnut. So rich, so creamy. Such nutty, chocolate goodness!
I had decent night’s sleep, too, so hope we can say good bye to the jet lag.
So here’s how a day in Vienna can go. I rise early because I just do. I am very stiff and sore at first but it soon goes away. I drank some orange juice. This is something I don’t normally do at home, but on trips the extra short of vitamin C makes sense. A bit later I made tea and toasted up my BREAD. It comes out all golden and crisp, and spread thickly with hummus, it makes the perfect Viennese breakfast.
Since I am in an apartment the cleaners aren’t going to come in and tidy for me, so I do the dishes, make the bed and straighten things up before I go.
I also coat myself with some industrial strength sunscreen, which imparts an unattractive waxy quality to my skin. I have to be careful to smooth it out before I go otherwise I end up looking like I have a loathsome and probably contagious disease.
First stop--Naschmarkt where I got more of the excellent hummus on offer as well as some black and green olives, but there are numerous other delights I feel I must try.
Yet life in Vienna is not all food and drink. Let us have a bit of history.
When little Prince Eugene of Savoy was growing up, his dream was to fight for his glamorous kinsman, Louis XIV of France. The young man studied military history and tactics fervently, but when he presented himself to the king, he got the brush off. Louis may have intimated that Eugene was a little too short to be a French general. Or it may have been that Eugene’s mother was one of Louis’s old girl friends who had taken to dabbling in the black arts. Whatever the reason, Eugene of Savoy was offended beyond bearing and hastened to offer his services to his other set of kinsfolk--the Hapsburgs who spent most of the 1600s fighting off France’s ambitions. It soon became clear that Louis XIV had made a bad move, for Eugene of Savoy was one of the greatest generals of the age and rolled the French Army up like a rug on several occasions.
And he did what all great generals did back in those days. He built himself a splendid palace he called The Belvedere, and that is where I went today. I am guessing that Belvedere means something like beautiful view. The palace comes in two parts. There’s the Lower Belvedere with the stables and orangery as well as some grand reception halls, but the real action takes place up the hill.
The magnificent Upper Belvedere is both grand and elegant. Like all the best Baroque it has an energetic quality to it. The interior is a sight in itself with frescoed ceilings, marble, grand staircases, Venetian windows--the works! And the view from the upper floors is indeed splendid.
Both Belvederes are parts of the Austrian Gallery. I would guess that most people do not have my appetite for art in big glops, but there is plenty worth seeing. The big attraction is Gustav Klimt’s Kiss, but as this appears on mugs, scarves, T shirts, umbrellas, and you name it in Vienna, it’s become the same kind of cliché that Van Gogh’s Starry Night did in the 80’s.
The paintings and statues making your eyes blur? The grounds are worth a wander and a sit down. There are formal gardens and secluded nooks. Unfortunately the grand cascade fountain was being repaired, so it was not working. The Prince seems to have had a taste for fountains with putti wrestling dolphins.
I am not sick of palaces yet, but I think I’ll save Schoenbrunn for next week in case you’ve been concerned.
I strolled back into the inner city and had my gelato and window shopped. Now I will post and have a little appetizer of some olives and Gruner Vetliner.
Auf Wiedersehen.
Oh, how I loved Belvedere! It had the best proportions of the landscape palaces. (I only saw a very few of the city ones.)
ReplyDeleteBe sure to try Zwolfapostlekeller. It's an ancient tavern, underground--as I recall there's a carving over one of the cavern-like room annexes going back to the 1500s. I used to hang out there a lot, drinking Gluewein, which they probably don't offer in summer. But two really good local weins were Kremser and Neuberger. Suffice to say that I, who normally will not drink white wine, liked these.
I think it's about five minutes walk from my apt. and I will definetely try it one evening. I'll write down the names of those wines. My guidebook says it's "touristy" although that's kind of a recommendation for me.
ReplyDeleteBelvedere is a Baroque masterpiece no question. I understand the Hapburgs had their noses put out of joint as they had nothing that cool. So MT had to build Schonbrunn.