Vienna
Trip Start
Jan 06, 2006
1
50
120
Trip End
Sep 02, 2008
Wien,
Austria
Friday, October 6, 2006
The place I found was "recommended" by the hostel R- for which I had made a reservation starting on October 7th. I was two days early (because I wanted to stay in Linz). Now "recommended" is in parenthesis because the guy at hostel R- told me that I should "come back tomorrow because I'll have a bed for you then."
The place he recommended was called "Gasthaus" (or Guest House) and it perched above a smoky little restaurant with no one in it
01 Ober Belvedere Palace
. I waited a while before a woman who was both waitress and hotelier took me to a large living room; well half living room, half bedroom. Four beds were along one wall, a sectional couch along two others, and a bunch of mattresses were standing against the last wall. One bed was already occupied by a pile of clothes. The place had the morning-after smell of a bar. Whatever. I could sleep. So I thought. Four more guys joined me, one by one. One guy set up three alarm clocks. Another didn't turn off the light. My bed was a bunk, and I think the guy on top had had too much to drink because at one point he fell off really loudly.
Thank God for earplugs. All the same I had a decent sleep. While showering this morning, I decided that the "Gasthaus" and hostel R- have a bit of a racket going. The hostel R- has a place to put supplementary guests who can come back on a day's notice because the appreciate the cleanliness of a properly kept hostel. Hostel R- doesn't want to send any backpacker off to a real competitor who will keep the backpacker. And the "Gasthaus" has a good situation going, too. They don't have to advertise, or really do anything. They may even be discouraged from doing any cleaning above a bare minimum level. It probably doesn't matter if they don't keep a guest for more than an evening
02 Sphinx
. It's Vienna. There's always someone new to fill a bed. After moving my stuff over to hostel R-, I started seeing Viennese sights.
My first visit was to the Belvedere. It was an imperial palace on the outskirts of Vienna, at one time. It overlooks the city somewhat, giving a nice view from the top of the art gallery. That's what the Belvedere is these days: a hall of 19th century art; a look back at the past. The building as a whole is a bit of a look at the past too. It is showing its years, but they are working on it. Part of the structure was covered with scaffolding, giving the exterior a well deserved paint job.
I discovered that I like looking at paintings. I have been telling people for the last few years that I am well nigh sick of the artistic medium of painting. I have been to just about every big gallery in Western Europe and I am sick to death of that stuff. Call me pedestrian, but I don't really enjoy the French or Spanish "masters" all that much. Just about the only European painter whose work I actually like is Breughel. Rembrant is okay. But sometimes I just say that to sound like I am not completely without class
03 Belevedere Maintenance
.But I don't have to lie anymore. I have discovered the Austrian 19th century. These guys knew what they were doing. Waldemüller, Romanko, their students. None of this is "impressionistic" nonsense (this blog is starting to have casualties. First Linz, now Impressionism...). I like these fellows's work for their incredible capture of faces. Some are so good that they look like photographs. The only giveaway is that the painters didn't care as much about perfecting the backgrounds. Whole scenes of people, each with finely touched faces.
This is getting a bit long so I will close with two more snapshots from my day.
I went to visit the Karlskirche. It's a fine baroque church with two towers in front, with spiraling sculpture that depicts the life story of St. Simeon. The entry cost me four Euros and I was about to be mad about that, particularly when the church was filled with scaffolding. But there was a real bonus about the scaffolding. The church's authorities decided to put in a tourist elevator rising 30 meters to the base of the dome roof. From there one could see the detail in the dome up close (the first time I've ever been able to do that) and then climb even higher to the cuppola and have a great view around Vienna
04 Unter Belevedere and Gardens
. It made it worth the four Euros. For dinner I was a bit late getting food from a grocery store to cook for myself. Vienna is pricey and I was thinking of cutting costs. The stores were closed, but I happened upon a little diner sort of place that had Wiener Schnitzel and Salad for six Euros. I had a Zipfer Beer zum Fauss (on tap) and enjoyed the quaint enviroment. It was a Croatian managed Austrian restaurant, as far as I could tell by the dominant language in the place, and I was the only non-Croat there. But they made me comfortable enough and I enjoyed myself. There was live music but it was a little camp. As far as I can tell, it's an Eastern European thing to be a bit too excited about the accompanyment beats available on synthesizers (that makes Eastern European music casualty number 3).
Bis Morgen.
