New Year's Eve in Vienna
We slept in a bit this morning, as we were out late last night and knew today was going to be crazy. It was a good bit chilly today, much more so here than anywhere else so far on the trip. Funny how we thought Schwangau up in the mountains would have been our coldest stop, but Vienna has definitely taken that prize. Cold, but still not unbearable. Just needed to keep on the winter hat and Beth had her gloves. All good in the Austrian hood!
We started off the day back in the Nachtmarkt to get a late breakfast at this little schnitzel spot. Schnitzel for breakfast? Yup, schnitzel for breakfast!! I love how simple it is, just a breaded and fried flattened cutlet with a squeeze of lemon. So perfect, so simple, and that lemon adds a nice bit of refreshment. And of course it just wouldn’t be an Austrian breakfast without a mélange. Unfortunately the place did remind me of one of my favorite quotes, “Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a pool.” It’s fascinating how Europeans are so health and beauty conscious but then it is still a heavily smoking society. To each their own, but I much prefer when it isn’t in the restaurant.
We strolled back up the Nachtmarkt and decided to hunt down a stall while we were here. We like watching British food-travel type shows, and one of our favorites is Rick Stein. His episodes have a great balance of highlighting the food on travels, making the recipes back home, and still having a heavy focus on the actual travel destination as well. He has a series called “Long Weekends”, and we saw his Vienna episode before our trip. He was talking with a stall owner here who sold fresh sauerkraut from a huge barrel, and we needed to see this guy! Sure enough, we found the stall. He had a giant barrel of kraut, along with a few other barrels and tons of other items about... but that kraut! We love sauerkraut. For many Americans, and me myself for much of my life, kraut was that stuff you put on hot dogs, and that's pretty much the extent of our use. The German view- and of course Beth's PA Dutch upbringing as well- sauerkraut is a full on vegetable, not a condiment. A meal consisting of mostly kraut with some pork mixed in is common there, and I'm happy to say I've taken on the German view of the pickled cabbage myself. Love it!! Unfortunately, as fun as it was to see, we just didn't have the means to take any with us. Instead, we decided to get a few of his pickles to snack on, and he put them in a little bag for us to take. Now, these were fermented pickles, not your typical deli dills from back home. They were sour! We walked to the end of the Nachtmarkt, just passed the seafood stalls, and decided to try one out. They were super soft, super sour, briny, and really juicy.
Beth bit into one and the juice squirted about fifteen feet across the sidewalk and RIGHT INTO A WOMAN’S FACE!!!! She didn’t notice where it came from and kept walking past as she was wiping the juice from her cheeks. Our reaction went from absolute horror to breaking down laughing hysterically!
I promise each and every one of you reading this that I will never let Beth live this one down!!
We managed to escape across the street without further pickle warfare. Ahead of us was the Café Museum, and when in Vienna you do as the Viennese do. I love coffee and European Cafes so much- Viennese cafes in particular- I vowed to myself I would practically float away on coffee during this trip. There are only a couple days left, so I can’t pass up any opportunity to drop into a café while here. I just can’t.
Unlike the insanity of Sacher the other day, Café Museum had an easy wait of a minute or two until we got a seat in the back. We sat in the café dating from 1899 and took in our surroundings. After enjoying Schiele’s works so much the other day, it is fun to know we are in the café he used to visit! For our drinks we went with the mélange of course, and decided we just couldn’t come to Austria without getting the famous apple strudel. It came out flaky and warm with a vanilla sauce. I wish the cafes back home had this type of atmosphere, but if they did I doubt I'd ever leave them.
We did pull ourselves out of the café however and started walking along the Ring Straße, the Main Street that encircles downtown Vienna. We passed by the beautiful opera house and knew seeing a performance there would be necessary on a future trip. As the street changed from Opernring to Kärtnerring to Schubertring at each bend in the road, we finally came upon the Stadtpark. The park is a beautiful green space right in the city, and even in the cold winter the park still showed glimpses of its color. One of the most amazing things was in the trees- the leaves were gone, but the mistletoe still hung in bunches from the otherwise bare branches. Not the plastic stuff we get at Christmas time back home, but the real deal. We stood underneath one and followed the tradition, then strolled arm in arm through the beautiful park. The small lake was partially frozen, where ducks paddled through the water that hadn't yet sheeted over with ice. There were statues scattered about, and one of them was the main thing we were here to see.
At one end of the park was a stone-grey sculpted arch with spirit-like dancers flowing about, gracefully swirling in their embraces. They circled around another statue of the famous composer Johann Strauss, cast in brilliant gold and serenading the dancers with his violin. Look, maybe it's where my mind tends to drift, or maybe it was lingering influence from those erotic Schiele works... but it looked to me like he's serenading an orgy. The naked embraces, the interlocked poses, the two ladies lip locked along the top... yeah, it looks like they are all really taken in with the music. Again, artwork that is my cup of tea!
I do really like orchestra music, though I don't pretend to always know what I'm talking about. I can't always place pieces with composers or know which of Beethoven's symphonies is which. I enjoy listening to it very much, but I'm not really as knowledgeable about it all as I should be. But I do know Strauss, probably a good bit better than the others. I think the orchestra waltz style is really my thing, and of course that is what he is known for best. Sexy jokes aside, this statue is a great representation of his music and how it makes you feel, and I was really happy that we were able to find this. Sure it would look wonderful in spring with full green trees in the background, but the cold grey melancholy sky makes the gold pop just that much more.
When we were here last we went through St Stephansdom, the huge church at the end of the Kärtnerstraße with the beautiful mosaic roof. It was amazing inside, with tons of detail at every turn, from carvings on the pews to the stonework on the pulpit. I've mentioned a bit before about how I've preferred the smaller, more intimate churches lately. The large cathedrals all start to blend together and you feel you've seen one, you've seen them all. There are exceptions of course, and Stephansdom is definitely one of them. We were excited to get back in there and explore all the little details hiding in every corner.
As we approached the Stephansplatz we noticed the area was crowded. Like very crowded. We knew they were going to be doing some of the New Year's events there later on, but the impenetrable sea of people that stretched before us was not looking like a good time. We did manage to work our way through to get to the front doors of the cathedral, only to find that the thick crowds continued well inside. They had a gate put up that basically blocked off access to the majority of the church, leaving only the rear one-quarter free to explore. Not sure if it is permanently like this, or it was just set up anticipating the heavy holiday crowds, but this was a major letdown. We saw what we could while jammed shoulder to shoulder with the crowds, and we vowed again to avoid traveling on busy holidays. We left Stephansdom pretty disappointed, but were happy we had the memories of getting to see it in detail those years before.
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