When In London...

…picture Vienna.

What with papers and exams and related nuisances keeping me busy throughout the next two and a half weeks, it’ll probably be a while before I can properly write about my spring break trip or post the (hundreds and hundreds of) pictures I took while I was away. But for now, before I forget (and as a method of procrastination) I’m going to put up some of my favorite pictures from each city, along with a bit of narrative text about each one.

It is perfectly fitting that the first picture here is of coffee, because after spending three days in Vienna I am convinced it is one of the things that the Viennese do best (possibly even better than psychoanalysis and opera and waltzing). Viennese coffee is smooth, rich, and strong as hell — in any cafe you go to, even if it’s not one of the higher-end places Vienna is famous for, you will be given a glass of water along with every coffee you order. You will need the water after you have had the coffee. This is simple fact. This picture is of my first Viennese coffee, consumed in the famous Cafe Central, which is right down the street from where I stayed.

There’s nothing terribly Viennese about this lion. I just really like him. He’s outside the front entrance to the Austrian National Library — the branch that is still in use as a functioning research library. But that’s not the library I am most interested in…

…this one is. This is the Prunksaal (formerly known as the Hofbibliotek), part of the Hofburg Palace complex, and it’s the most beautiful library I’ve ever seen. I don’t have photographs to do it justice. It’s a cross between the Beast’s library from the Disney movie of Beauty and the Beast (which has been my ideal library since a young age — Belle was always my favorite princess because she was a reader), and the ideal (fictional) library I constructed for a wealthy but reclusive 18th-century French nobleman in one of my novels-in-progress. Except it’s even better. It has secret passageways. Disguised as bookshelves. That lead to rooms full of even more books.

My face cannot possibly express how happy this space makes me. I spent at least 45 minutes just sitting and looking at it (and coveting it very, very much). It was hands-down the coolest thing I saw in all of Vienna (yes, this says a lot about me, especially when you consider all of the other cool things that I saw). 

Okay, enough of the library geeking, and on to the heights geeking! I am one of those people who loves to climb things (though in this instance, “ascend” might be a more accurate word, since elevator was the only option) and so I didn’t just go into Stephansdom (the big church — there is always a big church), I went up the bell tower! This is the view down from there to Stephansplatz. Even more awesome than this (though not captured on photograph since we weren’t allowed) was the catacombs tour I went on before ascending the bell tower. There were underground ossuaries. Piles and piles of bones! Some left over from when Stephansplatz was a plague pit! (Yes, I am a strange human being: I find this fascinating.)

But enough of dead bodies: food! This beautiful creation is a Sachertorte, 99% chocolate and 100% awesome. It is another one of those things you have to try when you’re in Vienna, but I ate it in style at Cafe Sacher, which as you can probably tell from the name is where the thing originated. But this also provides another chance to talk about cafes, and more specifically, Viennese cafe etiquette. I could probably spend the rest of my life in Viennese cafes, because no one ever expects you to leave your table. Once you come in and sit down, that spot is yours for as long as you want it. No one will rush you. No one will give you funny looks if you’re sitting there for hours after you’ve finished your drink (well, some people might, but not all of them). No one will try to bring you your bill to speed up your departure (in fact, at almost every restaurant or sit-down foodlike establishment I visited on this trip, I had to ask for the check to be delivered). I feel like Vienna would be a fabulous city in which to write a novel in November — although it’s probably so freezing and rainy that people don’t want to venture out to cafes.

Look, a picture with me in it! (And for those of you who don’t already know her, the girl with me is Reno, my steadfast traveling companion, who rather compassionately did not murder me or cause other bodily injury despite possessing 16 days’ worth of completely valid reasons for doing so.) But this is more than just a picture with me in it. This is a picture with me and Reno in the Vienna Opera House, about to watch a ballet performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream — that cost us only €4! (That’s about $6.) The only catch? We had to stand through it. But as I’ve stood through several Shakespeare plays at the Globe in order to achieve similarly low prices, it seemed entirely worth it, and it was. We lined up early and therefore got one of the few “standing seats” located on the orchestra level, center stage but behind all the people in the seats. Frankly, I’d say we had the best view in the house, especially considering what we paid for it! The other standers were relegated to the third-level galleries with mostly side views, stashed away above the boxes (and yes, you can still rent out a box to see the opera — and apparently lots of people do!). It was actually a really fantastic ballet, and the kind of experience you don’t get very often.

On the last full day in Vienna, we took the metro to the city’s suburbs and toured Schonbrunn Palace, the seat of Hapsburg emperors and enlightened despots. I geeked out on European history, had some fabulous flashbacks to Mr. Koger’s class, and got to climb more tall things! The yellow building you can see in the background of this picture is Schonbrunn, as seen from the top of the Gloriette, a monument to Empress Maria Theresa which is atop a hill behind the palace grounds. I’ve seen a lot of castles and palaces since September, and based on interiors alone, Schonbrunn is up there with Versailles in levels of awesome (Versailles does eventually win, but only because the gardens are so spectacular). I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside.