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Showing posts tagged climbing tall things
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…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.
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…picture Prague.
Prague is simply a beautiful city. I can’t imagine being there during the real high season, seeing its narrow streets crowded to bursting with tourists, because even after only spending two days there, I have a feeling that that’s nothing like the real Prague (or, as they say in Czech, Praha — is there a cooler name for a city?). I’ve got a ton of pictures (as usual) but rather than post a ton of the touristy ones (astronomical clock, anybody?) I’m probably going to include more that show the kind of Prague that I could feel there under all the souvenir shops and tour groups. The kind of Prague that shows in this picture, looking down the river from Karluv Most (that’s Czech for the Charles Bridge, which is admittedly very touristed, but provides fabulous views in either direction). It seems so calm and unhurried, bursting with old-world charm side by side with new-world conveniences.
Most of the pictures that follow are going to be from the complex known as Prague Castle — most specifically, they are going to be from inside St. Vitus’s Cathedral, because it possesses the most stunning stained glass I have ever seen. I first entered the cathedral right before sunset, when the light threw colors in patterns all through the building.
(I can’t possibly caption this. Words don’t do it justice. There is light on the floor!)
I am so in love with gothic after this trip that it is almost impossible to relate how much. Gothic arches and stained glass windows and flying buttresses consume my architectural daydreams.
Oh look, it’s me!
1930s Art Deco stained glass window designed by artist Alfons Mucha, who is one of my new favorite human beings for designing something as glorious as this. There’s actually a lot of Art Deco and Art Nouveau going on in Prague, right alongside the Gothic, and it’s hard for me to say which of them I loved more. Probably the best part was seeing all the ways they contrasted and complimented each other.
On the castle side of the river, in the so-called “Lesser Quarter,” is a wall entirely covered in graffiti devoted to the Beatles, in particular John Lennon. After Lennon’s death in the 80s, Czech teens began spray-painting homages to him on this (formerly unadorned) stretch of wall — greatly against the wishes of the communist police forces, who would whitewash it every day, only to find the graffiti had returned every morning. Eventually, the police gave up, and the wall flourished as testimony to Czech restlessness under communist control and longing for greater contact with the culture and ideals of the western world.
People to this day leave their mark on the wall. Based on the oldest dates that I could see, I’d say that the wall gets almost entirely re-graffitied about every five or six years. Some people come with paintbrushes, some with magic markers, and even some with spray cans and stencils to leave their mark on this continually growing piece of history.
The paint is so thick in some places that it’s beginning to flake off, exposing the many layers underneath.
The obligatory picture containing me! And before you ask, of course I left my own mark on the wall — though since all I had was a regular ballpoint pen, the result was not too visible and probably won’t last very long. However, I feel like that’s a large part of the point. This is a changing landmark, an expression of the power of free speech and unity across cultural and political divides. It won’t look the same the next time I see it, and that’s beautiful.
I have managed to combine the obligatory clock tower picture with the obligatory “look I have climbed something tall!” picture without actually showing the face of the astronomical clock! This is the view from the top of the clock tower in Old Prague Square, right before the last clock-ringing of the evening (the clock works all year round, but the chimes only go off from 7am-9pm).
A final picture from the clock tower, with the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn in the background. It’s a Catholic church now, but back in the day it started out life as a Hussite church (protestant reformer and generally awesome guy Jan Hus was a Czech who did much of his work in Prague in the 1600s). Why is there a ridiculously bright light in the background, you ask? That’s the floodlight they use to light up the outside of the clock tower!
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…picture Berlin.
We arrived in Berlin at the end of a long day of travel and made it to our hostel just as the sun was starting to think about setting. We were staying in the north-eastern part of the city, not very far from Alexanderplatz, in what turned out to be a pretty genial and residential area of the city. It really surprised me, actually, to see a residential area like this so close to the city’s center; while in some respects Berlin felt like London (clean, coherent, and effective public transit, fluidly cosmopolitan atmosphere, full of culture and history) in this respect it was totally different. The only places in London that feel like this are far beyond where the average tourist strays. But I’m not complaining at all. I really loved the area where we stayed — there were lots of neat restaurants nearby, and trees everywhere.
We were only in Berlin for two nights, so after eating dinner we made our way into the center of tourist Berlin, intent upon seeing the city at night…and from a height! (There should be no surprises there.) The Reichstag building, which houses the German Parliament, was originally built in the late 1800s but before being put back into use after German reunification, it went through an architectural overhaul. In the process, it gained a giant glass-and-steel dome. You can take an elevator to the roof and climb the dome from there for a view of the whole city.
Frankly, I’ve seen better views, but the message of the dome’s construction really struck me. Directly beneath it lies the chamber in which the representatives of the German people actually meet to discuss policy; the ceiling of that room is transparent, so that at any moment a German citizen can look down upon the workings of his government and a German parliamentarian can look up and be reminded of exactly who he serves (and what their power relation ought to be).
The next day was our only full day in Berlin so we got up and got out of our hostel to see the sights, starting with Brandenburg Gate and Pariser Platz. It’s strange to see something that looks so historical in the middle of what is really a modern city — but what I found even more strange was how empty the city felt. I learned later that Berlin as a city was built to house 6 million people; the most it ever held was about 5 million, directly before the Second World War, and its current population is around 3.5 million. There are buildings in Berlin that were damaged during WWII that are still boarded up and haven’t been reopened, and even more from the communist era. The more I think about it, the more I realize that some of my confusion at not being able to “figure out” Berlin comes from the fact that there at least two Berlins: the modern, cosmopolitan, London-esque major national capital, and the city of has-beens, never-weres, traces, and ghosts.
Like London, Berlin is aware of its ghosts — but it memorializes them in very different ways. This image is of Berlin’s controversial Holocaust memorial. It’s entirely non-symbolic and generally non-representational, just a number of concrete “stelae” (as the English translations at the site helpfully inform me they are called) arranged in an orderly grid at even distances from one another. From this angle the stelae look to be of relatively equal heights, but the truth is that the further you go into the center of the space, the lower the ground dips (though not following any predictable sloping pattern) and soon you’re lost amidst concrete slabs almost twice your height. Sounds travel differently, when they travel at all; the noise of outside is almost blocked out. I found it to be one of the most effective and affecting memorials I have ever visited.
Speaking of effective memorials, this one’s also near the top of the list. This bronze plaque in Bebelplatz is set into the ground a few meters away from a glass window through which viewers can see rows upon rows of empty bookshelves — enough to hold all of the books the Nazis burned in this square. The quote on the plaque reads, “Those who begin by burning books will end by burning men” — a powerful and apt sentiment, especially for a man who did not even live to see the twentieth century.
To finish, some pictures from the East Side Gallery, the longest portion of the Berlin Wall still standing. As its name may suggest, it’s been turned into an art venue. The German government recently invited back those artists they could find who had (in)famously decorated the wall with their images in the days and weeks surrounding its collapse as a symbol of communist authority. The Wall is also a memorial now, but it doesn’t just look backwards to the injustices of the past.
This may just look like awesome art — and it is — but in the banner, the word “frieden” means “peace.”
“You have learnt what freedom is, and you will never forget.” The words combine the figurative “cracks” in the wall through which the Earth from space is seen to suggest both the specific freedom felt by the East Berliners after the fall of the Wall and a more global sense of what it really means to be free. For me, the image of the Earth, just hanging like that in space, equates freedom with responsibility: this is a view only visible when “freed” from Earth itself, but what is the point of experiencing it if you don’t take that experience back down to the ground?
