Rachel and I went to Vienna. Inspired partly by the German TV Show “Sisi” which has been a reasonable hit across Europe on Netflix and which Vienna is milking for all its worth, the Sisi Museum, the Sisi Tour, the Sisi Ticket, which we did buy. We also agreed to meet old friends for a shared 3 days waltzing around the city. Rachel wanted palaces, interiors and palaces, furniture in palaces and if time permitted some palaces and then a little bit of vintage shopping. Our friends wanted to see Freud’s home but as you can guess as much as our friend had a professional interest in where Siggy hung out we were still too focused on where Sisi hung out.
Vienna is a capital city but it was the capital of an Empire so there are lots of very large imperial buildings as well as the numerous palaces. To make sure the empire was celebrated with the correct degree of awe and reverence, there are statues everywhere. Unlike your common or garden statue as are found in Paris or London, Vienna does statues in an 18th century version of Godzilla-scale. Immense and towering and just for good measure lots of gratuitous gold, not just sprinkled on top but gilded to within an inch of their lives on porticoes 300 feet up on the roof. They fall into two distinct camps, Greco-Roman allegorical, some guy wrestling a lion with his bare hands in 6 times life-size scale, or one of the Emperors or Empresses. As the peak of wealth and large building occurred in the last 18th century, early 19th, they are mostly Franz or Franz Joseph. The history of Austria is complicated and mainly unknown to the Brits, we were too busy fighting the French and the Spanish or each other. Meanwhile, in Austria, one family, the Habsburgs, ruled in one form or another from 1270 until 1922. They ruled at times, what was known at the time as the Duchy of Austria, through to basically most of Eastern Central Europe: Austria and Slovenia, with adjoining bits of Bavaria and Italy thrown in, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia: most of today’s Czechia and southwest Poland, Hungary: but not just today’s Hungary, but also Slovakia, Romania, and northern parts of ex-Yugoslavia. They even controlled through marriage what is Belgium and Holland during the time of Rubens, Van Dyck and Brueghel. One of the younger Hapsburg brothers who was there, acting as Prince-Protector of Austrian Netherlands took a shine to this art and returned with 2000 pictures which explains why they have the largest collection of Flemish masters in the world in the Art History Museum in Vienna.
We have a view in the West, especially the US, that there was a Fall of Rome and that was the end. In fact the Roman Empire moved its base to Constantinople, as in Istanbul, and continued with the whole Empire business, changing its name thanks to its recent conversion to Christianity and monotheism, to the Holy Roman Empire. Fast-forward 600 years and the Habsburgs, running Austria and most fertile lands to the East, become Holy Roman Emperors with Frederick III in 1452. So even though their lands are just a part of the Empire, the Habsburgs remain Emperors until Napoleon abolishes the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and Franz the 2nd of the HRE becomes Franz the 1st, Emperor of Austria. So that is why they have all the imperial stuff and unlike the British or Spanish empire, this was not built on colonial conquest and slavery, rather the removal of money from good old-fashioned subjects and land held by fealty to one of the numerous titles. Franz Joseph had a few of those: by the Grace of God Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, King of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia and Lodomeria and Illyria; King of Jerusalem, Archduke of Austria; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow, Duke of Lorraine, of Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and of Bukovina; Grand Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Oświęcim, Zator and Ćeszyn, Friuli, Dubrovnik and Zara; Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Gorizia and Gradisca; Prince of Trento and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria; Count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg; Lord of Trieste, of Cattaro , and over the Windic march; Grand Voivode of the Voivodship of Serbia. Fun fact the German word for Emperor is Kaiser, which, like Tsar, is a localization of the Latin term Caesar. So, lots of people to give to Caesar what is due him and that what paid for the palaces, museums and Ferris Wheel.
Austria having bolted on Hungary in the 1860’s is now the Austro-Hungarian Empire but by the time the First World War rolls around it’s referred to as the ‘Sick Man of Europe’. Which was tough on Franz Joseph as he was hanging in there as an old man and his nephew, Franz Ferdinand and heir apparent, was shot in Sarajevo to kick the whole thing off. He dies finally in 1916 after 70 years on the throne, the great Sisi was stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist in 1898. He had some other struggles in his long life. The Mexicans executed his brother, Maximilian, in 1867. He lost his only son, Crown Prince Rudolf, in 1889. At his death the Empire is handed over to his other Nephew Karl but two years later after the defeat of the German and Austro-Hungarian armies, Karl oversees the official end of the Austrian Empire and creation of the Republic of Austria. He refuses to abdicate, so goes into exile in Madeira and dies in exile in 1922. His wife, Empress Zita, lives until 1989 and is buried in Vienna in the Habsburg crypt with full honours as the last Empress of Austria.
So the city we visit is the capital of Austria yet sits hard in the eastern corner less than 50 miles to Slovakia, but its heritage is the 1000 years of being the center of the Empire, the location is central to its former territories and its mix of languages, peoples and customs reflects that melting pot of Central Europe, yet sits slightly off its historical axis now that Austria is a much more modest place.
The key component to life in Vienna, apart from the miles and miles of grandiose museums and art galleries, are the cafés. At any time of day from morning until night, there are Austrians eating and drinking in cafés. The food is generally good if a little heavy, suited to long cold winters rather than sweaty summers, but it gets washed down with refreshing white wines which are cheap and excellent value. The Gruner Veltliner, even by the carafe is quaffably dry and fruity, their Sauvignon Blancs are good, certainly better than most South American versions and the Chardonnay, which is sold under the local grape name of Morillon, was also surprisingly good value. They do a really excellent version of Pinot Blanc called Weissburgunder, which is odd as ‘white burgundy’ should be Chardonnay. Anyway, post the whole glycol fiasco of the 80’s Austrian wine is high quality and great value. They suffer from the same lack of fish that German cuisine does, you have farmed trout, salmon or pikeperch, the ubiquitous ‘Zander’ but it’s a landlocked state that developed it culinary traditions before refrigeration and a river does run through it so unsurprisingly all they eat is river fish. Cafe food is remarkable, particularly in the quality and volumes of cake on offer. There is much standard high-turnover mass-catering fare for the lunches but breakfast and afternoon tea is based around hand prepared and baked cakes of many delicious varieties; bunt cakes, strudels, Sachertorte, cream cakes, layer cakes. Coffee is a big deal too, we didn’t explore the many complicated variations and just stuck with cappuccinos.
We had some good if not great food, including the best Weiner schnitzel ever. I had both turkey escalope version and the real veal deal, and they do something with the batter that I have never had before, even in Germany, a lighter fluffier coating would not be imaginable, definite yummy score. We had one Michelin guide Bib-gourmand meal that was the tasting-style over several courses, but they managed to keep our interest, partly because this place was known for its wine, and we did the pairings as recommended and even though they were the regulation 12ml they kept it flowing. Beer is good in Vienna and they have still stuck to the traditional measures of 25cl, 33 cl or 50cl, avoiding the French recent fascination with les pintes. It’s dominated by Viennese style lager but there are darker beers and the ubiquitous IPA is available, just as every bar has many gins for sale and the most common drink on a sunlit evening is an Aperol Spritz. It is indeed an Instagram world.
Rachel and I took a side jaunt to Graz in the south, very near the Slovenian border in Steiermark. Back in Franz Joseph’s day Styria, the region, encompassed much of what is now Slovenia and on the streets of Graz you heard a lot of Slovenian spoken. You don’t hear many American or British accents, but you do hear English spoken a lot, but with both parties having differing accents, it was very much the lingua franca for many people. Apart from the obvious gaff of thanking waiters with ‘Merci’ and wishing people in shops ‘Bonjour’ you can comfortably get by without any German, which of course is good news as none of us possess more than Danke! We did get into the habit of the spirited ‘Hallo’ when entering a place. Graz was smaller than the capital and in its own way more picturesque, spread under a fortress rock, spread around a river and parks. The Austrians of Graz withstood Napoleon’s efforts to take the fortress over several weeks and are very proud of this era of their history. More so than the goings on of the mid 20th century. As you walk along the riverbank there is a newly built synagogue, with some of the stones from the original synagogue which had been the religious center for 2000 Jews who lived in Graz. It was destroyed on Kristallnacht in November 1938. The old ground was left abandoned and only 150 Jews survived the war, some of the bricks were used to build a garage in the town center. When a suggestion in the mid 80s was made to clear the ground and rebuild, it was rejected due to fears that it would provoke an antisemitic reaction from city officials. Finally in 1998, probably when most of the old Nazis had died or retired, the city approved the construction of a new synagogue on the original site. Young local people from a couple of trade schools nearby helped clean nearly 10,000 bricks which were integrated into the new design. As I walked by each day, I could not help noticing how it still has armed police guards, quietly guarding the entrance on the leafy road by the banks of the river.
We got the train back to Vienna ahead of a morning flight home to Lyon the next day and stayed in town in the Neubau for our last night. It was a cute but trendy art deco hotel with a roof top bar, make it yourself cocktails in the room and condoms as part of the guest supplies next to the bed. We could not too excited about another Austrian meal, so we found a good Greek place and had food better suited to a hot summer’s eve and listened to an impromptu concert of guitar and bouzouki picking while the birthday party group on the next table sang along to the Greek songs. Whether they were the equivalent to Greek pop bangers from the 90’s or folk songs I have no idea, everyone seemed happy and occasionally one of the men, no longer able to contain his inner Zorba, would get up and do the dance, arms stretched out and little complicated tippy toe taps of his feet.
The hotel was so trendy they could not get breakfast served on a Saturday before 8 and we had to be out the door before then, so once we got through security we found ourselves with loads of time to have a bite. In another Presque-vu moment we had a rather nice breakfast in a Jamie Oliver’s ‘Jamie’s Italian’ surrounded by copies in German of his numerous cookbooks and bottles of his special Olive Oil. British fried breakfast in an Italian restaurant in Vienna airport, so much for Brexit. My one disappointment is that I did not try a local croissant, a kipfel, on the trip, Vienna is the creator of the little crescent of buttery pastry and they are known generically in France as Vienoisseries. The crescent is mocking the flag of Turkey as a celebration of the famous and critical victory over the Ottoman Empire at the gates of Vienna in 1683 that allowed Austria to blossom into its middle age before its later fall into senescence.