Monday 4 July: By Monday afternoon we’d arrived in Vienna and were booked on a city tour. This meant a bus with a guide into the city centre first, and then about one hour walk. Vienna appears to have more Gothic, or Neo-Gothic, buildings then we've seen anywhere else.
Most however only date from the last 100 to 120 years. The number of tourists in the city centre rivalled Prague. Everywhere you look there are grandiose buildings with huge statuesque statues (a tautology, no, illiteration) in the Greco-Roman style attached to them.
The guide was very good, a Dutch guy, Flip, who has lived in the Vienna for many years. He had quite a wry sense of humour. Among the many is Historic facts, he was weaving in enough jokes to keep it interesting. For example “see the ornate fourth window from the left on the second floor (everyone looks) …it has the same curtains as my house”.
There are some more recent controversial buildings as well.For example the curved glass-fronted building opposite the cathedral. Part of its design intention was that the curve ensures the cathedral is always reflected in the glass.
Another example is the Looshaus, built in 1911 which is now occupied by Raiffeisen Bank. The Architect Adolf Loos created a functional design where the decoration should only be at street level because that’s where people are. The upper floors were completely devoid of decoration, although planter boxes have since been added.
A similar example is the Massimo Dutti building. I really liked the carved man and woman figures.
We liked the statue called "Monument against war and fascism" by Alfred Hrdlicka which was dedicated to victims of the Nazis, in all of their diversity."The memorial has four parts. A split white monument, The Gates of Violence, remembers victims of all wars and violence. Standing directly in front of it, you're at the gates of a concentration camp. Then, as you explore the statues, you step into a montage of wartime images: clubs and WWI gas masks, a dying woman birthing a future soldier, and chained slave labourers sitting on a pedestal of granite cut from the infamous quarry at Mauthausen concentration camp. A hunched-over dark figure on the ground behind is a Jew forced to scrub anti-Nazi graffiti off a street with a toothbrush."
In the few free minutes left to explore, I had a quick look around the cathedral square at the exclusive shops intermingled with tacky souvenir shops I was attracted by the sight of a kangaroo warning sign, except when I looked closer the text was different: “No kangaroos in Austria”.
Some additional bits:
Vienna is apparently the only city to have commercial Vineyards within its city limits.We passed the local beach and swimming pool. The beach consists of folding chairs beside the canal, and the swimming pool floats on the Danube. Apparently this is the only part of the Danube that is blue, and that you can swim in.
Goodbye Vienna
