Vienna ….Dec 29′ 30
After a 4o minute walk into the centre of the old city, today took us to the Spanish Riding school first. We saw the training session of the horses and it was fascinating. Watching the way they train them, walking them, riding them, leading them and getting them to ‘perform’…just watching how the horses respond… was fascinating alone. Not to mention the most beautiful looking horses I have ever seen. We spent an hour there, watching from the top floor of the arena where they hold the show. We sneaked a few photos in but unfortunately cameras were not allowed ….not sure why, maybe in reference to spooking the horses, but overall it was a great experience watching these beautiful horses in action.
From there we headed to the Hofburg palace and joined in an English speaking tour (we actually joined by accident….they were there in front of us and we were interested in what the animated guide had to say about Empress Elizabeth…know as Sisi. ) The stories were quite enthralling as he told them to the crowd. We learnt quite a lot from tagging along with this tour and we actually thanked him at the end of the session.
We toured through all the rooms, and gained an understanding of the type of woman that lived here….and sadly, how lonely, she was being empress from the age of 15 after she married her 1st cousin, the emperor Franz Joseph aged 24. He was the second last emperor of Vienna . The rooms were beautiful, and so opulent with dinner settings of gold and porcelain and not to mention the jade and orientals sections that the Viennese became fascinated in for awhile in the late 1700s. What I did notice was in the many portraits of this lady, how closely she resembled the current Elizabeth 2 from England. I am sure if you put the two young portraits together, you would swear they were related somewhere. Marc thought they we’re as somewhere in the royal aristocracy, the current English royal family changed their name from Germanic background. We just have to remember when and who….but anyway they were very alike.
Marc : ( have since tried to research a connection and cannot find a direct hereditary lineage but Empress Elizabeth was from Bavarian lineage and queen Victoria (house of Hanover – German – married her cousin, Prince Albert, of the saxe-coburg-gotha lineage – also German).
One Empress Elizabeth who was assassinated 1898 and the other queen Elizabeth still living in the 21st century.
Unfortunately we had to crush in with so many other people and at times it was claustrophobic and overpowering with people being rude and pushing through etc…even though they had audio guides..(we chose to read the information rather than listen to the audio guide), however, overall I am glad we went. This was the emperor’s winter residence in the heart of Vienna. The visit to this palace took quite a few hours and the sun was setting (3.45pm) when we left the palace and headed back to the hotel, stopping at an Italian restaurant for dinner and some pizza!!!
Today Monday, we joined the crowds at the Shonbrunn palace…which was the summer residence of the same royal family. This was exuberant and reminded us very much of Versailles in Paris….in the time of Louis 16th and Marie Antoinette, who was the great aunt of emperor Franz Josef of this palace. The resemblance of the palace is likely since the design was by the Queen Marie-Theresa, mother of Marie Antoinette, and therefore shared the fashions of those times, just a little less flamboyant than the French version. The Shonbrunn palace was beautiful to view and again we chose to read the information rather than listen to an audio guide. Reason being we could take the paper work home.
To get there, we caught the underground to the actual palace and that was not too hard. You just had to watch where the train stopped and which was the next stop coming. Of course, it was all in German. But, the station alighted us right at the palace…well a short walk to it anyway and you could se the extensiveness of the palace as we walked.
It was exciting seeing this palace for two reasons….to continue with the story of the royal family we were learning about, and the second reason, because this is the venue that Andre Rieu, the world wide famous violinist and his entourage performed in front of (in his own staging of course) to thousands of people on New Year’s Eve a few years ago. This was complete with an ice rink performance …and 100s of debutantes being presented and waltzing to his music (Strauss of course)..in the Grand Gallery above where he played….and we were there today. I could see it all in my mind from the DVD as Marc and I actually stood in the hall of mirrors…..where they danced ( and where I watched and remembered from the DVD ) . I stood on the steps where he performed. ( I guess I remember more aspects and settings through the music interest. ) So for me this was exciting as now I can picture it and understand it more when I revisit the DVD when we return home. Of course Marc took me for a little spin in the great hall…but as there were many tourists, we could not dance very far at all!! A little spin was enough for me anyway!!
We also ventured outside to the gardens and to other aspects of this palatial residence and realised how huge it was…once you assessed the palace aspect itself…( we only went into 40 rooms) there were hundreds more) and then wandered the gardens and up to a Neptune fountain,,,..oh just a ‘little’ one..and Maria Therese gate….at the top of the fountain and park area….all so huge, so opulent. It made me think how would they ever know anyone in the place, or in the grounds , or if they even walked up to any of these outside sections. Of course it had its own maze and labyrinth and play area….. It was immense!!
This family were the second last emperor. The empire was dissolved as part of the end of WW1 although the emperor refused to abdicate and therefore found himself exiled to Madeira where he died at a fairly young age. The empire was already in decline because of political changes that were making large dynasties no longer palatable to the populace plus also because of generations of interbreeding had resulted in an ever dwindling supple of male heirs.
Unfortunately crowds again and both of us thought if it was like this in winter, I would HATE to be here in Summer. However, we thought, because it is the news years weekend and holiday time, perhaps people are here because of that. There were so many different dialects and languages being spoken in our midst today.
We were there for the majority of the day after an early start and now back in our B&B sharing wine and cheese and biscuits ..resting our tired feet and bodies.
So much history in Vienna..to absorb in just a few days.
For those interested in a little history:( you can miss this bit if you like…)
Why a ‘Spanish’ riding school in Vienna? The name comes from the source of the Lippizaner breed of horse – a cross of Spanish, Arab and Berner breeding stock. The school has been based in Vienna for over 439years and therefore is the oldest riding academy in the world and pride themselves on maintaining the Haute Ecole (high school) of Classical Horsemanship for all of that time. The winter riding school was built within the Hofburg Palace in 1735 and is where we watched the morning training session. Curiously, the equestrian team only has a total of 17 riders but only three are female, all only cadets.
The Hapsburgs date from the 11th century but their rule of Austria dates from 1282. For over 600 years they used marriage rather than might to amass control over vast areas of Europe so that by the end of the 1400s they controlled in addition to Austria, Hungary, Germany and Bavaria, they controlled Spain, Naples-Sicily, Sardinia, Netherlands, Luxembourg and the county of Burgundy. In 1452, Frederick III was crowned the Holy a roman Emperor. Phillip II of Spain, a Hapsburg, was in 1558 due to control over large tracts of the Americas, territorially the greatest sovereign of the western world, By the end of the 1500s they started to decline due to the Ottoman invasions from the south east and Turkey’s invasions of Spain. However, there own predilection to intermarriage to avoid their empire breaking up from the same mechanism that had allowed them to amass their territories, thew marriage, had caused problems in guaranteeing male heirs. Thus, the dynasty was in decline from the 1600s onwards. However, Marie Theresa, a female heir was allowed to succeed as head of the dynasty in 1740 through her father’s ‘Pragmatic Sanction of 1713’ although it cost her some land. Through further strategic marriages of various of her 16 children, she continued the Hapsburg tradition of conquering through marriage rather than on the battlefield. One daughter, Marie Antoinette was married at age 15 to Louis 16th of France and we all know how that ended.
The Hapsburg dynasty destiny was already written before the first War world. people were starting to revolt against the big monarchies. The anarchist that assassinated Empress Elizabeth in 1998 was just a symptom of that revolt. Then Franz-Joseph’s heir, Franz-Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914 triggering WW1. The dynasty finally ended after Franz-Joseph died in 1916 during WW1 and his successor, Charles (Karl), was sent into exile (he refused to abdicate) as part of the establishment of the Austrian Republic after the treaty of Versailles reduced the Austrian-Hungary empire to the German speaking areas that are now Austria.
New Year’s Eve
We decided to have a quiet day since we knew we would be up late. It turned out to be beneficial as much for rest as well as prompting us to take a walk in a direction other than towards town. Lyndell suggested looking for a map to assist us with our travels and she found a road atlas for Europe – great considering the GPSs maps will drop out before Greece.
However, the main event was the New Years evening in Vienna … Imagine 1.5 million people in one city spread out at various music venues all enjoying themselves with everyone behaving themselves. It was a great environment. They had various stages set up over the centre and advertised what was there ine such area. Of course we and to interpret the German but manages to work out which stage area we would like to be in. Lyndell and I found the stage where they were alternating between playing Rat Pack type music singing songs from the frank Sinatra era….all the songs that Michael buble has revised…and playing operetta music. It was a huge stage complete with orchestra and they had a massive screen in the left hand side so you did not have to view the stages you just looked at the screen…from wherever you stood you could see what was happening. The music was great and we sang along and even managed a spin or two in our crowded area. Yet all totally enjoyable and we had found a great position to listen from at the edge of the HUGE crowd but still with good views.
We had to slip back to the hotel part way through the evening to put on more layers before racing back to listen to more music. It was freezing!!!!! Icy even….After the last set we tried to make our way to the large open area outside the Hofburg Palace where the fireworks were due to go off. It was like salmon trying to swim upstream against the force of the stream. Often we were at a stand still unable to move forward at all. That was scary as I was jammed against people everywhere you went and I hate crowds. Eventually we found a break up a side alley and made it to where the fireworks were going to be set off. Again able to find a good position against the fence for watching the fireworks.
We were both impressed by the good behaviour of the people – despite the crowds, the drinking, and the people setting off fireworks – everyone was well behaved and no-one seemed to being put at risk by the fireworks. Neither of us could see crowds in Australia being as well behaved!
Mind you, the general public had been already setting off firecrackers and fireworks since early evening. Amazingly, despite the number of random fireworks being set off making us feel as if we were in a war zone with random artillery fire going off, when you actually saw where and when they were being set off, it was always in an open area away from people and danger. So, even before midnight, we had already been hearing and seeing fireworks so it was actually difficult to determine when midnight actually happened, the intensity of the fireworks just became more intense. Then, after the ‘official’ fireworks stopped, the fireworks just kept going, and going, and going…I think they forgot to mention that the fireworks were over..they kept going right into New Year’s Day….
I have to add here that the official fireworks were to the music of Blue Danube by Strauss….a most fitting way to end 2013. Strauss, Vienna and New Year’s Eve. The music was broadcasted loudly over the fireworks so it was a great way to end 2013 and bring in 2014′