Our Vienna Adventure: Day Four

Our last day in Vienna started a bit too early for me, since I woke up at 6:00 A.M. and couldn't fall back asleep. I have no idea why I felt so awake at this early hour (especially after all the walking we did yesterday), but at least it gave me the chance to see a rather amazing morning sky over the city:

Many hours later, after breakfast (Bob was already lamenting what would be for breakfast tomorrow--back to boring old cereal), checking out of the hotel, and storing our luggage for the day, we began our last seven hours of wandering around Vienna. We started by heading to the southwest outskirts of the city; when we got off the U-Bahn at Hietzing station, we spotted the dome of the Otto-Wagner-designed Hofpavillon across the tracks:

Built in 1899 as the lavish subway waiting area and entrance for Emperor Franz Josef and his guests, the interior is meant to be rather spectacular, but is only open to the public on Sundays. In spite of the work put into it, the Emperor apparently only used the pavillion once or twice. We had come to this part of the city to walk around the grounds of yet another Vienna palace (when I first started reading about Vienna, I couldn't believe how many palaces there were!), but first we took a bit of a detour through the neighbourhood of Hietzing, which is meant to have some of the more spectacular private residences in the city. Many of these homes are surrounded by various forms of walls and greenery, which makes seeing them a bit difficult, but it was still lovely to walk around the quiet neighbourhood on such a warm and sunny morning. Of course, this being Vienna, even the fences and walls are pretty!

This next building was very strange, with reliefs of figures surrounded by creatures, flowers, and food:

The building also had other nice details, like this doorknob:

Some of the gardens were as impressive as the houses themselves!

These faces peeked at each other from across the window of this next house:

The final house I'll show you belongs to a more contemporary era--I wonder what the neighbours think?

From here, we began to make our way onto the Schönbrunn palace grounds, approaching from the wooded area near the Tiergarten (zoo). Suddenly, we found ourselves in a beautiful forest, seemingly removed from the city,

where the only sounds were the rat-tat-tatting of woodpeckers!

After we got over our surprise, we quite enjoyed seeing a group of emus strolling through the forest--we hadn't realised we were so close to the zoo, but I guess some of the enclosures are visible to the non-paying public?

As we started to emerge from the forest, we were treated to some reminders that the city wasn't that far away,

but for now, we continued walking toward the palace grounds,

and emerged from the woods at the Gloriette, built in 1775 to glorify the Habsburgs, and now the site of an observation deck and café.

Looking downhill from the Gloriette, we got our first glimpse of Schönbrunn palace.

Although we'd decided not to take the time to explore the palace interior, we continued walking toward the palace and were glad that we had come to this beautiful part of the city to wander through the lovely neighbourhood, forest, and gardens.

The Neptunbrunnen (Neptune Fountain) was built in 1781 at the base of the hill,

and looks toward the palace itself. Schönbrunn was the Habsburgs' summer palace, and contains some 1500 rooms. (You can see why we decided we wouldn't have enough time to see the interior!)

Looking back at the Gloriette from the palace made for an incredible sight.

We exited the palace grounds by walking between these impressive shrubbery walls,

and with one last look at a pair of gates,

we returned to the real (non-royal) world. Of course, reality is relative, as we were reminded after a bit more wandering led us to this incredibly surreal neighbourhood sight:

Situated in the small Arenberg Park, two enormous Flaktürme (WWII towers used as observation posts, anti-aircraft towers, and air-raid shelters, and containing field hospitals, arms factories, and independent water and air supplies) dominate the greenspace. Built in Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna, Flaktürme were built to last, which made them difficult and expensive to dismantle, meaning that some remain, even though many citizens of the cities in which they continue to stand consider them to be an embarrassing reminder of the Nazi era. Various Flaktürme are now used as a nightclub, music school, aquarium, climbing wall, and a telecommunications tower. Of the pair we saw today, one is empty and one is used as a storage space for art. (Another Vienna Flaktürme is being considered as a site for an open-air cinema.) I can honestly say that I've never seen anything like them--they dominate the landscape in an eerie, oppressive, scary way, and yet, the park around them was otherwise a regular park,

complete with children on swings right beside one of the monoliths (the one filled with art). So very strange.

After a bit more walking, we figured that since today was our last day in Vienna, we could justify having cake for lunch! Not only did we have cake, we had distinctly Viennese cake: Mozart torte (chocolate, pistachio cream, and nougat) and Sacher torte (chocolate cake with layers of apricot jam and chocolate ganache). All I can say is: Mmmmmm!

We were eager to see more of the city, and spent the rest of the day just walking around, trying not to get too sad about leaving yet another great European city. This dog was sprawled on the sidewalk outside a supermarket, leashed to a sign that rather cutely states, "I cannot enter!"

Vienna definitely seems like a dog city and we didn't see many cats during our wanderings.

We stumbled upon this beautiful staircase, decked out in green,

as well as several buildings that had us gazing upwards at signs

and a pair of unusually smiley lions

on our way to Spittelberg, a quirky, charming area of narrow, pedestrianised streets. This sight in the window of a Spittelberg bakery reminded us that today was Halloween:
The neighbourhood (which was spared demolition in the 1970s) was lovely, with a definite community spirit.

I thought this fading clock mural on an equally fading building was quite nice--

even more so when I realised that the building houses a clockmaker's shop.

I liked the horse (and the slightly creepy armour) on this U-Bahn entrance--it was as if horses were inside, waiting to whisk you to your next destination!

Everything in Vienna seemed to work efficiently, pleasantly, and even with a certain degree of flair. Even parking-payment machines warrant a blog appearance thanks to their why-don't-more-cities-have-them solar panels.

Of course, the Viennese love of dogs hasn't biased my evaluation of the city at all!

I like this next pup--seemingly oblivious to the view on the other side of the bench.

We cut through another portion of the Hofburg, stopping momentarily in front of the grand Neue Burg balcony from which Hitler gave his famous speech celebrating the Anschluss (the merger of Austria into Germany under the Nazi regime).

The nearby Mozart memorial was quite grand, especially with the clef in the foreground.

The Hofburg's Schweizertor (Swiss Gate) was built in 1552, and is one of the few Renaissance monuments in the city.

These fighting figures grace one of the entrances to the complex,

and on the other side, Michaelerplatz contains some archaeological remains discovered in the 1990s.

We wandered back toward Graben, passing the First Austrian Savings Bank building, which is crowned by a bee, a symbol of thriftiness and hard work.

As we walked past the Plague Column amongst the many Graben shoppers, we realised that we should soon start heading back to the hotel to get our bags. We hadn't yet had lunch and wouldn't get the chance to have a proper dinner--what could we eat that would be yummy, filling, and quick? As we looked down Graben, I remembered just the place--the half-moon-shaped sign guiding us to food is visible past the Berlitz sign, above the blue and pink neon sign:

Funnily enough, our last meal in Vienna was at the place where we ate our first meal! We definitely weren't complaining.

It was tough saying goodbye to our beloved Trzesniewski, but it was time to start heading toward the hotel.

We backtracked along Graban, passing Peterskirche, said to be the finest Baroque church in the Innere Stadt.

The interior was indeed impressive.

There are too many nice buildings

and cute dogs in this city!

The next church we wandered past as we continued walking north was Maria am Gestade,

a Gothic church whose road used to be a Danube tributary, meaning that churchgoers could enter directly from their barges.

The former site of the Gestapo headquarters in Vienna now holds the Monument to the Victims of Fascism, which contains the Star of David and a pink triangle as reminders of Jewish and homosexual victims.

The last place we went into was Ruprechtskirche, the oldest church in Vienna, with the current building dating to the 12th century. The bell tower contains the city's oldest bells, dating to 1280.

We stopped for a minute to watch this puppet show going on outside the church, seemingly as part of neighbourhood Halloween celebrations--of course we couldn't understand anything the puppets were saying, but we didn't need to understand German to know that the raven was definitely up to no good!

Still full from our Trzesniewski pitstop, we passed by the sausage stand on Hoher Markt where we enjoyed Käsekrainer the other day, and Bob suggested we stop for another round while we still could. I was too full from our sandwiches, but suggested that Bob have a sausage, but he said that if I didn't need any, that he wouldn't have any either.

(He was understandably irritated when I mentioned an hour later that I wished we had stopped for one last oozing, cheesy sausage.) We finally reached our tram stop, with the Votivkirche in the distance.

My last photo from Vienna may seem like a pretty boring photo, but in a way, it's one of the most exciting scenes from our trip. It's of the daily newspaper being sold at a sidewalk kiosk. Notice anything noteworthy about the way the newspaper is being sold?

The paper is being sold on the honour system! We haven't seen this in any other place we've travelled to, and I haven't heard of this existing in any other country. You take your paper from the unattended bag strapped to the lamp post, then put your €1,60 in the small box just above the paper. Of course, nothing's stopping you from just taking a paper and not paying, and yet people apparently don't take advantage of this trust. It goes without saying that this would NEVER, EVER work in London (or Vancouver, for that matter). In a way, this newspaper stand sums up the ways in which Viennese society just felt like it worked so well, demonstrating the qualities of honesty, consideration for your fellow people, utterly open friendliness, and a sense of well-being that make it an amazingly comfortable city. We really didn't want to leave, but it was time to catch our bus back to Bratislava airport and get ourselves back to London. I still wish we had stopped for one last Käsekrainer, though . . . .