On Winged Words...: We walk so we can eat cake…

Day: 4

Countries: 2 Cities: 2

Vienna, Austria

We walk so we can eat cake…

Wednesday 23 December 2016

Woke up and got a bit of a later start. Showered—well tried to, but the shower head wouldn't turn on so made do with a squat and duck under the spigot kind of shower. Headed out and made our way to Cafe Central, a famous, old cafe from the 1800s. Cafe Grecco-esque (the one we went to in Rome), but a lot more bang for your buck. One Eisenplein and one apfel struedel later... Good, but not as good as mom’s homemade apple pie. The closest I've gotten though.

And now pause from the recap, because right now as I type this on my phone we are at the Vienna State Opera House with 3 euro standing room only tickets, in the just off-center section of the balcony, with a pretty amazing view of the stage (all things considered), the tuning notes of the pit drifting up to our ears, and red velvet plush seats and rails all around. Colorful scarves tied around said rails reserve the standing room "seats". The opera to be performed tonight is the Vec Makropolus (The Makropolus Affair)—a story about an immortality/youth potion and the realization that the finiteness of life is what makes life beautiful and worth living. This is so freaking cool!

Anyway. We return to our normally scheduled broadcasting.

After breakfast we started walking and found ourselves back at what we thought the previous night was the St. Stephens Cathedral but which was actually the Citadel (city hall). Whoops. But still a pretty amazing building, architecturally speaking.

After that we kept walking, seeing the Justice Building, Museum of Natural History, and Parliament along the way. We kept walking until we got to the Hafburg Imperial Palace, which was ginormagos. Gracie and I did the audio-guided tour of the Imperial Apartments, which was really neat!

Start with a tour of the grossly immense and opulent silver collection of the dynasty/family through the years. Then climb the stairs to the apartments of Elisabeth and Ferdinand, emperor and empress of Austria in the last half of the nineteenth century, and learn more about the life and legend of "Sisi", a fascinating if misunderstood woman. She loved her husband (cousin), but didn't love his position and he loved her, like pretty genuinely. They were married when she was 15 and in the next three years, she'd had two daughters, lost one to typhus (?), and then had a son who would thirty years later commit suicide. These tragedies, along with her distaste and resistance to the demands of life as an empress, marked and compounded her depression and grief.

Even still, she was an unusual woman and leading figure for her time. She was really into fitness and exercised daily; took extreme dietary measures often in order to maintain her five-foot-eight-100-pound frame and 20-inch waist; and also took rather interesting and extreme measures to preserve her beauty and hair which hung down to her feet (everything from wearing a piece of meat on her face to spending one whole day washing her long locks). And weirdly and unfortunately, she was ultimately assassinated by an Italian anarchist in 1898. And after hearing of her death her husband’s only words were “You will never know how much I loved this woman”…

The audio tour was really well done, but there was just so much to see and hear that we couldn't catch all of it. But it was definitely worth the visit. Afterwards, we met back up with Bre and Amanda and continued on, stopping “for lunch” on the way and splitting a street hot dog.

Then we were at St. Stephens Cathedral which was also pretty neat. Amanda and I walked the 343 steps up to the top of the tower, which was more than worth the climb, as it offered amazing views of Vienna stretching out all around you—both from the top (technically not the top but as high as they would let you climb) and along the way through the teeny tiny windows which gave you a view out as well as let just enough light in to illuminate the spiral staircase.

Following that swawesome view and uphill climb, we kept walking and made quite a trek to get to the Belvidere Palace. Once there, we toured he upper palace that housed a plethora of art. Beautiful. And extra cool because we got to see some Monet and also Klimt—including his famous, gold-bedecked painting called “The Kiss”. I'd seen it before of course in pictures and books and such. But to see the real thing up close—literally right there I front of you! (you could touch it if you wanted to risk alarming the guard standing just two feet away)... Amazing.

How am I here? And how am I here now writing about this amazing day from the balcony of the Vienna State Opera House, about to see an actual opera? How am I in Vienna??? This is amazing! Thank You. Another busy but successful and worthwhile day J

The opera, itself, was pretty neat. An intriguing story and (obviously) well-done and just neat.. but we were, as a group, a tad hungry and tired and ready to go. I kinda wish now that we’d stayed, but as my mom used to always say, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” And anyway, we'd gotten a taste of the opera.

Afterward, we stopped at Cafe Sacher and ordered the sachertorte—the original chocolate cake of Vienna—for a taste of chocolate to save for later. We then Ubered over to the Pakistanian restaurant we’d been recommended to dine at, only to find that today was their first day of winter break. But we went next door to an Italian place that was pretty tasty. We shared a salad with grilled chicken because we were feeling the need for something green and not fried for a change.

After dinner we walked a bit more (the theme for the day) to find a place where we could have our cake and eat it too. Moist chocolate cake with bursts of extra moisture and sweetness everytime you hit the pockets of jam. Covered in a cool, delicious fudge that smoothed over the top and edge. And then a chocolate medallion on top of the icing on the cake. So good. Every bite delectable. The best cake I've had in a while. The first real cake cake I've had in a while. A good end to the night. And so that's about it. Just walked back. Now in pajamas and about ready to turn in before our early start tomorrow to travel to Salzburg!

Good morning, Vienna!