Vienna 1998
The Pope was coming to town. Barriers were being set up and a big stage worthy of Aerosmith was being built in the forecourt of the Volkerkunde Museum. It is from the balcony of this building that Adolf Hitler announced to the crowd gathered in the Heldenplatz the annexation of Austria by Germany in the thirties. A popular spot for sermons I guess.
We had hit The Ring bright and early. First stop Mozart’s house. We got our first glimpse of the Danube that was more grey than the blue of the famous waltz. I followed L as she power walked her way through a maze of alleyways and side streets. Clattering around the floorboards of Amadeus’ pad we decided once again that we didn’t enjoy each other’s company much and with a wave of the city map in her hand she warned me not to get lost. I walked a couple of blocks in the opposite direction punctuating each mental word with curses worthy of a Gangsta. Then I stopped. I didn’t know where the hell I was.
It was then that I started to notice the smell. Everywhere in The Ring there were horse and carriage taxis for the tourists. In some of the tight streets you were dodging them all the time. Often there would be four or five parked in a rank. There was shit everywhere. It seemed to suit my mood. As I walked to find a patch of grass to wipe some reconstituted vegetable matter from my Blundstones I found a friendly travel agent who sold me a city map and gave directions. The map was in German but at least I could find my way around.
St Stephens Cathedral is a magnificent gothic church that dates back nearly a millennium. It stands as the focus point of a square that shares the saint’s name, Stephenplatz that is really just an extension of the main shopping drag of Vienna. It looks quite dark and foreboding in shades of black and grey with Austrian eagles displayed in mosaic roof tiles. Inside the light explodes through stained glass one minute and then casts dark shadows the next. It was magnificent and had rung in over 900 Christmases. It was one of the most ancient edifices I would encounter at least till the drag queens of Amsterdam.
 Below the cathedral are the catacombs that in addition to housing the tomb of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III and other assorted medieval celebrities, did at one time up to the 1700’s serve as the general cemetery for the city. In short it is chock full of dead bodies. This was my first confronting experience in Europe - The In-Your-Face casualness given to displaying corpses and death. The vaults below the cathedral did not just contain bodies and skeletons. It was like a Bunning’s Hardware of sorted body parts. Floor to ceiling piles of femurs on the right, a lattice work of miscellaneous bones on the left and a huge pyramid of yellowed skulls in the middle. In the next room it was feet and hands all neatly stacked in the gloom. 11,000 bodies had apparently been dismembered after death stripped of flesh and then categorised and shelved. Here and there were urns containing entrails reminiscent of Canopic jars in a Pharoah’s tomb. Apparently they stopped burying people here not so much because they ran out of room but because of the stench. I looked through the bars in morbid dread at the equivalent of an Olympic Park crowd filleted for the tourists. I could imagine how Sunday mass must have been a bit ripe on the nose in the 18th Century.
This theme continued at my next stop the Jesuit Church a few blocks away. I had basically dropped in there to rest feet blistering up from Blundstone shod walks on cobblestone streets. I was immediately struck by the frescoes, grandiose architecture and gaudy altar-pieces. If St Stephen’s had been straight out of a Bram Stoker horror movie then this was Baroque trippy psychedelia. The dome and murals were spectacular but closer inspection of the altars revealed the gruesome centre pieces. Behind glass lay the corpses of bishops and nobles regaled in the finest jewellery and robes. Everywhere you looked a dead skull looked back, jewelled rings hung loosely from finger bones long bereft of flesh. It was much creepier than the catacombs. The blisters didn’t feel so bad now so I left to continue my exploration of Wien having had my fill of dead bodies for a while.
I got my first glimpse of Hofburg Palace by accident. I was crossing a side street and looked left and immediately forgot about wherever it was I was planning to go. Fronted by a fountain in the middle of a small roundabout the entrance is flanked by magnificent statues including Neptune with trident, a buffed Adonis type figure plunging screaming to his death and scantly clad maidens with their tits out. It seemed strangely pagan to ornament the home a series of fiercely Catholic Holy Roman Emperors. There was probably some religious symbolism in there that I missed but I guess when you are a superpower like the Hapsburgs were, ruling most of Christendom, then you could do what you wanted. Heresy is for the proletariat and disenfranchised.
The turquoise dome towered over the main palace archway. I managed to sneak a peek in a few rooms on the lower level before a security guard dressed like a band conductor waved me to the ticket counter. Having realised that my next month of daily existence was going to be a solo affair I was turning into Captain Tight Arse and I decided not to fork over the cover charge even though it was only a few Austrian Schillings. The arch continued through into the Heldenplatz and I wandered around watching the fevered preparations for Popefest 1998. Row upon row of white folding chairs, cables winding like vines to a mixing desk under a white tarp and even merchandise tents selling tee shirts and caps. Check one two the Pontiff is in the house y’all.
Time to get some culture in the city that oozes it. Raimundtheater Friday night - Toffs in evening finest and two bums from Oz mingling in the foyer nursing Heinekens. The show was named “Tanz Der Vampire”. It was basically Dracula The Musical and if the subject matter wasn’t enough to tempt the curious it was to be directed by Roman Polansky. We thought it an opportunity too good to pass up. The quintessential story of blood soaked horror combined with an underlying theme of sexual predation directed by a man who had experienced both sides of this equation.
It was in German but this didn’t really matter as the storyline was familiar. Having never seen a full-scale stage production before I was impressed with the spectacular scenery transitions and how the lighting seemed to magically transform mood and disguise what must have been major stage reconstructions. The music however was quite lame with the highlight being the recurring chorus of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. The bubblegum tunes did seem to dilute the impact of the gothic tale from a melodramatic perspective. I commented however to L that this was just the type of music I would expect to hear on Satan FM as we descended into the underworld. She agreed and we enjoyed our first laugh together in days.
Trash and treasure Austrian style – Last season’s fashion, old CD’s, records, and Nazi daggers and eagle badges with little swastikas on them. I strolled through the market place a few blocks from our hotel wondering at the nonchalance with which these evil talismans were being traded. At what point does an item cease to be a political statement and become simply an historical artefact?
Taking in a few museums. The Naturhistorisches Museum had huge Mammoth skeletons assembled in fierce poses displaying their unbelievably large tusks. You wondered how they avoided poking themselves in the eyes as the ivory curved back so sharply. Next up was the decorative amour and swords of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Most memorable was a helmet split in two by an axe that had been dug up from some ancient battlefield. The contents had long ago rotted away but the helm was evidence that the wearers end was not pretty.
Beisl apparently means Little House in Yiddish. They are essentially little café/restaurants where you can scoff down a few schnapps shots with beer chasers and tuck into the world famous Wiener Schnitzel. Having become quite an aficionado of the Parmagiana version as served in pubs across Australia as a menu staple, with its layers of cheese, bacon and Napolitania sauce, I was a bit disappointed with the dry naked schnitzel that was served up to me. It seemed an evolutionary throwback, a culinary museum piece. A sliver of crumbed flesh that deserved some sort of celebrity community service announcement - “Help bring chips, salad and sauce to the poor schnitzels of Wein.
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