Vienna

The boat didn't move the first night we arrived as we were scheduled to see Vienna the next day. We were awakened with a very loud intercom message in French - we think it said "Good Morning, Time for Breakfast, and the tour is about to leave soon". We figured out pretty quick how to turn that off so we could wake up a bit more peacefully next morning. After a hearty breakfast which catered for all nationalities (pastries, croissants, bread for the French; muesli, fruit, yoghurt, toast and marmalade for the English; cheese and meats for the Spanish and Italians - kiwis like them all) we started our walk towards the underground. It was snowing slightly, little flakes wafting down and gently landing on our heads but not enough to stop us getting anywhere. We arrived at St Stephen - the centre of the tourist part of Vienna. But before I take this 'trip down memory lane' (I was in Vienna a few years ago after I had visited Sharon in Klaus. I then took the train to Salzburg and Vienna and spent a few days exploring on my own while Harry went to watch cars race around the Nurberg Ring) I thought I would write a bit about the architectural styles that we will see on this holiday. In every city there were examples of Byzantine, Roccoco, Gothic etc etc and I came away with the ability to recognise most of them but not understanding the history. So here goes...

• Byzantine architecture - around 330AD when Constantine the Roman Emperor decided to move the capital from Rome to Byzantium. The capital was later renamed Constantinople aka Istanbul - a place we are trying to get to in the near future. From my inexpert observations there are lots of frescoes in gold and bright colours and the roofs are dome shaped.
• Romanesque was around at the beginning of the 12th century and has lots of semi-circular arches. It is known for its quality and has thick walls, round arches, towers and gives the impression of simplicity. Lots of castles and abbeys were built in this style, and we have seen many a 'thick' wall in English castles built for protection.
• Gothic architecture came soon after originating in France around the 12th century and continuing for about 400 years with a bit of resurgence in the 18-20th centuries. There's lots of churches, abbeys, cathedrals, castles, palaces, universities etc in both England and Europe in this style and I always think of the pointed arches, spires and ornate stone decorations inside and outside the buildings. 
• Renaissance architecture was around the early 15th and early 17th centuries in Italy. I haven't quite worked out which buildings were designed in the Renaissance style but I have read there is a focus on symmetry, proportion, geometry - sounds a bit more of a 'right angled, regular and squarish' look than some of the other architecture types. There's also lots of columns, arches, domes as well apparently.
• Baroque architecture started in the early 17th century in Italy. This is the one I really like and we have seen some magnificent examples on our travels. It is hard to describe so I'll leave it up to a quote I found "...rhetorical, theatrical, sculptural fashion, expressing the triumph of absolutist church and state" - any the wiser? I think what that means is there are lots of colour (often pastel shades), a great use of light, more paintings, less ornate statues and engraved decorations. 
• Georgian architecture is the architecture around the the period that the George's ruled ie the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain,George III of the United Kingdom, and George IV of the United Kingdom—who reigned  continuously from 1714 to 1830.
• Rococo is 18th century French. We haven't seen many buildings in this style yet, but it is typified by lots of elegant and ornate furniture, small sculptures, ornamental mirrors, and tapestry complementing architecture, reliefs, and wall paintings. The word Rococo comes from a French work meaning stone and another one meaning shell (shell-like curves are a feature of Rococo).
• Neoclassical architecture came soon after in the middle of the 18th century and it seems to have its origins in Classical Greece and Italy - not yet seen enough examples to recognise this one yet.
• The Regency style of architecture - a great example is all the houses on the shore in Brighton and those in Cheltenham. It's a wonderful era on building and design when George IV was Prince Regent - you can probably tell I like it. Many buildings of the Regency style have a white painted stucco facade, one main front door (usually coloured black) which is framed by two columns, balconies and bow windows. Houses are usually in terraces or crescents. Indoors there is often vertically striped wallpaper and lots of ornate furniture. 

After that little architectural history lesson - I'll continue our Vienna visit.  St. Stephen's Cathedral. It's still being cleaned (it was being cleaned when I was in Vienna before) but the cleaning has moved around the building and I imagine the size and the complexity of the engravings would make it an ever ending task. It is quite a magnificent church, standing proudly in the square and overlooking the activities of those walking past it. We then wandered through the shopping centre (I had thought it was the main shopping centre but on our last day Lilli and Manuel took us through the main shopping centre - ie where the locals go - much bigger and similar to any other shopping street in a capital).  We saw the Christmas decorations being taken down and the New Year Eve ones going up and lots of brightly lit statues and windows.

And then on to Schonbrunn (beautiful spring). The land where the palace now sits was originally a huge gaming park for Roman Emperor Maximilian II in the mid 1500's. During the next century the area continued to be used as a hunting and recreation park and when Eleonore Gonzaga was given the area by her husband (Ferdinand II) when he died.  A new palace was designed by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and construction began in 1696. Maria Theresa of Austria decided to make it her imperial summer residence, after she was crowned. She ordered her architect-of-the-court Nicolò Pacassi to reshape the palace and garden in a way of the style of Rococo. Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria was born at the palace and died there in  1916. It remained a summer residence for the royal family until Charles I of Austria abdicated in 1918. We wandered around a dozen or so beautifully decorated rooms (not too ornate and not over furnished) before heading into the tea room next door for a toasted sandwich (for the girls) or sausage in bread with lots of grated horse radish (for the boys) before trekking up the hill to the Gloriate. It is up this path that we got some of the best views of the palace, the gardens and Vienna. It was cold and the sculptured gardens, fountains, lakes and ponds all had that 'frozen' look about them. I spent some time watching a duck standing on ice in one of the fountain ponds, standing on one foot he tucked the other under his wing, he then put the warm one down, lifted the other and shook it and put in inside his warm feathers. If I could speak duck language  I would have asked him "Why stand on the ice when there are warmer places - it is so cold that grapes are freezing on their vines?" but I guess he wanted to be with his friends. The Gloriette stands about 60 metres above the palace and it was commissioned by Maria Theresa. It was made from recycled stone from other local buildings. There is a cafe inside the Gloriette now and we were very tempted to have another tea stop before heading back out into the cold but didn't as we still had lots to see.

We weren't that tired after our rather long ramble through the garden and since I had been enthusiastically talked about Hundertwasse long before we even left Gatwick the others decided that they would come with me to this wonderful little village. After getting slightly lost and taking a bit longer than the 10 minutes promised by the local, there were varying degrees of rapture at what I thought was great. "Very interesting" (that's what you say about a painting when there is nothing else to say), "not impressed" and "would have been better in the daylight" were just a few of the comments from my friends. I just couldn't understand what I could only describe as a less than enthusiastic attitude. I encouraged the men to spend 60 cents and go and visit the loo even if they didn't need to use it but again not much excitement there - but a few photos did get taken - which indicates something. We told our friends about Hundertwasse's link with down under and the loo he designed in Northland - I've never seen it but Harry has. Anyway, a bit more history just cos I think his work is great. Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser was born in Austria in 1928 and died in 2000. He had a pretty hard childhood with his Dad dying just after he turned one and during the second world war his Jewish Mum and he posed as Catholics (his Dad had been one). He even joined the Hitler Youth to keep the facade up. After the war, he spent three months at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and then travelled with a set of paints to draw anything he wanted during his travels. His first exhibition was in 1952. He chose his names (I can't remember his names given to him at birth) that he was known by Friedensreich ( "Peaceland" or "peaceful", Regentag (Rainy Day) and Dunkelbunt (Darkly multicoloured). In the 1950's he did lots of things like architecture, creating flags, stamps, coins and posters. From New Zealand's point of view besides the toilet Hundertwasser made one more major contribution he designed the Koru Flag (New Zealand's second flag). Some say that the current flag of New Zealand with the union jack in the corner is a reminder of British colonialism and does not truly represent the kiwi culture - while others say it represents the history as part of the British Empire and location in the southern hemisphere. On that debate there is probably no wrong answer.  Hundertwasser considered New Zealand as his official home and no matter where he went in the world, his watch was always set to New Zealand time (that may not be as confusing as it sounds as it probably wasn't a digital 24 hour clock and without daylight saving, or British Summer time, New Zealand is exactly 12 hours in front of England). The Hundertwasserhaus apartment block which we couldn't go into as it is privately owned has undulating floors ("an uneven floor is a melody to the feet"), a roof covered with earth and grass and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows. He took no payment for the design of Hundertwasserhaus, declaring that the investment was worth it to "prevent something ugly from going up in its place".  I wonder how many would agree.

(montages courtesy of Mike).

Back on the boat we all crowded around Mike's pedometer - how many steps had he done in one day (cos we would have done them too - my little legs perhaps a few more).  According to Mike we walked 20751 steps today - that is pretty close to 9.171 miles, which is near enough to 15 kilometres for us kiwi folk, and we wore off 448.7 kilocalories which is no where near how much we have eaten in one day on the ship. Never mind the first 2 stats looked pretty good. After dinner, we walked a bit further from the dining room to the cabin and then to the lounge. We continued teaching Mike and Barbara how to play ‘up the river down the river’ and it just shows how good our teaching is as we continued to win and they continued to trail behind (Harry was scoring after all). The game was interrupted by a game of Bingo organised by the ships crew which did take quite a while for the winners to complete a line, then two lines, then a full house, because each number had to be read in French with the callers caption with it eg 'all the 6's, 66', and then the same in Spanish, Italian and English for the few of us who didn't speak French. Anyway, during the game when my numbers were not being called I began to wonder who invented such a frustrating game.  It started in Italy and France but soon moved to America when a Catholic priest realised its ability to raise funds for his church (previous to that it had been used for educational purposes to teach students English, Maths and Geography).  We soon tired of listening to bingo in 4 languages and besides that we were rapidly losing the chance to win, but continued to play as the caller was happily using his voice for our benefit and impressing us with his linguistic skills.  We then proceeded to teach Barbara and Mike 500.  The boat left its moorings at 11.55pm – 5 minutes early but we didn't mind as it was good to be on the move – it is after all a cruise.

On the last day of the cruise we returned to Vienna and spent a wonderful day with Manuel and his Mum Lilli. They invited us to lunch which Seb cooked and Manuel's two little brothers Noah and Jan. It was a lovely day catching up again with Manuel and meeting his family for the first time. Manuel and Lilli were wonderful tour guides and we had a bit of a walking tour around Vienna (from St Stephens to the car), the Palace (where we saw the horses with their ear warmers), Manuel and Jan's school (known as a gymnasium), Manuels flat (where there is a map of the history and design of the building over centuries) and up the mountains (where we saw our first snow in Europe!!). It was lovely up in the mountains overlooking Vienna - we didn't realise that a 30 minute drive would take us so far away from the urban area.  Lilli and Manuel drove us through little suburbs (where the bars are only allowed to sell the wine they make from the grapes grown in the region) and where we had a coffee and cake in a traditional Austrian bar.  We had a wander around a district consisting of 6 or so narrow, cobbled streets and where some of the houses have now been restored. Manuel showed us the students area where students congregate in summer for a coffee and chat.  We were also taken to The Karlskirche (St. Charles Borromeo Church) - it is one of my favourites.  There is a lift to take you to the top to see the frescoes at the top and views of Vienna (but when I was there last the lift wasn't working so I climbed the stairs) and this time there was a service so it also wasn't working.   It is just lovely. The church was designed by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, after winning an architectural competition to a build a church in memory of the plague of 1712. Some of the engravings depict the pain that the people suffered because of the illness. We also drove through the famous shopping street in Vienna - not the one frequented by tourists - it is the longest retail street in the city. Before saying goodbye we had another coffee and cake - and learnt all about 'maroni'.  Harry chose what he thought was a chocolate cake (is that a surprise), but found out it was maroni - never heard of it. After reading the description on the web and looking at photos I now think it is one of those things that we've seen in lots of markets and said 'What's that?'  Anyway it comes from an evergreen tree and is also known as Noni.  The Australians call it Cheese Fruit.  It has been around for thousands of years and has medicinal qualities as well as used in cream and cakes. After giving Manuel and Lilli a big hug we met up with Mike and Barbara to listen to the Imperial Orchestra play a variety of Mozart, Strauss, Schubert and Beethoven.  Together with ballet dancers and singers to help entertain us we haven't known 2 hours to fly past so quickly for a long time.  A walk back to the hotel looking for a late night snack wasn't very fruitful and so we ended up in our last night in Vienna snacking on half a packet peanuts (left over from the flight over), chocolate bar (Mike had in his pocket) and apple - not that we needed much after the nice lunch and cake. Talking about food - what does Manuel miss most about NZ - the big packets of pies you can buy.

And we got home I was looking at the back of our map of Vienna.  I couldn't believe that all the time we had been walking around Vienna with the picture of a famous Kiwi.  Under a very young Kiri was the wording:

OPERNSOPRANISTIN

KIRI TE KANAWA 1ST EINE FRAU

MIT VIELEN GESICHTERN.

ABER IMMER BELEIBT SIE

SO UNVERWECHSELBAR

WIE IHRE ROLEX