I’ve just come back from a four night visit to Vienna – using up some holiday allowance and visiting Keith who is out there for a couple of months with the English Theatre of Vienna. Despite the fact that I brought freak sunshine with me, or maybe because of it, I found Vienna quite disappointing. Mood comes into it and this wasn’t helped that I couldn’t sleep the night before so I turned up having had only two hours sleep and I didn’t catch up much after that.
The problem with Vienna is that it is a lot like London in that it has suffered from bomb and planning damage. There are grand buildings and great areas but there is a lot of tat spoiling things. You sort of have to stand in the right place to get a good view. I expected broad boulevards with trams and trees framed by terraces of very grand buildings but many parts are quite indifferent, straggly or tatty. After a couple of days exploring we found some fine squares in the old part of the city but this is really quite a small area. The area round the ringstrasse is very grand centred on the Hofburg palace with the twin musuems, the Parliament buildings the Rathaus the Burgtheatre and the museumsquartier in the old stables. This area of imperial grandeur is large and impressive – a mixture of London’s Museum Quarter in Kensington with a bit of Covent Garden and Greenwich. But apart from that, many of the streets are quite nothing really.
It is quite well known that the Donau (Danube) is not blue, and is rather removed from the city. The main channel is two broad shipping canals some way to the North. There is a smaller channel that flows near but not through the old city. It’s not the Danube proper and it is quite small and partially hidden well below the level of the street. So there is no attractive river frontage like other great cities that are linked with their rivers like Paris or London New York.
In “Neither Here Nor There”, Bill Bryson describes the Prater Park as a bit of a dump and having had a quick look at the area round the famous ferris wheel (where Orson Welles made his famous speech about democracy and cuckoo clocks) I would add merely that it is a rather menacing dump. The Karlsplatz in front of the much vaunted Karlskirch is also a rather dreary expanse of concrete and surprisingly ugly considering it is central and in front of one of their top ten landmarks.
Bryson also rounded on the Cathedral but I thought it was great – not particularly big but very unusual in design. Unfortunately it was partly covered in scaffolding and not very photogenic but you can, and we did get the lift up to the viewing platform for great views of the city. This is not for the scaredy-heighties and you must not look down on the walkway for to reach the platform you have to walk along a metal grilled catwalk that is tacked to the side of the tower. There is nothing beneath.
I originally had all sorts of plans to visit museums but they turn out to be quite expensive and I was a bit footsore. Moreover the weather was too good to miss so I preferred to wander by foot or jump on the trams, buses or underground lines and just take it in; experiment with the different coffees and eat lots of Sachertorte. The transport is good. The fast food is good. But it is depressing to see how many McDonalds there are when you can get such delicious things on the hoof. My favourite is the many Wurst stands dotted around the city – for 2 quid you get a delicious sausage – well cooked – sliced up on a tray with a selection of mustards and a roll. They are delicious.
Much of the problem was this was only February and should have been frozen: all the vegetation was bare and stunted, the grass rather brown, and the statuary covered up. Yet it was sunny like summer which highlighted the tattiness. Come proper summer it should look miles better. But I would suggest that Vienna is not for the lonely planet traveller. Vienna is a famous city and I bet it is popular with the American and Japanese tourists. I suspect it might be rammed in Summer. This is not really the place for the lonely planet tourist. Vienna is conservative and mindful of its past. There is plenty going on – lots of museums, galleries and theatres but at the same time it doesn’t have much of a vibe (might just be Winter) or energy which I think is what I was picking up on. There are tons and tons of bars and restaurants but there are few people on the streets after six so it all seems a little flachs.
Good points |
Bad points |
| Good food. Big servings and good values. I can bring a personal recommendation to Wiener Schnitzel, Schnitzel Cordon Bleu, Burgers, Wurstel and even the Chinese Noodles in the Museumsquartier. All delish! Tons of places to eat. Even a tiny little bar with no-one in it will do you a tasty meal for a couple of quid. | No, no faults on the food side though coffee seems a liiitttttle pricey. |
| Excellent public transport. Buses, trams and underground. | Streets are wide, jaywalking is banned and the lights take forever to change. Quite crowded at weekends. Gotta be packed in Summer. |
| Beer is good and the local plonk is quaffable. Prices reasonable (to a Londoner). | What can be wrong with that? |
| Some fine architecture – old, art deco and modern. Check out the amazing waste burning power station within the city. Its not listed in my guidebook so I don’t know much about it. | Like London, the sights can be spread around and it is not, in itself a particularly photogenic city. You have to work at getting good shots. I gave up quite early and didn’t bother taking many but you can see a couple here |
