Guide books and maps are, of course, necessary if we are to get the best from our holidays. They tell us what to see and how to get there, and if we buy them early enough they can also help us choose a good hotel in a convenient location.
The best ones do provide information on a wide range of places to see, even if some guides limit their contents to the most obvious and invariably overcrowded ones. But returning from holidays it’s nice to bring back memories of places which, whilst not in the “must-see” league, speak more to us than the better known or historically and artistically more important sights. Here are my three from Vienna.
Beethoven’s house
On Mölker Bastei, perched high up above the western part of the Ring is Pasqualatihaus, one the houses where Beethoven used to live. One of several houses, because the great composer was not the easiest of tenants and frequently had to change his lodgings; he tallied up over 30 addresses in his 35 years in Vienna. Apparently cleanliness was not one of his strong points – one cannot somehow imagine a sonata in B-flat, op. whatever, “The Fairy Liquid”.
The little museum on the top floor of the house is nothing special – a piano, reproductions of some scores and letters, a few pictures, and equipment to listen to some recordings. The museum is nowhere near as interesting as the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, with its collection of the composer’s gigantic hearing aids. But two of the symphonies and a piano concerto were composed here, and that’s quite enough for me to make the place a shrine.
The house has obviously been renovated several times, but the staircase still retains its old atmosphere. One can easily imagine the great man thundering down allegro con brio, or even con fuoco, and then lumbering up the stairs back to his hovel, now only andante sostenuto.
Stalin’s Obelisk
When, after 10 years of tortuous peace negotiations, the Soviet Union finally signed the Austrian State Treaty, withdrawing from its zone of occupation and Vienna to allow the country become independent on 15th May 1955, the main condition was, of course, Austria’s political neutrality between the two Cold War blocks. But further down the list, in not-so-small print was a clause ensuring proper upkeep of monuments to the conquering Red Army.
Less than a year later, at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s dictatorship and his personality cult and soon after Uncle Joe was kicked out of the mausoleum on Red Square. His statues came tumbling down and his name was quickly erased from street names and various dedications (I witnessed much of it myself in Warsaw). But, in the now neutral Vienna, Слава Великому Сталину continued to be proclaimed in shining gold letters.
The neutrality may have vanished with Austria’s accession to the European Union, but the Russian Heroes’ Monument on Schwarzenberg Platz is still well maintained. Whilst I struggled with the Cyrillic letters to read Stalin’s proclamation to his victorious troops (the language is easy for a Pole, but the alphabet has always defeated me!), a young Russian couple visited the site; beaming with pride, yet clearly able to see the irony of it all.
Franz Joseph’s ginkgos
There must be something in Vienna’s climate or its soil which makes them particularly good for ginkgos. There’s a lovely, large one in the Rathaus Park between the Ring and the Town Hall. But the best ones are in the Burggarten. They must have been planted there when the park was still a private garden of the imperial palace of Hofburg. If you are in Vienna in the autumn, the best time for a holiday in central Europe, go and see them after a visit to the Albertina or to the palace itself. The largest one is right in the centre of the park, between the Mozart monument and the Palm House, standing at that time of the year in the middle of an amazing carpet of bright yellow leaves.
Oh, and if you want a tip where to find something more tangible to bring back with you, try the pottery shop on the northern side of Weihburggasse, between Kärtner Straße and the Franziskaner Platz. If you come back with one of those large central European tiled stoves, £2,500 or more a piece if not quite so many pounds in weight, I’ll be really envious.
During my visit I used the Borch street plan of Vienna, the Rough Guide to Vienna, plus a guide from my favourite series, Visible Cities, now sadly out of print.
Author: Malgorzata Ross
Date: 1 September 2008
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