Saint Stephen's Cathedral, the center of Roman
Catholic worship in Vienna, was completed in 1433.
Blog Note: My purpose in reposting this series of blogs about our travels in Eastern Europe in 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union, is to show the joy of the Eastern
European peoples as they emerged from the Marxist system into freedom.
My hope is that at least a few Americans will be warned as our present
government seeks to lead us into that darkness.
The tourist agency helped us find a reasonably-priced "pension" in a good, central-Vienna location. Checking in, we found the staff helpful and the room pleasant in an old European style. The Pension Andreas occupies the third floor of one of those massive, old, five or six-story buildings which seem to occupy most of Vienna's blocks, and is about a block and a half from the church where Beethoven is buried.
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Pink Volkswagen, anyone?
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By this time it was about 8 p.m. and we were hungry, so we went looking for food. Supper for two at a nearby Chinese restaurant set us back about $34. Everything in Vienna costs three or four times what we were used to paying in Chattanooga. If I describe the cost of something in Vienna as "reasonable," remember that it's all relative.
Normally I'm a night-owl, but when you're traveling,
especially on a working trip, you take your rest when you can get it. And we
did get a very good night's sleep.
Monday, March 26 The next
morning we had the "free" breakfast in the hotel's breakfast room --
the usual meat, cheese, jam, and so-so coffee. But a good deal compared with
the price of breakfast on the town.
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Crowds in the Kartnerstrass, a pedestrian street
which
links the opera house with St.
Stephen's Cathedral.
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And then we were off for two days footloose in Vienna, like two kids let out of school! We had picked up maps and tourist brochures, but found it all very confusing, especially the transit system. Finally we took the plunge and bought passes and set off for the center of town. I carried cameras, of course, but Louise, exhausted from carrying the heavy S-VHS camera around Eastern Europe, left it in the room.
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The monument to the composer Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart
was erected in 1896 in the Burggarten in Vienna.
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All kinds of people enjoy a sunny March day in Vienna.
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Louise took the opera house tour and enjoyed it very much,
while I photographed the area around St. Stephan's Cathedral. Pizza and salad
for lunch set us back $20. In the late afternoon we took subway and tram about
12 miles to the end of the line -- a town called Boden -- to see the Roman
ruins. By this time it was nearly dark and too late to see the ruins if we had
found them. We found instead a lovely park, a good supper of roast beef and
potatoes, a friendly waitress, and more reasonable prices. It took us a little time to find the station, but we
eventually got back to the pension, tired and satisfied.
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The Anker Clock was created by the painter and
sculptor
Franz Matsch and completed in 1914.
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Tuesday, March 27 The day
dawned gray and gloomy and stayed that way. I spent some time trying to find
out if any part of the Iron Curtain fence was still standing between Czechoslovakia and Austria that I could photograph. I was informed that
the fence was being taken down by the Czechs and no one knew for sure where to
find the remaining sections. I would like to have had the photographs, but it
looked likely to be a wild goose chase. So, we went out to see more of Vienna.
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| Pavement art in the Kartnerstrasse. |
The weather put a damper on picture-taking, and Louise was
tired from the previous day's walking, After a light lunch ($20 -- not much
today, but this was 1990) I took her back for a nap and went out for a while by
myself. The light was still bad.
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A stained glass window in St. Stephen's Cathedral.
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Later, we took the tram to the McDonald's on the Franz
Joseph Quay, then back to the Karntnerstrass, but the crowds had gone, and with
them apparently, the street musicians. And it was starting to rain. So we went
back to our room and began packing for our 7:10 a.m. flight.
Everything was fine until we came to security, where they
flatly refused to hand-inspect my film. This was important, because airport
x-rays can damage film. I stood my ground and asked to speak to the person in
charge. They kept us waiting until 15 minutes before take-off, when a senior
person showed up and passed us through without even looking at my film! That was life before digital cameras.
And then home, after 21 days of intensive, fascinating,
enjoyable travel and work.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week.
Soli Gloria Deo
For the glory of God alone
Tags: photography, Dave Jenkins, David B. Jenkins Eastern Europe, Iron CurtainVienna, St. Stephen's Cathedral, Roman Catholic worship, Beethoven, Mozart, Olympus OM cameras, Leica cameras, Fujichrome film, film cameras
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