Sleep did not come easy. Shortly after finishing up last night’s entry another backpacker type walked through the completely desolate Warsaw airport, and rather than sit in any of the seats that were anywhere else, chose to sit all of 10 meters from us in silence, occasionally grinning at us weirdly. With an audience like that, we weren’t going to sleep anytime soon. Eventually we mean mugged him hard enough that he wandered off to a more reasonable and safer distance of 100m instead of 10, but it took about an hour and a half for that to happen. Then we tried to go to sleep, but between the cold environment outside the huge glass windows surrounding us, and the air conditioning that was constantly pumping through the vents above us, the floor got COLD. Really cold. I managed to get about an hour and a half of sleep in 20 minute stints before we both finally called it quits around 0400h. We got our things together, put on warmer layers in the bathroom, and then managed to get a better nap of about 40 minutes before the airport started coming alive at 0500h.
We grabbed a great breakfast from the “Business Shark” café in the Warsaw Airport of egg and avocado bagel sandwiches with cappuccinos. Then one super short flight later and we were landing in Vienna, Austria! The first order of business after “taking care of business” was to figure out where we were going to sleep for the next two nights, because we hadn’t made those plans yet. Yup, we flew to a foreign country without even bothering to ensure we wouldn’t be homeless. Sometimes you just have to trust in the Force. Nick managed to get some wi-fi on his phone and we selected the Wombats hostel not far from the center of town.
Next up was figuring out how to take the train to the hostel so we could drop off our bags before exploring. It turns out this was no small task. We found a ticket agent who let us purchase our train fares and then explained too rapidly how to actually get aboard the correct train, and we were too proud to go back and ask her for the instructions again, so we desperately hunted in vain for a comprehensible route map and departure schedule. Language barriers weren’t the issue as most materials have English side-by-side with the German, and meanwhile I can decipher a enough written German words just looking at them to make do- no the problem was that the train system is complex and the materials provided really were insufficient, as they assume that the user already knows some basic facts about how the Viennese train system is organized. We knew from our tickets that we were supposed to have a 0930h departure from the airport, but that was almost all of the useful information that was on our tickets- they were really more like receipts than tickets. Time was ticking down, as we ran from platform to platform trying to figure out which train was which and where they were going, and if they were going someplace that could take us in the direction we needed to go. It turns out that the train we needed didn’t actually depart at 0930h, but at 0945h instead, which we managed to figure out with about one minute to spare. The discrepancy in the times didn’t seem to matter though, as there was no ticket taker or even an electronic gate to check us either on the S-Bahn or the U-Bahn we ultimately took to the hotel.
After checking in we dropped off our bags in the luggage room and set off in search of some interesting food. Just a few blocks away from the hostel, and in the direction of the city center (called “first district”) we found a great place that did Tapas with a local flare called Sud Lander Bistro. We ordered Serbian sausages, grilled pimento peppers, sautéed artichoke hearts, and squid stuffed with blood sausage, plus some grain that was a bit like couscous, along with some local beers we hadn’t heard of before but liked. The food was absolutely delicious, and a between that and the incredible views we had already seen just in our short walk, we were rapidly learning to like Vienna, or Wien as it’s spelled in German. As we worked our way through the meal I scanned a travel guide I had snagged from the hostel, and read out possible sites for us to see, which Nick and I then narrowed down and formalized into a list. Nick then took the list and found the addresses for each site, and saved its coordinates in his phone for easy navigation later.
We decided that our first destination would be the Capuchin Crypt, where the bodies of the Hapsburg imperial family lay in state, and so we set off around 1230h. It was deep underground but the crypt was surprisingly spacious and well lit, pleasant even. The caskets and sarcophagi of the kaisers and their family members however were beyond impressive. Usually giant metal structures, they were embellished with the most magnificent metal sculptures, carvings, reliefs, and more. It was really fascinating to see just how truly regal these containers were- despite the massive amounts of wealth that was obviously required to create these caskets, they were not gaudy in the slightest, or even particularly ostentatious. Of course there were two famous Hapsburgs who were notably missing, Marie Antoinette who was beheaded during the French Revolution, and Franz Ferdinand whose assassination triggered WWI. Still, it was interesting to consider that this crypt was once the private domain of absolute monarchs who passed their power in hereditary fashion; and to imagine what it would’ve been like for young members of the Hapsburg family to come to the crypt knowing that it was their immediate ancestors who were contained so reverently, and that one day such honors would duly be bestowed on them.
After the crypt we walked to the Vienna Jewish Museum and spent well more than an hour examining the exhibits there. It was a fascinating and eye opening gallery- they really don’t cover the Holocaust at this museum, despite the Holocaust (or Shoah as its known within the Jewish community there) being a particularly Austrian experience, along with Germany and Poland. Instead they focus on the story of the multiple Jewish communities that had been living in Austria for the previous 1,000 years and then the experiences of Viennese Jews and Jews living in Vienna (two distinct concepts) since the end of the Shoah. As I mentioned, Jews had a community here off and on for roughly a millennium prior to WWII, and as such the Jewish population there at the eve of the war was roughly 160,000 (if I’m remembering correctly). After the war it was roughly 5,000 making it one of the only (if not the only) places declared by the SS to be Jew-free; something we saw quite sickeningly in one of the SS’s own internal charts being proudly presented with graphs of the rate of decline of the local Jewish population. Learning about the plight that Viennese and other local Jews had suffered both before and since the Shoah was disheartening but important to know- the problem was not and is not only the Holocaust. Progress does seem to be happening, but it’s a sad statement about how much hate continues to fill the world that an alert security guard stands on duty outside the museum at all times.
We felt very educated by our experience there, but eventually it was time for a pick-me-up and so we headed to Stephansplatz in search of coffee and pastries. We found them in spades, as we sat in a what I can only describe as a department store of a bakery-café, overlooking the plaza with all its cool architecture and people, eating strudels. From there it was just a 60 second walk across the plaza to its namesake: the St. Stephans Cathedral which towers over the first district with incredible Gothic architecture. We found our way inside, stood awestruck at the incredible views from the interior, and then took a speedy elevator to the top of the belfry- 314 meters above the ground- and stood awestruck once more at the incredible views not only of the city, but also of the exterior of the cathedral visible from this position.
From there we walked to the church which is the headquarters of the Order of the Teutonic Knights, but they were closed, so we walked the block from there to Mozart’s house (and the several floors of museum on the levels above the one he rented). It was interesting, but surprisingly a bit obscure compared to some of the other museums we’ve seen on our European adventure so far. The best parts were the sections that detailed Mozart’s involvement in Freemasonry, and seeing his actual apartment and realizing things like, “Mozart used to look out of this window every day”.
We left the Mozarthaus and found the Archives of the Austrian Resistance but it turns out they really were an archive and not much of a museum, so we decided to hustle over to Beethoven’s apartment. When we got there it was definitely dark and there were basically no tourists around as we pushed open the heavy wooden doors that led to the courtyard of the building. From there we found a sign indicating that Beethoven’s apartment was on the 4th floor (5th floor by American counting- in Austria the ground level is the 0th floor) and so we pushed open that door to the stairs, and found them completely in darkness. We figured we had come this far, so we started climbing the old stone spiral staircase in total pitch black. Floor after floor we climbed with no light, wondering if this could really lead to a museum? Finally we reached the top, found a door that opened into the light of the museum, and then were told by museum staff that with only 10 minutes till closing, we should really just come back another day.
We hustled back to the hostel from there and asked for some advice about what to eat, which led us to a pretty good Thai restaurant a block and a half away where I got red curry and Nick ordered some surprisingly spicy glass noodles. We returned to the hostel to do laundry using actual laundry machines in the basement! It’ll be awesome to have clean socks again. So that’s where we’ve been sitting, typing up our journal entries, occasionally interrupted by a bevy of cute Spanish and Brazilian girls who needed help figuring out the washing machines. I think Nick will probably go straight to bed after we’re done here, but I might try to go to the hostel bar to see what the vibe is like before cashing out myself. Even if it’s pretty slow there, it’s been a great first day here in Vienna!
Prost!