nerd’s eye view

Richard the Lionheart, meet Venus of Willendorf

I didn’t study literature, so I don’t remember much about Shakespeare. And I don’t really know much history, though now I am feeling rather a lot of regret about that. I do know a thing or two about art history, though. That’s not saying much, though, because when it comes to this particular Venus, every art student knows her name and her place of birth.

Venus was found in a startlingly pretty little village near the Danube about 60 miles west of Vienna. We stood on the locataion where she’d been liberated from the earth and ashes and looked out over the river. Flowers poured out of window boxes in the village below. In the middle of town was a blue and white inn called Gasthof zum Venus von Willendorf. There’s a statue of Venus up at the site where she was found though if you know her, you find the likeness a little odd. It’s about four feet tall and on a pedestal and Venus herself was tiny, you could fold her in the palm of your hand.

Durnstien is a little further up the terraced Wachau Valley and where Richard the Lionheart was held prisoner until he was found by his faithful servant, Blondel. Being found wasn’t the best possible deal because he was held ransom then for a whole lot longer until the payoff came and maybe paid to build all the handsome houses that line the cobble-stoned streets of Durnstein.

We also visited Melk, the site of that famous Umberto Eco novel, The Name of the Rose. I don’t remember hardly anything about the book, which I did read because in spite of my ignorance about history, I am a very patient reader. I won’t read it again, however, my plan is to rent the movie. I do remember a whole lot about a library that was, in my imagination, vast and labyrinthine. The actual library is two rooms, lined to the ceiling with books, or at least that’s the bit they let the tourists in to see. It did have secret staircases, though you’d have to be a medieval dolt not to find them. It was impressive nonetheless and we shared it with two members of the order. One chatted with the other about Mozart’s visit to the monastery while humming a little tune. Now I will imagine him every time I am in a pub or bar called “The Singing Monk.”

We made one additional stop to the nearly silent village of Schallenburg. A medieval church sits on the edge of the vineyards there, a faded sundial on one face. Some of the buildings had scraffito decorations around the deep windows, nearly all of them had the flower boxes bursting with red and white and purple begonias and petunias and other plants ending in the letter ‘a’. Every now and then a car would roll through town and we’d press up against the side of a building to let it pass.

On the way out of Durnstein en route back to the autobahn, we bought some apricot jam and tasted some ‘Sturm.’ The woman selling the goodies told us she’d pour the ‘ladies sturm’ – it’s a little bit sweeter than the regular stuff. The men’s brand will have you singing the Macarena in no time, which was already happening just up the road at a bar that sat right below the cemetery. I kept walking through jokes about things that were loud enough to wake the dead, but why go after the easy prey?

The vines are heavy with grapes in all the vineyards we passed and the trees seem to be bursting with fruit. Fall is overly abundant in the Wachau. Tour boats chug upstream – many appear to be carrying no one. We traveled by car to avoid the twelve hour round trip from Vienna to Melk and back and that turned out to be the right thing to do becase it gave us the leisure to stop and wander. The only better way to see the Wachau is by bicycle because there is a perfect trail that runs parallel to the river and in and out of all the villages. I can see how grand it would be to roll along the river, stopping for snack or to stay the night in a winery guesthouse little river side inn. Loads of cyclists do just that and I, who have no business doing so, envy them.
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Before I forget, I had a spectacular sweet at the Demel, the grand palace of cake. Lemme see if I can reconstruct it for you. The base was that ever present shortbread crust. On top of that was a layer of something chocolaty, maybe a little cake with ground nuts. On top of that was a jelly full of sweet and sour red currants. The whole thing was faced on both ends by what I guess could be called flying buttresses of meringue. There were other cakes on the table, of course, and they were mighty fine, included the condensed truffle cake, but mine was a thing of wonder. A thing of wonder.

[tags]Venus of Willendorf, Richard the Lionheart, Wachau, Austria[/tags]

Posted in Austria | No Comments »

Wien, Wien, Nur Du Allein

We may have immaculate cows and a landscape that looks, in today’s rain and mist, like a Japanese painting. But I would trade the soft brown eyes of the sheep for the surprising blue eyes of the Iranian and Lebanese and Syrian (and and and) men aggressively trying to sell me eggplant as though eggplant could be an impulse buy.

I want a monthly pass for the U-Bahn, if only to watch the people. Fifty-ish ladies in suits and matching pumps, office adminstrators of the old school, sitting next to hip Japanese kids furiously sending text messages on their cell phones. Combat fatigues and punk t-shirts on boys that want to look tough but really, just look a little sleepy. Odd pale colored linen jackets and mutton chops. Stretchy miniskirts over jeans, who can say why? Handsome Turkish twenty-somethings in expensive looking knits. Women in headscarves carrying baskets full of groceries. Chattering groups of teenage students, boys in football jerseys, girls zip front sweatshirts with nonsense English across the back. Those women with the strollers, the babies for some reason quiet in the swirl of activity as each stop is reached.
And the cafes and restaurants! I expect the waiters to be rude and standoffish but am often surprised by their pleasantry and their patience with my botched use of language. The whimsy of what the waiter will bring when I order my coffee, because it is always different, no matter that my order is always the same. The cake, of course, that comes with my coffee, on a white plate, is always a work of art. What will I eat? I don’t know! Not because I am sick to death of another baked cheese dish, but because there is too much to choose from.

The old streetcars, the wheels screaming a little as the tram goes around a bend, the narrow wooden seats, the grand buildings a blur as we roll past, not with any remarkable speed but there is so much of it that it seems a blur anyway.Big bright graffiti and funny weird stencils on available bare walls, eons of posters peeling away over each other, an archeological dig of cultural and not so cultural events.

There is no doubt that I romanticize, that I could never afford the grand apartment of my dreams, the one with the soaring ceilings and the deep windowsills. The market would wear me down with the constant calling, calling, calling. I would be another drone on the subway. I would tire of the smokers everywhere, and just once I’d like to get the coffee I want without having to write a dissertation describing it first. I would live in a suburb, crushed on the local train, sweating in my coat even though winter would bite off my toes once I stepped outside. I would hate the politics of the city, I fear. Wien is not only the Graben, the first district.

But all that aside, I think Vienna is a city I could fall in love with. Or at least have a passionate affair with.

Wien, Wien, nur du allein
Sollst stets die Stadt meiner Träume sein !
Dort, wo die alten Häuser stehn,
Dort, wo die lieblichen Mädchen gehn !
Wien, Wien, nur du allein
Sollst stets die Stadt meiner Träume sein!
Dort, wo ich glücklich und selig bin,
Ist Wien, ist Wien, mein Wien !

Vienna, Vienna, only you
Will stay the city of my dreams.
There, where the old houses stand
There where the lovely girls go
Vienna, Vienna, only you
Will stay the city of my dreams.
There where I am happy and blessed
In Vienna, it’s Vienna, my Vienna

Rudolf Sieczynski, bad translation by me.

Nerd’s Eye View Recommends: The Maze Gardens at Schonbrunn Palace. It’s not just a hedge maze, there’s also a lot of cool, interactive playground installations including a bell scale that’s activated when you jump on it, a bird you can fly (you have to see it, really), fun house mirrors, and some other wacky stuff. All of us are over 40, and we had a GREAT time.

Bonus for reading this far: I humiliate myself publicly, again! I’m working on a new uke recording. I’m not much of Billy Joel fan, but it seemed suitable. You need to use Windows Media Player - I chose the format for the tiny file size.

[tags]Vienna, Austria[/tags]

Posted in Austria, Uketopia | 6 Comments »

How Now Brown Cow?

There’s a scene in Red River, I think it’s almost at the very end, where there’s a tremendous cattle drive through some Western town. Well, this was nothing like that.

For starters, the soundtrack was distinctly non-cowboy music. You can’t play a tuba in the saddle. Furthermore, I was the closest thing to an Indian in the environs. Top it off with the fact that after the whole thing was done, they must have hosed down the main street as it was spotless, spotless, I tellya, and I know for a fact that there was cow poop everywhere.

We walked with the herd for about 3 kilometers, to the barn where they’ll be spending the winter. They came from the upper meadows where they’ve been tended by shepardesses all summer long. This is a big deal because the young women who take care of them are modern first year in college types. It’s getting increasingly difficult to find youngsters that have an interest in staying on the family farm.

The Sennerin, the senior shepardess, questioned my mother in law about why the three of us were walking in such close proximity to the cows. “Aren’t you folks afraid of the cows?” MIL responded that we’re not especially nervous around them, but honestly, I just don’t know any better. Plus, I wanted to walk WITH the cows, not NEAR them, and they seemed friendly enough. And if you walked with the shepards, they kept offering you gingerbread. I suspect recruiting tactics were at work. “Be a sennerin, it’s all gingerbread and schnapps and friendly, friendly cows! Plus, a signing bonus of free cheese for the entire first season!”

We lunched in the beer garden - the family ate grilled pork products, I had a plate of local cheese on sturdy brown bread - and beer, of course. Then we flipped through a photo album showing the history of the farm and chatted a little with a farm Oma (grandmother). There was plenty of brass and lederhosen and an inviting selections of desserts, but we’d started our day with ‘kaffee und kuchen’ back in Radstadt. Instead of dessert, we rounded ‘em up and headed for home.

I don’t think cowboys even get dessert. And no way do they get it for breakfast.

Go here for pictures.

Posted in Austria | 1 Comment »

Cowbell Crazy

File under “Things We’ll Never Know the Answer To.”

Do you think the noise of the bell starts to drive the cow a little crazy after a while? Do cows get headaches? Is a cow that’s fed up with her bell likely to give sour milk?

I know I’ve certainly had enough of the g*dd*mn cowbells right next to my balcony where I’m trying to read my book and have, instead, read the same paragraph 14 times. How does the cow feel?

Posted in Austria | 7 Comments »

Vienna Readers, Can You Help?

You folks delivered the goods when it came to accomodation, now I ask you: Where should we eat?

I’m looking for local recommendations for Turkish, Greek, and Italian places in your fair city. Any other good local spots serving Austrian would be welcome, too. I’ve read lots about the Steierecke but honestly, can it beat the Steierische food we get right here in the Steiermark?

I’ll reformat this to be a Vienna restaurant post, but for now, comments, please? Thanks everso.

Posted in Austria, Food, Glorious Food | 2 Comments »

Criminal Intent with Guidebook

I didn’t hit send…yet. It occurs to me that petty as these folks are, she really could lose her job. But I share this story with you, NEV readers, in the form of a letter to the Graz Tourism Board.

Dear Graz Tourism:

I am an American, married to an Austrian. I was in Graz with my family yesterday - both the American side and the Austrian side - when we met one of your guides. We were walking around the city when your guide confronted my brother in law, telling him that I was not allowed to discuss the sights unless I was a certified guide! He told her that we were a family. Her response? “That’s what they all say.”

Furthermore, later that afternoon in another part of the city, she confronted him again, stating that if I wanted to take groups around the city, I could join the guide certification program. She did not believe that the group was, indeed, my family. She told my brother in law that it was “not allowed” to learn about the city privately and to then share that information with others. She told him that studying a guidebook and using it as a source for a tour of the city was also “not allowed.” Again, she reminded my brother in law that private guiding was “not allowed.”

Note that my brother in law, my sister in law, and my niece - with us that afternoon - are all residents of Graz.

This kind of behavior speaks very badly for the city of Graz and the guide services. First, it implies that the history of the city is not available to anyone who wishes to learn about Graz. Is history now privately owned? It also implies that those wandering Graz on self guided tours are committing some kind of crime, rather than simply enjoying the sights of a lovely city. And it does nothing for the image of the city’s certified guides, who appear snobbish, insecure, and rather rude.

The guide we encountered was more interested in lecturing my brother in law about our “suspicious” family behavior and my need for credentials than she was in offering her services as a guide to our group. Instead of telling us our behavior was not allowed, could she not have said, “Next time, why not hire a guide?” and given us a business card or a brochure? Additionally, how was our conversation any of her business?

I work as a freelance travel journalist and I take a special interest in the history of my adopted homeland. I write about Austria frequently and I recommend sights and services to my readers. And, like any American living abroad, I have guests - friends and family who fly over to visit this beautiful land. I will continue to show them around Austria and share my knowledge of Austria with them.

What I will not do is behave as though it is illegal to discuss Austrian history and the sights of Graz. And I will certainly not recommend that my guests or readers hire a guide from your service. They may be certified and knowledgeable, but the behavior we experienced? Unforgivable.

This confrontation with the guide is now our family souvenir from our visit to your city. Is that not a terrible shame on Graz?

PM, NEV Tours

Posted in Austria | 15 Comments »