Austria : Travelogue (2003)

Vienna, Austria

As the bus moved from Airport to the City, I was disappointed to see huge factories, fumes and an array of strong lights. Austria in my mind used to evoke images of green grasslands, mountains and lakes – thanks to the Hollywood blockbuster “Sound of Music”. This was nothing like it. This seemed more like the cold, industrial Germany. Anyway, when I got up next morning and saw the view from our Hotel room window, I was delighted to see Danube river and lots of green trees partly decorated with yellow leaves, as typically seen in the areas away from tropics.

As I was busy with the Conference, Urvashi was on her own for next few days, visiting museums and palaces in Vienna. She had taken a Vienna Card, which was a one-time expense for transportation and thereafter one could board buses, or underground trains without paying for 72 hours. The card also entitled discounts in Museums. As she returned from these palaces and museums (including the famous Leopold Museum), I kept hearing names of Queen Elizabeth “Sissi”, Artist Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Monet.

Princess of Bavaria, Elizabeth (nicknamed as ‘Sissi’), was one of the most beautiful women of her times. She weighed 48 kgs and was 5 ft 6 inches tall! Married at the age of 16 and murdered at 61, she remains one of the most well known Queens of Europe.

In the art scene, throughout Europe from 1890 to 1910, a movement was flourishing to overcome the ‘historicizing forms’ of art and to create a style suited to the new age. In 1897, an ‘Association of Austrian Artists (Secession)’ was formed. Gustav Klimt is regarded as the master of the ‘Vienna Secession’ and its true representative.

Egon Schiele was one of the most famed artists of the 20th century. Died at the age of 28, his work ‘The Family’ is acknowledged as one of his major works. In this he depicted himself, a woman and a child. Egon’s wife died of influenza in the advanced stages of pregnancy, and three days later Egon too succumbed to the same disease. The painting remained unfinished at the base.

Claude Monet is another big name and his work ‘Path in Monet’s Garden’ is superb, particularly his catching of the sunlight on his garden path.

Before this trip, I used to believe that my only idea of holiday was - to go back to the nature, enjoy the natural beauty of mountains, soak-in the silence which is only punctuated by sound of a flowing stream and sweet sound made by bugs and birds. In fact, I even checked with Urvashi whether she was really interested in going to Italy for remaining one week of our holiday (or should we spend that time in Switzerland)! But it all changed after this visit as now I had this newfound appreciation for art, culture and history.

On last day of the Conference, on Urvashi’s insistence, I took some time out and went with her to the famous Belvedere Museum. I liked the beautiful surroundings and felt bad that the roll in our Camera got over. As soon as I started looking at the paintings I sort of started making fun of them - ‘what’s this, what’s so great about it, why people spend so much money or time on such things’ and so on. Urvashi was feeling quiet upset. It suddenly changed however. Few paintings later I was becoming quieter, deeply touched by those great works of art. I was amazed at the details worked out in each of the paintings. Boy! It was amazing! I realized why Gustav Klimt is regarded so much as I saw his towering Work – “The Kiss” (A poster of the same painting now hangs framed in our Drawing room).

The art gallery in Belvedere was indeed an overwhelming experience.

We spent some time in a main shopping area-“The Ring”. We saw a guy with many glass- goblets, filled with different levels of hot and cold water. He was working his fingers on the goblets and was producing amazing musical notes! As he was tuning them with Do Re Mi… it sounded like someone was playing a violin. Amazing!


Salzburg, Austria

On our way to Salzburg, we met an interesting guy in Train. He was from Denmark and had recently shifted to Vienna. He was in the ‘wine’ business and was into logistics. He began conversation and informed us that along with some of his friends, he was toying with the idea of marketing the concept of “wine drinking” in India. We discussed with him possible strategies and scenarios for the Indian market and the time just flew away.

The Sound of Music

Salzburg is mainly associated either with Mozart or the Hollywood blockbuster –‘The Sound Of Music’. In fact there is a bus tour conducted for tourists to take them to all the places where the movie was shot. So we proudly announced to our other co-passenger in the train, an old local lady that we were going to take up the tour. She sounded least interested and said its all-Hollywood stuff and she didn’t like the movie! I thought this lady must’ve lost interest in life for not liking a movie like “Sound of Music”.

Later, to our surprise, we found that while the movie was a big hit all over the world, it wasn’t liked in Salzburg a bit! Hollywood, it seems, had taken huge liberties, while portraying the story of the local Von Trapp Family. To name one, in the movie the Trapp family is escaping through a mountain to Switzerland, in reality however, that route leads to Germany and Switzerland is nowhere near!

Next day evening, we went to the famous Mirabell Gardens. I saw a metallic statue of a man, which I liked a lot before Urvashi told me that ‘it’ was actually a man ‘acting’ as a statue to collect money! I did give him some coins for his class ‘act’.

Hitler’s nest

First day we did the tour of ‘Sound of music’. Second day, we went to “Eagles Nest”. 'The Nest' is a place in Germany, near Salzburg, where the great dictator used to conduct his conferences. The place is up on the mountain providing great view of a snow-capped range. One can reach the conference hall using a special lift, which was constructed, inside the mountain, to raise people up 124 meters! It showcases a nice fireplace gifted to Hitler by his Italian ally Benito Mussolini. Hitler had visited this place officially 14 times.

Mozart

Mozart is a big brand in Salzburg; his picture is omnipresent - on the chocolates, t-shirts, crockery, and what you have. Born in Salzburg, he remained in the city for some time, but ironically, didn’t seem to like Salzburg much and moved to Vienna.

Trivia

One of the things worth a visit in Salzburg is ‘Augustine’s beer home’. The atmosphere in the pub is amazing, people from all age groups sip beer in huge mugs of a liter or half-a-liter. It seems that the some monks brew the beer, served here.