Christmas in Vienna

Home Up California Underwater Truk Lagoon PNG / Thailand '99 Alaska 2000 Oregon British Columbia Christmas in Vienna Anam Cara Sami Little Bighorn 07

At about Thanksgiving 2004 I was looking about for a place to go for Christmas.  I didn't have much time to think about it, but I called a trusted travel agent who had planned some of the other trips you see on this website.  My first choice was London, but she suggested Vienna for a number of reasons.  After thinking about it for a short time, I decided her recommendation made good sense, so we booked it.  A couple of weeks later I offered to take daughter Kim with me on the trip.  She had to do a lot of finagling to get the time off from work, but she managed it and we got her a reservation on a separate flight from Portland Oregon and a room of her own at the hotel.  So on December 22 we both flew out, and met at the Hotel Wandl  in Vienna.   The rest of this page is about that week of Christmas, 2004.

 

 

Here's a view of the entry to the Hotel Wandl, all decked out for Christmas.  Our rooms were on the second floor (third, if you count them the American way).
In Vienna there is a circular boulevard named Ringstrasse, or Ring Street, that extends in an arc about two miles across, and bordering the Danube River.  Most of the important state buildings and attractions are within or alongside this Ring, including the City Hall, the State Opera House, as well as many churches, museums and galleries.  The city also has several "quarters", each characterized by the dominant attraction in that district.  The word "quarter" is used more to describe a "district" rather than the mathematical one-fourth, as I have counted six such districts (I think).  Our hotel is in the quarter known as Stephansdom, for the cathedral by that name, or in English, St. Stephen's Cathedral.  Cutting across the entire district is a broad mall full of shops and barred to vehicles known as Kärntnerstrasse.  Here during the Christmas week there were many artisans and vendors of many kinds.  The two mimes shown here are examples.
 

 

Here, in a small park just off the Ringstrasse, is a magnificent statue of Mozart.  It appears that the ground in the treble clef is planted with annual flowers during the summer months, but because it was Christmas Week we missed them.

 

 

One of Kim's constant companions in her travels is Panda.  Here is Panda in front of Schönbrunn Castle, with the Christmas tree behind

 

Here's Kim in front of the Schönbrunn Christmas tree.   This photo was taken on our way in to the Palace December 26.  By the time we finished the tour about three hours later the tree was gone.  Ach du Lieber,  such Teutonic efficiency!

 

 

This is the Kärntnerstrasse all decked out for Christmas.  Note the Cartier store on the corner.

 

 

One of Vienna's most famous attractions is the coffee house, which have been an institution since the seventeenth century.  Their pastries are deservedly famous and some, such as the Sachertorte are known around the world.  Sachertorte was invented in the Hotel Sacher, just a few blocks from the Cafe Mozart where these scenes were shot.  Cafe Mozart is one of the oldest of Vienna's coffee houses. 

 

 

We certainly enjoyed all of the dinners while there, this one especially.  The sound of Viennese music echoes everywhere, and this restaurant was filled with it the entire evening.

(The white thing in front of me that looks like a hole in the image is actually a white linen napkin, still rolled up and tucked into a glass.)

 

 

 

Midnight Mass at Stephansdom.  This cathedral is so huge it was very difficult to photograph, but I was able to catch some of the processional. On the right is the kresch, displayed near the entrance to the Cathedral.

 

This is the Neue Burg (literally, "new city") and (R) statue of Prinz Eugen, who defeated the Turkish occupation of Vienna in 1683.  This huge complex was the seat of Habsburg power until the exile of the Habsburgs and the end of the Empire in 1918.  In 1938 Hitler stood on the steps in the center of the building and pronounced the annexation of Austria to Germany (the "Anschluss").  Today the building houses the State Library. Above is the statue of Prinz Eugen, who was one of Vienna's greatest heroes for driving the Turks out of Austria in 1683.  His military victory set the stage for the flourishing of Viennese culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  The statue can be seen in the photo at left, across from the entrance to the Library near the center of the Plaza. 

There was a heavy cruiser in WWII named for him  that was escorting the battleship Bismarck at the time the latter ship was sunk by the British Royal Navy in May 1941.  Prinz Eugen herself survived the war and surrendered to the Allies in Copenhagen in May 1945.  She was taken to Bikini Atoll in 1946 to be used as a target ship, survived two atomic bombings, and was taken to Kwajalein Atoll where she capsized and sank in deep water.
 

 

 

Hit Counter