Quite simply, Vienna is spectacular. We arrived in Vienna Thursday afternoon and wandered around the city in absolute awe. The central district of Vienna is full of palaces and gorgeous, detailed buildings, most of which are now museums. Vienna is similar to Budapest as to architecture due to the fact that after WWI, Hungary & Austria were one. Vienna has so many more magnificent buildings than Budapest that we have aptly named it “Budapest on Steroids”.
Vienna’s District 1 is the central district and and a large part of it is recognized by UNESCO. As a result of the UNESCO label, there cannot really be any architectural changes to any buildings within this district. The streets are spotless, most of the buildings are cleaner than similar buildings in Budapest and the shops are numerous. Vienna clearly has more wealth; as, all of the very high-end retailers & designers have large stores here. Prada, a few blocks from us, has the largest store we have ever seen. All streets in District 1 are overflowing with fabulous small restaurants, antique stores, clothing stores, bakeries and a surprising number of flower shops. Even Vienna’s City Hall is comparable to the nicest churches in exterior design.
We were reminded on our walking tour today that the Austrian empire once controlled the better part of Europe and only shrank back to today’s size after Austria lost WWI. (We often forget that the Austrian archduke’s (heir to the throne) assassination was who really started WWI). It is interesting to us that in 2016, Vienna is celebrating the 100th anniversary of King Franz Joseph’s death. We don’t understand “Why”? Franz Joseph was the king that made the fateful decision that lead to WWI and the end of the Austrian empire. How different the world would be if Franz Joseph had made some better decisions!
On Friday night, we had the great pleasure in going to a Vienna Boys’ Choir concert. It has been a long-time wish for Lesley to see the Vienna Boys Choir in person. This performance did not disappoint. What a magnificent experience to listen to this choir in a small venue that only holds 400 people. The boys operatic voices and solos brought tears to our eyes. One cherub-looking boy, probably around 10 years old, played a spectacular solo violin piece with orchestra accompaniment and the choir. Such incredible talent from someone so young. That same boy sang a solo of Ave Maria. It was unbelievably impressive. The Vienna Boy’s Choir consists of 4 choirs of 25 boys each ranging in age from 10-14 (or until their voice changes). The boys all live at the VBC boarding school and annually travel throughout the world. It was so much fun hearing them and watching the interaction between some of the boys while they sang (“boys will be boys”). We were so fortunate that Lesley happened to stumble across this regular Friday night concert on the internet; as, these concerts are not advertised anywhere in Vienna. There are competing classical concerts every night in Vienna with the tickets being sold on the street by young men in period dress. Clearly the sales commissions must be substantial because they are at least a dozen of them in each of the larger tourist gathering spots.
Vienna is the city of museums. It is quite overwhelming to us. The challenge is trying to decide where to spend our time in the next few days!
