A Trip to Vienna (2)

Sunday morning was the Lipizzaner stallions at the Spanish Riding School. Seeing these fully mature stallions performing their intricate choreography and spectacular acrobatics was one of the special experiences of Vienna.

Visits to the beautiful Augustiner Kirche, the Stephansdom and the Peterskirche made up our Church visiting. I reckon that the last is now an Opus Dei Church and a priest friend reckons that the Karlskirche may be so as well. Our sight-seeing for the day was completed with a visit to the Punkhalle: the wonderful baroque library within the Hofburg Palace. The special display was of "Loyal Addresses" to the Emperor Franz Josef, many of them contained in rich and elaborate cases. It was interesting to note those coming from Muslim and Jewish groups: it would seem that multi-culturism was not an alien concept to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Sunday evening was Mahler's seventh symphony, played by the Bayerische Rundfunks Orchestra conducted by Maris Janssons at the Muzikverein. This was a little disappointing. The 'front of house' at the concert hall is very poor. There are only bare stone steps up to the balcony level and bars and other 'facilities' were in very short supply.

The concert hall itself is very spectacular to look at and it has a very rich acoustic. But it also has the feeling that more people have been packed into it than really should be there. We were sitting on something like kitchen chairs, had no view of the conductor and could only see about one third of the orchestra. To listen to a difficult and long Mahler symphony in these conditions was quite a challenge.

Dinner after the concert was at the Korso restaurant in the Hotel Bristol - rated by the "Top 10" guide as the best restaurant in Vienna. Very traditional and formal, we felt at home there in our dinner jackets - and the food was excellent: lovely lamb and more terrific desserts.

Monday morning was a visit to the beautiful baroque Karlskirche. I was surprised to be charged an admission fee for this and even more surprised that, having been charged the full fee, half the church was under scaffolding and plastic tarpaulins while restoration work is carried out.

An attempt to get into the opera museum was unsuccessful - closed on Mondays. So we walked around the outside of the Hofburg Palace in the sunshine instead.

Our hotel - Das Triest - was generally very nice although our room was not big and inclined to be a bit stuffy. The weather was beautiful (shirt sleeves during the day).

This was an unforgettable weekend in one of Europe's most beautiful and cultured cities.