Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I thought of this as we went
tracketa-tracketa
across the endless Austrian countryside and I laughed out
loud - a sudden lunatic guffaw that startled me as much as my three companions. I covered my mouth with
my hand, but more laughter - embarrassed, helpless - came leaking out. The other passengers looked at
me as if I had just been sick down my shirt. It was only by staring out of the window and concentrating very
hard for twenty minutes that I was able to compose myself and return once again to the more serious
torments of the cornflake in my nostril.
At Vienna's huge Westbahnhof I paid to have a room found for me, then walked to the city centre along
the long and ugly Mariahilfer Strasse, wondering if I had been misled about the glories of Vienna. For a mile
and a half, from the station to the Ringstrasse, the street was lined with seedy-looking discount stores - the
sort of places that sell goods straight out of their cardboard boxes - and customers to match. It was awful,
but then near the Hofburg palace I passed into the charmed circle of the Ringstrasse and it was like the sun
breaking out from behind clouds. Everything was lovely and golden.
My hotel, the Wandl, was not particularly charming or friendly, but it was reasonably cheap and quiet
and it had the estimable bonus of being in almost the precise geographical centre of the city, just behind the
baroque Schottenkirche and only half a block from Graben, one of the two spacious pedestrian shopping
streets that dominate the heart of Vienna. The other is K￤rntnerstrasse, which joins Graben at a right angle
by the cathedral square. Between them, they provide Vienna with the finest pedestrian thoroughfare in
Europe. Strget may be a hair longer, others may have slightly more interesting buildings, and a few may be
fractionally more elegant, but none is all of these things. I knew within minutes that I was going to like
Vienna.
I went first to the cathedral. It is very grand and Gothic outside, but inside I found it oddly lifeless - the
sort of place that gives you a cold shiver - and rather neglected as well. The brass was dull and unpolished,
the pews were worn, the marble seemed heavy and dead, as if all the natural luminescence had been
drained from it. It was a relief to step back outside.
I went to a nearby Konditorei for coffee and a 15,000-calorie slice of cake and planned my assault on
the city. I had with me the
Observer Guide to Vienna,
which included this piece of advice: 'In Vienna, it is
best to tackle the museums one at a time.' Well,
thank
you, I thought. All these years I've been going to
museums two at a time and I couldn't figure out why I kept getting depressed.
I decided to start at the top with the Kunsthistorisches Museum. It was fabulous - vast, grand, full of
great paintings. They employ a commendable system there. In every room is a rack of cards giving histories
of the paintings in that room in a choice of four languages. You wander around with a card looking at the
paintings and reading the notes and then replace it in the rack before passing on to the next room where
you collect another. I thought it was a great idea.
The only problem with the Kunstmuseum is that it is so enormous. Its lofty halls just run on and on, and
before I was a third of the way through it I was suffering museum fatigue. In these circumstances, especially
when I have paid a fortune to get in and feel that there are still a couple of hours standing between me and
my money's worth, I find myself involuntarily supplying captions to the pictures: Salome, on being presented
the head of John the Baptist on a salver, saying, 'No, I ordered a double cheeseburger,' and an
exasperated St Sebastian whining, 'I'm warning you guys, the next person who shoots an arrow is going to
get reported.' But this time I did something that astonished even me. I left, deciding that I would come back
for a second sweep later in the week, in spite of the cost.
Instead, for a change of pace, I went to the Tobacco Museum, not far away behind the Messepalast.
This was expensive too. Most things in Vienna are. The entrance charge was twenty schillings, two-thirds as
much as the Kunstmuseum, but it was hardly two-thirds as good. In two not-very-large rooms I was treated to
a couple of dozen display cases packed with old pipes (including a few grotesquely anti-Semitic ones),
cigars, matches, cigarettes and cigarette boxes. Around the larger of the two rooms was an elevated gallery
of paintings with little artistic merit and nothing in common except that one or more of the people portrayed
was smoking. Not recommended.
Nor, I have to say, is the Albertina. This was even more expensive - forty-five schillings. For that kind of
money, I would expect to be allowed to take one of the drawings away with me. But I paid without a whimper
because I had read that the Albertina has one of the world's great collections of graphic art, which I just
