Category Archives: Austria

Ball Season in Vienna!

The ball season begins New Year’s Eve and stretches through Easter. Its history goes back at least 400 years, and the tradition is alive and well today. Besides the larger balls where debutantes make their curtsies, every association, large and small, has its own ball: the Medical Ball, the Legal Ball, the Coffee House Owners’ Ball, and on down through the humbler trades like plumbing and pipefitting. Some lucky little girl will be wearing this dress in a glorious swirl of color and movement, maybe in the Hofburg or the Rathaus.

Staircase of the Kunsthistorisches Museum

I’m awed by the grand surroundings of Vienna’s museums, built during the height of the empire and stuffed with treasures. I can only imagine sweeping down a grand staircase in a long rustling gown, maybe with a camellia in my hair.

Will I attend a ball? Hmm, I’d have to travel to Vienna in January or later. And I’d have to take a crash course in waltzing. Maybe…

Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe!

And More Winter Memories…

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A child riding a pony, a Christmas market stall, a chocolate-topped waffle: memories of my favorite time of year in my favorite city, Vienna.

Sisi, the Tragic Beauty

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Empress Elisabeth of Austria has tons of followers on the tourist trail in Austria today, although in her lifetime she was seldom seen. The Carriage Museum at Schonbrunn Palace was seldom visited until officials made it part of the “Sisi Trail.” Now a few people out of the droves of tourists at the palace cross the courtyard to puzzle over artifacts from Sisi’s privileged but sad life.

Nobody knew quite what to make of Sisi during her lifetime, and she hardly gave anyone the chance to know her. She’s often compared with England’s unhappy Princess Diana, but the difference is that Diana used and manipulated the media. Sisi really just wanted to be left alone. Born to aristocrats in 1837, Sisi lived an idyllic life at her family’s Bavarian castle until she caught the eye of the young Emperor Franz Joseph, then 23 to her 15. He was visiting Bavaria in order to propose to her older sister–a typical arranged marriage between aristocratic first cousins. But once he saw Sisi, he had to have her and it was pretty much impossible to refuse him.

By all accounts, Sisi was fond of Franz Joseph, but she absolutely hated the restrictions of royal life. So did he, but he was a man of duty–and he saw it as his duty to see that nothing ever changed. After giving birth to three children in rapid succession, and having those children taken away from her for court authorities to raise “properly,” Sisi began a life of restless traveling and ceaseless physical activity. She reconciled with Franz Joseph for brief periods, but mostly she led her own life out of the public eye.

She loved horses and was a spectacular rider, spending several seasons in England fox-hunting. There, she wore out any number of men who tried to keep up with her. And she did all this sidesaddle, laced into specially made leather corsets that at times constricted her 20-inch waist down to 16 inches. She had to be sewn in to her dresses once the hour-long process of tightening the corset was finished.

But no one was allowed to photograph her once she turned 30. She felt that her celebrated beauty was beginning to fade, and her beauty was all she had. Anyway, her teeth were terrible by that time. She always carried a fan, and routinely hid behind it. It seems she was obviously anorexic in a time before that term was invented. She was probably bulimic, too–she had a private staircase built from her rooms to the kitchen in one of her houses so she could eat in private, and she was known to gorge on cakes from the royal baker Demel.

The Carriage Museum at Schonbrunn Palace has a display featuring portraits of Sisi’s favorite horses. Her everyday sidesaddle is on display, too. It’s hard to imagine jumping hedges and ditches while perched sideways on a horse, but that was really what Sisi did best.

Join me next time for more explorations into the art, history and surprising personalities of the past in Europe!

A Kinder, Gentler Church: Strasbourg Cathedral

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Among the many wonders of Strasbourg Cathedral is the Tower of Angels. The breathtakingly beautiful column reaches from the cathedral floor all the way to the vaulted Gothic ceiling. It was sculpted between 1225 and 1230, early in the 400-year span of time it took to build the cathedral. The subject of the column is really the Last Judgment, but it has a startling twist on the usually-dire subject.

The four Evangelists appear on the lowest level, with angels above them, then the dead rising, then finally Christ. My criticism of the column as a teaching tool for the faithful is that it’s hard to see the pinnacle, the figure of Christ, and get the point. But helpful placards provide close-ups and explain, in several languages, what is going on.

The Christ figure at the top is not sitting in splendor on a grand throne. He is not giving anyone a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Instead, this Christ bestows a gentle welcoming smile on everyone. This is a humble figure, a figure of loving understanding and compassion for the always-messy human condition.

I thought of the tower and its message this morning as I read the bold new statement by Pope Francis concerning the future of the Catholic Church. Full disclosure: I am not now and never have been a Catholic. I visit cathedrals and churches for their art, traditions and history. Wherever I’m living, I attend whatever Protestant church seems the most socially active, inclusive and forward-thinking. But like many non-Catholics, I’m impressed by the current Pope. (Actually, he had me as soon as he decided to wear regular shoes instead of red Papal slippers. Then when he chose to live among regular priests instead of in the much-fancier Papal Apartments, I decided he was worth a listen anytime).

In his latest statement, cited in the article below, the Pope said, “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets.” He has consistently shaken things up by insisting that the church should boldly reach out into the world with love, compassion and creativity. His vision is that the church is a place of refuge for all, not a place of harsh judgment. This is not a new idea, of course. But it’s one that can certainly use a new champion.

In September, I found the French city of Strasbourg so lovely that I’m planning a side trip there, on my way home from Vienna in December. Strasbourg is just two miles across the border between Germany and France. I’ve scheduled a day and a night there. I’ll wander through the Christmas markets, which have been held at the base of the cathedral since medieval times. And I’ll spend time contemplating the season inside this most warm and welcoming of cathedrals.

Join me next time for more explorations into the art and history of Europe!

Viennese Coffee with a Dash of History

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Cafe Hawelka is a dimly lit old-school coffeehouse in the heart of Vienna. Now as in decades past, a cup of coffee entitles the buyer to sit all day with one of the many newspapers neatly arranged on racks. The cafe first opened in 1938, just before World War II broke out. Its founder, Leopold Hawelska, had to close when he was drafted into Hitler’s army. He survived the deadly fighting on the Russian front and returned to reopen the place in 1945. Fortunately the building still stood. In impoverished postwar Vienna, the cafe was one of the few places that had heat. Poor people were welcome to come in for a free glass of water, to warm up. Some sat there for hours. Princely folk, like the Liechtensteins, also hung out there, hawking artwork and valuables they had managed to hide from the Nazis.

Later, the place became a sort of living room for artists and writers. Some artists paid with paintings, which still hang on the smoke-stained walls. (I think the place is non-smoking now, as most Austrian restaurants are in recent years).

Mr. Hawelska and his wife Josefine were benevolent presences for decades, watching over generations of artists, writers, students, and tourists. She baked the specialty, Buchteln: a yeast bun with plum filling. It is still served there today. The preferred accompaniment is a melange, or what Starbucks has taught us to call a cappuccino.

Josefine Hawelska died at age 91, in 2005. Leopold Hawelska lived to 100, still frequently occupying his usual seat at the cafe almost to the end. Their descendants continue the tradition.

Leopold Hawelska, photo by Lili Strauss, in article cited below

In Vienna, as in other cities, Starbucks locations are filled at all hours. I’m sure the free Wifi attracts customers. Still, historic coffeehouses like Cafe Hawelka endure. I hope to spend some quality time in them, trying to read German-language papers and soaking up the atmosphere of history.

An article from The Guardian, about the Hawelka family and cafe, appears at http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Leopold+Hawelka+the+guardian&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8.

The Perfect Austrian Sweater

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Wandering through the Folk Art Museum of Innsbruck, Austria last year, I admired pieces of embroidery, lace, weaving and other needle arts. It occurred to me that I own a precious piece of folk art myself: a handknit sweater I bought about 35 years ago. In a tiny shop in one of the ski towns, maybe Kitzbuhel, a lady in the traditional dirndl skirt, fitted bodice and puff-sleeved blouse patiently pulled every sweater in my size off the neat shelves behind her. She spread a rainbow array of handknit sweaters across the worn wooden counter. Things have changed since then, but in those days most shops, at least in small towns, served customers personally; there was no such thing as browsing through the racks. Fine handknits should never be hung on hangers anyway. I probably spent at least an hour in the shop, trying on and debating the merits of each sweater before me. It appeared that each garment in the entire shop was one-of-a-kind.

In my wretchedly rudimentary German, I asked whether the sweaters spread before me were all really handknit. The saleslady had trouble understanding me. I mimicked hand-knitting motions. Another customer helpfully translated for me. The saleslady looked incredulous–and maybe a little insulted–that I would ask such a question. Yes, of course every sweater in the shop was knitted by hand.

I chose a worsted wool sweater, in a color I thought of as bluejay blue, with popcorn stitches and silver buttons. It was slim-fitting, with vertical ribbing around the midriff and down the sleeves. It looked great with jeans. Over the years, it’s become one of my prized possessions; whenever I wear it, people ask where I found it. Some can’t resist touching the popcorn stitches, still springy after all these years.

Knitting was a cottage industry in those days, before women in large numbers began to join the workforce outside the home. In country towns in the mountains of Tirol and Bavaria, it was fairly common to see women knitting, crocheting, or embroidering while sitting on their front porches, watching over children in a park, or riding a tram. Many women seemed to work without thinking or even looking at their work. They made it look easy. Later, when I tried to learn to knit, I realized how difficult it is–and how time-consuming. A simple scarf, knit with huge needles and loose stitches, is my limit.

Now I wish I had bought more than one sweater that day. My blue one still looks as new as the day I bought it. It never sags or stretches. It never gets pills on the sleeves. It never fades. It is always warm, but not too warm. It still fits perfectly, and it still looks great with jeans. Handknit sweaters are prohibitively expensive now, if they can be found at all. Still, every time I’m lucky enough to be in Austria or Germany, I’m looking for another perfect sweater. Of course, if I do find another one, I may not be able to afford it.

Still, I can always hope. A year ago, on a side street just as I was leaving Vienna, I spied a tiny shop that looked promising. Who knows, maybe I’ll find just the thing there next week!

Winter as a Child, Again

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It is just over a year since I started my blog. I decided to revisit my very first post, written when I was getting ready to travel to Vienna for the Christmas markets, the concerts and the museums–and of course the apple strudel. Now I’m lucky enough to be leaving again for Vienna, one of my very favorite places. Here’s to discovering new places and revisiting old ones! A year ago, I wrote:

Travel is not just about being there. Travel is about memory and anticipation. As I pack my one small suitcase for Vienna in November, I am full of memories of past trips and high hopes for this one.

: Lady Caroline Scott as Winter; image from Commons Wikimedia

Last year, the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum had a special exhibit: “Winter Tales.” Paintings, sculpture and artifacts from all over the world were gathered in a glorious celebration of winter. My very favorite piece was this portrait of a child with a fur-and-velvet muff and a scruffy little dog impatient for her to play: “Lady Caroline Scott as Winter,” by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Winter is so often personified as Death, or as a creaky old man. Here, though, winter is a child full of hope and wonder. She gazes out at us from the barren winter grounds of her British home, her face as fresh as the day she was painted in 1776 at the age of two or three.

This is not a glamorous society portrait. It is only about 57 x 45 inches (just the right size to place over my fireplace, if I could afford such a thing!) I can imagine the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, age 51 at the time, encountering Lady Caroline in the bare winter grounds of her home. Anyone would be captivated by her rosy-cheeked face and direct gaze. I can see Sir Joshua dashing off a sketch and finishing the portrait back in his studio. It would have made a nice break from painting his more demanding adult subjects, who proudly posed with the emblems of their wealth and power: swords, globes, weighty books, jewels and fine silks.

The British Peerage tells us that Lady Caroline was the daughter of the 3rd Duke of Buccleuch. She married the 6th Marquess of Queensberry (slightly lower in rank than a Duke, but who’s keeping score?) She had 6 surviving children and lived to the age of 80. So she was an exact contemporary of Jane Austen, although Jane died at age 41. I’d like to think Lady Caroline read Jane’s books.

Lady Caroline was a privileged child. As she grew up, no doubt she learned that many children were cold and dirty and hungry. Her rank would come with some responsibilities to take care of the less fortunate. She lived through the American Revolution, the Terror in France, and the Napoleonic Wars. And we all know that even for the most privileged, life holds heartbreak and disappointment. But on this wintry day, all that is in the future. In this perfect moment, Lady Carolin stands on her sturdy little legs, happy to be walking about in the wide world.

Vienna is an enchanting city in any season, but my favorite time there is winter. The Christmas season begins in late November, an ideal time for crowd-free travel. I do not have a fur muff or a scruffy little dog, but I am setting off for Vienna with all the anticipation of a child at Christmas.

Affordable Europe: An Old Mill in Lindau

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What’s your dream trip to Europe? Some people dream of a once-in-a-lifetime trip in 5-star hotels, being waited on hand and foot, eating leisurely gourmet meals, and being chauffeured around by private guides. That’s not me. This is the first post in an occasional series about how I manage to travel (almost) as much as I want. Of course it’s never enough!

My dream trip is my next trip, and I’m lucky enough to be always planning a trip. (Having a spouse who accumulates a ton of frequent flier miles helps). I’ve crossed the pond again and again, until it’s become second nature, discovering new places and revisiting old favorites. I want to go my own way, trying my best to look and act like a local. (Europeans value their own treasures; they do a lot of sightseeing themselves). When I’m gazing at a spectacular cathedral or wandering in a museum full of priceless art, I don’t want to be thinking I have to be sure to take it all in at once. Instead, I want to be thinking that this sight and plenty of others will be waiting for me next time. By traveling in a reasonably frugal way, I do very often return to favorite places, learning more and delving deeper into the reasons I love them.

Years ago I picked up one of the very first books by Rick Steves, Europe Through the Back Door. It’s updated every year. I’ve been using Rick’s principles and his excellent guidebooks ever since, and have taken enough trips that I’ve moved beyond his basics. Nowadays, though, I mostly avoid his featured hotels–just because they tend to be all booked up and full of other Americans like me. I’m in Europe to mingle with Europeans.

After airline tickets, the biggest expense of European travel is lodging. I’m a keen student of Tripadvisor and other online resources. Nowadays there are so many reviews and pictures available, posted by actual travelers, that it’s pretty easy to find nice affordable places to stay with no unpleasant surprises.

One such place, on my last trip, was the Landhotel Martinsmeuhle just outside Lindau, Germany. (With either a car or knowledge of easy public transportation, I very often seek out places just outside the center of the action). Lindau is on the northern shore of the Bodensee, the large lake known as Lake Constance on its southern shore in Switzerland. The Arlberg area of the Austrian Alps starts just a few miles away on the westernmost shore. The Swiss Alps and the tiny country of Liechtenstein are also a short drive away.

Landhotel Martinsmeuhle has been in the same family for generations. The large main building was once a mill, converted to tourist rooms decades ago, when a big selling feature was having a sink with running water in all the rooms. Bathrooms from that era were shared.

Now, all the lovely, quiet rooms have private baths. It is still a working farm on a small scale, but the real focus is on keeping guests happy. There are pretty country details everywhere.

There are charming resident animals: a friendly dog and at least two pretty, attention-seeking cats, goats, a pony, ducks, and rabbits. There are extensive gardens and bikes to use in the surrounding countryside. The buffet breakfast, included in the room rate, is generous enough to set me up for light eating the rest of the day. It includes goodies like homemade preserves from berries on the property.

The charming restaurant serves delicious evening meals. As a bonus the restaurant serves as a kind of living room where guests are welcome to mingle with the owner’s family and friends who stop by to visit. There is a pretty library for use by guests.

The rates at Martinsmeuhle are less than what I typically pay for a forgettable interstate motel on a road trip in the USA. Europeans have been welcoming guests for generations. They’re good at it, at all price levels. TIme to work on my next trip!

Hemingway the Shredder Dude?

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Hemingway on skis in 1927, public domain

I liked seeing the town of Schruns last month. It was Ernest Hemingway’s beloved Austrian winter home during his Paris years, when he was young and innocent and struggling to become a writer. Skiing is the one Hemingway exploit I can relate to. Big game hunting, hauling marlin out of the sea, wartime ambulance driving? They’re all too macho, too far outside my experience. But I know what it feels like to be alone on a mountain in a blizzard.

I’m not much of a back-country skier, at least so far. Mount Werner in a blizzard is about as adventurous as I get, and it’s enough. Some people are fair-weather skiers. I prefer snowstorms, when powder piles up so deep and fast that my tracks fill in behind me. When the sun comes out, so do other skiers. It’s great at first, and makes for nice pictures. But soon the snow begins to get heavy and develop a crust. I like storms. Icy winds and blinding snow? Bring ’em on. I love the mountain on storm days because hardly anyone else is out there. Good. The mountain is mine.

I switched from skiing to snowboarding eleven years ago. The learning curve was pretty steep, but it’s much easier on the knees. I hope to be shredding well into my old age.

Today, Schruns still looks like a working town, unlike nearby Lech and Zurs. European royalty and others with deep pockets fill the expensive hotels and crowd the expensive restaurants in those resorts. In Schruns, there are probably no ski valets and it takes some doing to get to the lifts. In the 1920s, none of the present-day ski runs were neatly marked with signs. The local people were mostly busy making a living. They had no time for snowy hikes up into the high country just in order to risk life and limb skiing down. Besides, they believed that devils lurked in the high mountains.

Schruns-Tschagguns Ski Map

In Hemingway’s day, everyone who skied was a back-country skier. There were no gondolas with heated seats and Wifi. There were no chairlifts. There were not even any humble tow ropes. As he recalled his life in A Moveable Feast, Hemingway wrote, “Skiing was not the way it is now, the spiral fracture had not become common then, and no one could afford a broken leg. There were no ski patrols. Anything you ran down from, you had to climb up to first, and you could run down only as often as you could climb up. That made you have legs that were fit to run down with.”

Hemingway’s mentor Walther Lent took small groups, including Hemingway’s cronies and sometimes his wife Hadley, up into the untracked high country for the ultimate reward: “unroped glacier skiing, but for that we had to wait until spring when the crevasses were sufficiently covered.”

On a ski trip to Switzerland years ago, I once skied around the rim and down the steep slope of a glacier, ending up at a remote train stop in a valley. I don’t really claim bragging rights, because I was in abject terror most of the way down. But I do know what a crevasse looks like: an impossibly deep blue chasm opening up in the rutted, hard-packed snow in precisely the spot where I think I can manage a turn. There’s no time to plan. Survival means improvising, and later wondering how you did it. Now that’s skiing, Hemingway style.

If Hemingway had lived to see the advent of snowboarding, would he have tried it in Sun Valley, where he lived out his final days? I like to think so. I wish he had lived just a little more prudently, for the sake of his liver and his aging knees. Maybe he would not have succumbed to despair and left us too soon. I doubt that he would wear knee pads like I always do. I do know that if he ever buckled on a snowboard on a powder day, he would want to do it again.

Dude, he would be strong and sure and straight and true.

Hemingway in Austria

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Ernest and Hadley, Winter 1922, photo from NPR article cited below

In the golden days of Ernest Hemingway’s youthful career as a writer, he and his athletic first wife Hadley used to escape wintery, gray Paris for a sunny ski town in Austria. In the 1920s, they could live in Schruns on a shoestring all winter, enjoying crisp snow and roaring fires. Hadley cheerfully hiked up and skied down bunny hills just behind the hotel while the great man labored at his writing, then joined him for cozy evenings.

A couple of weeks ago I made a literary pilgrimage to the town of Schruns. (Actually, it was more of a flying visit on a gray rainy day). There is not a whole lot to see, but I found it moving to stand outside the actual railway station where Hadley and their toddler son Bumby waited to meet Hemingway after he returned from a pivotal meeting in New York, where he made his first major sale.

What Hadley didn’t know at the time was that Hemingway had spent the previous few days with Pauline Pfeiffer, her supposed best friend. Pauline would shortly become the second Mrs. Hemingway.

The station is just a short walk from the hotel where the young family stayed–and where Pauline had previously insinuated herself for months, supposedly to keep Hadley company, while she single-mindedly pursued Hemingway. Hadley must have been a little dim to have missed all this going on under her nose, especially when Pauline and Hemingway left at the same time.

Anyway, the hotel still stands. It’s been remodeled inside, but there is still an actual table from the bar as it was in 1922, when Hemingway regaled Hadley, Pauline and his cronies with his skiing and writing exploits.

I’m about to re-read Hemingway’s own account of that time in his memoir, A Moveable Feast.

Recently I read an interesting account of Hadley’s life with Hemingway in The Paris Wife by Paula McLain.

There’s an NPR review of that book by Lynn Neary at

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/01/134132944/the-paris-wife-dives-into-hemingways-first-big-love.

Join me next time for more explorations into the art and history of Europe–the major sights and the fascinating byways!