May 13 Thursday

Another early morning walk to gaze over the still lake with a coating of spruce pollen which happens every seven years.  Coffee on the terrace balcony then the walk to the buses.  Sylvia left her coat at the hotel and a gracious Marjen ran back for it.  What a tour guide!

 

 

  The buses next drove to Melk for a guided tour of the abbey that was founded in 976 AD. Pray and Work was the motto of the Benedictines at Melk Abbey.  Currently there are 900 students at their school, but only 30 monks.  They sell their own schnapps in their shop.  The current Abbott is 34 years old.  Our tour guide for the abbey was Lily.

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The museum at the Abbey went through the path of the Benedictines – In the first room we learned Hore is listen in German, which begins the rule of St. Benedict. The Blue Room is the color of meditation.  A House for God and Man highlights Room two, which holds the famous Melk Cross from 1362.  It is the most precious and holiest relic of the Abbey. It holds a relic of the true cross.  The cross was stolen and found in Vienna, and later returned to its true home. 

 

The abbey had owned a Gutenberg Bible from 1455, but sold it to Harvard, then donated to Yale. The church interior was over the top Baroque dripping with decoration.

 

  

 After the abbey tour a boat ride on the Danube (sort of Blue in color) from Melk to Krems – took about one and a half hours.  The Danube is the longest European river from west to east.

Next back on the bus for drive into Vienna to the Hotel Stephensplatz. On the bus we learned more about the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Maria Theresa, the Habsburg empress from 1740 to 1780, was a powerful ultra conservative woman ahead of her time.  She was a strong supporter of education of children along with having 16 children of her own that she married off to the Royal families of Europe.  In Vienna you can visit the Kaisergruft – the Imperial Crypt that is located under a Capuchin Church.  There lays 149 Hapsburgs including 12 emperors.  Maria Theresa and Emperor Franz I share a large double sarcophagus.  The last emperor buried there was Franz Joseph I in 1916 with Empress Elisabeth Sisi nearby. 

Vienna is known for its coffee houses and there are few traditional ones left.  They were known as the haunts of artists in the 1950’s and everyone smoked.  One of the venerable coffee houses is Café Hawelka – where Mr. Hawelka ran the Viennese coffee house from 1939 until when he died in 2011.  The wonder of the Viennese Café is that you can sip your excellent coffee for as long as you want.

When we arrive at the Hotel Stephensplatz the enthusiastic staff had Prosecco and balloons to welcome back the first Rick Steve’s tour group in 2 years since COVID. Along with excellent modern rooms, the hotel had a great exercise room with treadmills and weights, a sauna, and a relaxation room with calming blue lighting.  The hotel faces the massive Saint Stephen’s Cathedral.  This extraordinary church was rebuilt after significant World War II bombing with colorful roof tiles.  The Metro stop is conveniently right next to the hotel.   

We did learn that one of our tour mates had come down with COVID and was isolating in the hotel.  All of us were so sorry for them and emailed words of encouragement.  With the remnants of the pandemic continuing we all knew the consequences of travel, but we also knew the vast joys of travel overcome the risks. 

On arrival to Vienna, we definitely needed to get to the Buffet Trzesniewski, a café with small open faced sandwiches and little beers called a Pfiff.  We ate spec mit ei – bacon and egg, champignon – mushroom, and truffel ei mit schinken – truffled egg with ham.  These are great snacks and the tiny beers perfect.                                                                                                                                                                           

May 14 Saturday

With the radios in the lobby the next morning, we hopped on the subway Stephansplatz to West Bahnhof  with our 24 hour passes and arrived at the Naschmarkt to meet up with our local guide.  The subways in Vienna are fast, clean, and low cost.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Of all of our guides for our tour Gerhard was the most amazing.  This man not only knew his Vienna inside and out, but a wealth of history and art.  But his lifelong passion had to be The Third Man Movie.  Gerhard Strassgschwandtner and his wife Karin Hofler have developed this incredible museum, which opened in 2005.  At the Third Man Museum along with learning everything you could ever want to know about the classic 1949 movie, you also experienced the powerful story of post war Vienna.                                         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                     

                                                                                                                                                             The Third Man Movie written by Graham Greene depicts post war Vienna with the city divided into four zones occupied by the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, France, and the United States.  American Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) arrives in Vienna looking for his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), who has offered him a job.  On arrival he is told  Harry Lime is dead, and  he along with Lime’s girlfriend Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) start to investigate what has happened. Obsessed by this thriller movie, Gerhard has original scripts, the zither used for the theme song, the distinctive hat worn by the little boy, movie posters, books, and so on and so on.  We were even able to watch the beginning of the movie on an old-time projector. With Pete being a cameraman, this was a highlight.  One of the greatest scenes has to be Orson Welles running through and escaping out of the sewers under the city of Vienna, which is not only recreated in the museum, but on our walking tour we saw the original escape hatch. All of the stories of the courageous Viennese, the harrowing stories of misplaced children, and the tragedy of the Jews of Europe. Intriguing were the maps of Vienna that US B52 bomber pilots used and the video interview of the United States WW2 Pilot.  The film is shown a couple times per week at a near by theater.  We really wanted to go see the movie in its town of origin, but we were moving on tomorrow.  We made it a point to watch it when we got back home. 

 

After the Third Man (Dritte Mann) Museum we walked around the city and next off to the Kunsthistoriches Museum.  Unfortunately, the famous Vienna Operahouse was closed, but the alternative was an art lover’s dream and Gerhard’s insights fascinating.  The Kunsthistoriches is known for Caravaggio, Titian, Rembrandt, and Gustav Klimt murals in the magnificent stairway.  Highlights were The Tower of Babel by Breughel, Rembrandt’s self-portrait, Theseus slaying a centaur by Canova, and the David and Goliath by Caravaggio. Gerhard left us with a great quote:  If you haven’t travelled you haven’t turned the page.  Let’s keep turning the pages. 

 

After the museums we lunched at the famous Café Mozart – featured in the Third Man Museum.  Café Mozart started out as a coffee house in 1794, three years after Mozart died.  It got its name in 1929 due to the nearby Mozart monument in Albertinaplatz. The area includes the State Opera, Albertina Museum, and the Hotel Sacher – known for the Sacher Torte.   But it gained great notierity when the 3rd Man Movie stars:  Graham Greene (writer), Carol Reed (director), Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton came to dine and was featured in the film.  We dined outdoors on sausages, goulash, and beers on a beautiful sunny afternoon.

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To top off our Vienna visit Pete and I toured the Sisi Museum which depicted the tortured life of the beautiful Empress followed by a ride on the Ringstrasses street car around the city center. 

  

Our Last Dinner together was at the Depot Café Restaurant in their garden next to the Mobelmuseum (Vienna’s furniture museum).  We loved dining outside with perfect weather.  The wines and food and all of our tour friends made for a memorable evening.  The Chef gave us extra attention and the departing words from our guides Andrea and Marijen were memorable.