Something to Declare

July 14, 2024: Walking Tour, Tram Tour and Dr. Freud

Today, we took Rick Steves’ self-guided walking and tram tours.

Walking tour first. We started out at the world-famous Opera House (not my photo):

Here’s where the greatest of stars (e,g.,Gustav Mahler, Herbert von Karajan, Maria Callas, Placido Domingo) have made their marks. The pavement along the side of the Opera House, on Kärntnerstraße, has a Hollywood-style walk of fame:

While walking around the Opera House, we were importuned by a young man trying his hardest to sell us tickets to a Tuesday evening concert. We expressed some interest, but we didn’t want to commit right then and there. He mused aloud, “What is it about Americans that they want to go to concerts, but they never buy tickets?” He continued to press us, describing other concerts, and I whispered to Stef, “Hard sell.” He clearly picked up on this, because he quickly closed his ticket book and said, “Have a nice day.” (Well, okay!)

The walk took us past Hotel Sacher (of Sachertorte fame), then to Albertinaplatz, where there is a famous Bitzinger sausage stand with a bunny on the roof (Albrecht Dürer’s watercolor “Hare” is in the adjacent Albertina Museum):

Opera goers head there ent’racte for sausage, partly because it’s the only sausage stand in Vienna that also sells glasses of champagne.

Also at Albertinaplatz is the Capuzinergruft, a church with a lower-level crypt that contains the elaborate pewter coffins of all the Habsburgs, including the famous 19th century empress Elizabeth (“Sisi”) and her husband, emperor Franz Josef. (You will hear lots more about this colorful couple in future posts.)

Vienna recognizes that the summers here are hot, and they set up stations at which you can get cooled off in a refreshing mist:

Stef declined the misting opportunity for fear of frizzing her hair. The walking tour took in Stephansplatz, where we saw the big St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Stephansdom) (below left and upper right), and the Graben (a street that had formerly been the defensive moat of the city) where they have the Holy Trinity Plague Column.

The Plague Column commemorates the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1679. Emperor Leopold I is supposed to have prayed on bended knee (something emperors usually don’t do in public) for God to save the city. God apparently came through, and Leopold established the monument shown above (lower right), which contains an image of an age-ist, sexist Cupid, throwing an old woman (representing the Plague) into the Abyss. Never one to miss a chance for good p.r., Leopold also had the column contain an image of himself, above that of “Lady Faith,” carrying a cross.

After the walking tour, we hopped on to the No. 2 Tram for the Ringstraße Tram Tour, where Rick Steves points out the various sights, including statues of Prince Charles Schwartzenberg (who fought against Napoleon); Johann Strauss (the “Waltz King”); and Dr. Karl Lüger (mayor of Vienna from 1897 to 1910, famous for being a noted antisemite). We also caught glimpses of the Russian Monument, which the Soviets forced the Viennese to erect to “thank” them for liberating the city.

We’d planned the Tram Tour so as to get us close to the Freud Museum, at the address of Sigmund Freud’s old residence, Berggasse 19.

I had expected to see the residence furnished the way Freud had left it, when he was forced to leave Vienna in 1938 by the Nazis. Wrongo! The rooms are still there, but the furnishings, including the iconic Couch, are now in the Freud Museum in London. In the empty rooms (including the bedroom of his live-in sister-in-law and confidante Minna), there were various exhibits of, e.g., Freud’s obituary, business cards, and original correspondence:

For this trip, we’d originally planned to travel with a good friend, Randi Tillman, who’d introduced me to friends of hers in Vienna: Christa Freund (“Freund,” not “Freud”) and her son, Christian Freund, who joined us for dinner at our AirBnB on Sunday (7/14). We set up a Google Meet link with Randi, and they saw each other again after many years:

Over dinner we swapped personal and family info, political views, and cross-cultural experiences. They got to practice their English, and I got to practice my German (which Christian says I speak with a Viennese accent; who knew?). A good time was had by all.