Lord of the Ringstrasse

“When you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna.”

-Napoleon Bonaparte

We take our seats for dinner at stylish restaurant Huft. The man at an adjoining table politely removes his leather portfolio occupying my chair. Sheaves of fresh music notation tumble to the floor….

This is Vienna and music is everywhere!

In our case music, food, and perfect spring weather conspire to offer compelling adventures in this Imperial gateway to Eastern Europe.

First the music – opera is heroic here, and our Pension – Suzanne is steps away from the Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna State opera), supreme temple to the “greatest art.” Russian diva, Anna Netrebko, is opening Anna Bolena. We ply scalpers working the square and score, absorbing the mild indignities of having to ransom our passions!

Other evenings we watch parts of simulcast performances on a giant video outside the opera house, or when that becomes tiresome, open our hotel window to hear the strains of Strauss while browsing email.

We attend a Sunday concert mass at gothic Saint Stephens Cathedral. Choir, orchestra, and towering pipe organ render gigantic religious themes (Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn). We are specks of dust against enormous Glory and Power!

Outside the church, the Vienna Marathon is rocking in secular majesty. The race is well managed, attended by runners far and wide, and cheered by excited crowds and dogs. A Frenchman from our hotel is a serious competitor, accompanied by wife and four young sons. We ask why he didn’t run the same day Paris Marathon – “this is more exotic!” he grins.

We view the proceedings by a sound truck blasting crazed rhymes of a local Samba drum troop. Their incessant energy powers runners for the last kilometer. For the rest of us, the trance music activates bestial instincts along refined Ringstrasse once strolled by Beethoven, Freud, and Mahler.

Food also is a study in classicism. Our mornings are organized around enthusiastic visits to the open-air Naschmarkt, just outside the Ring. We stroll around fragrant stands of cheese, spices, pickles, olives, breads, fruit, vegetables – “noshing” samples, kibitzing with vendors, and buying nuts, raisins, and figs for our mobile stash.

There is real joy in languishing in early spring sun, nursing steamy café lattes, and hanging out in the nourishment of the ‘hood.

Michael, proprietor of Pension Suzanne, recommends dinner at Gmoa Keller, a tavern in residential Wien, unchanged in décor, manner, and menu for 130 years. Here we sit with locals, (and return) to enjoy huge plates of schnitzel, liver and onions, mixed Austrian salads, and pilsner. We wondered if Michael withheld his “secret” counsel until our fifth return.

Of course, visiting Vienna and not indulging in street lunches of grilled sausage, spicy mustard, and crispy “Kaiser” roll would violate everything sacred. We have the best (couldn’t resist the pun) wurst – spicy, garlicky, crunchy bursts of juices with every bite. Geschmack!

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