Odyssey Tour - Vienna

Monday morning we again woke up early to be able to get packed, eat breakfast and then be loaded on the bus by 8:00am. 

We drove to Vienna with a stop in Eisenstadt.  Along the way, we saw purple fields of lavender and white fields of poppies.  Eisenstadt is the capital of Burgenland  It is the flatlands of Austria.  It is famous for vineyards and red wine.

Eisenstadt was home of Franz Joseph Haydn. 

The Esterhazys were a royal family who lived in Eisenstadt.  Haydn was employed by the family to compose and perform for them for over 40 years. He was employed by 4 difference princes in the family.   We took a tour of Esterhazy Palace where the family lived and Haydn worked. 

One of the first rooms we entered was the concert hall, now named Haydn Hall.  It is one of the top five concert halls in the world for acoustics.  When Haydn first came the floors were made of red marble but he refused to sign a contract to work there until they changed the floors to wood, making the sound better. 

Although the hall is used regularly for concerts, sometimes two a day, they don’t typically allow tour groups to sing in the hall, but our guide was able to get us special permission and we sang the first movement (Kyrie) from our Haydn mass.  It was incredible to be able to sing in the hall where Haydn actually performed the works he composed.  It reminded me of when I was in Jerusalem and we were walking up stairs that had been excavated from the time of Christ and our guide informed us that we were walking up the same stairs that Christ had walked up.  It made quite an impression on me, as did singing Haydn’s music in the actual hall where he performed. 

Haydn served the Esterhazy family for 40 years.  During that time he served several different princes.  He started out as their vice music director and then became the music director after a few years. 

The palace hasn't been a real private residence since WWII but it is privately owned and only a few rooms are open for visitors.  They are all set up museum or exhibition style and not in the way they would have been had someone been living there, but it was still neat to see the china and silver that the Esterhazy's used. 

Only two of these console tables were actually made.  Nicholai the 1st was often called the Splendor Loving Prince because he loved to spend money on elaborate, fancy things.  At one point he even made plans to extend the palace.  There are pictures done of the house with wings off either side that to this day do not exist.  Nicholai decided that if he was going to have all that extra space, he needed something to put in it so he went shopping and bought an enormous amount of paintings.  However, once he bought all the paintings he didn't have enough money to actually build the new wings.  The paintings are now in museums and on display.

 



After visiting Esterhazy Palace we were given a few minutes to find a quick bite to eat before our tour of Haydn's house.  We found a little pastry shop that had sandwiches and salads.  Because we didn't have much time, we ended up standing in the street to eat our lunch.

 

 Melissa, Sarah, me, mom, Barbara, Linda and Ada

After lunch we walked down the cobblestone streets to visit Haydn’s house.  It was a small house that was actually destroyed by fire twice.  He lived in Haydn house for 12 years.

I loved how the white and black keys on Haydn's piano were reversed!

 

Resting for a minute from all that walking!

Don, Richard, Melanie, Sarah, Robbie, Don's wife and Chris' backside :)



Then we walked down to Haydn Church/Haydn Mausoleum where Haydn worked and was buried. 

The guide said Haydn was one of the few composers who is buried where he worked.  The fourth Esterhazy prince was very religious and required Haydn to write at least one mass a year.  Those masses were to be performed in the cathedral, however, Haydn said that the organ that was there was not big enough for his masses.  So the Esterhazy’s paid to build the organ that Haydn wanted. 

Once again, arrangements had been made for us to be able to sing in the church.  We sang Kyrie from Haydn's mass and then we sang Lux, one of our a cappella numbers.  I am always amazed at how our a cappella numbers sound so good in the cathedrals because the sound just spins and spins. 



When Haydn died he was first buried in Vienna where he had lived after his retirement, but the Esterhazy’s decided that he should be buried in Eisenstadt where he lived his life and became famous. When his body was exhumed to be moved they discovered that Haydn’s head was missing.  Intellectuals/doctors had taken it to study hoping to figure out the secret to his genius.  Once it was discovered missing the people in Eisenstadt asked for it back and unbeknownst to them were given a different head which was buried with Haydn.  After the doctors who had been studying Haydn’s head all died, Haydn’s head was given to a Viennese museum of some kind which, of course, alerted the people in Eisenstadt that they had the wrong head.  Finally, in 1954, after a lot of negotiating, they got Haydn’s head and reunited it with his body in its final resting place in the mausoleum in the church.

After learning about Haydn we went to the back of the church to see the pilgrimage church. Apparently, these are found all over in Catholic churches.  When members of the church didn’t have enough money to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem they would go to a pilgrimage church.  In these churches they had stations set up depicting the Savior’s life from Gethsemane until the resurrection where people could walk the "stages of the cross."  Nowadays Catholic pilgrimage churches have 14 stations however, in this cathedral in Eisenstadt there were 20 stations.  Each station had life sized statues of the Savior depicting different scenes during those last few days of his life.

The stations were all over around the back of the church.  As we followed them, we found ourselves outside climbing up stairs that led us up on top of the roof of the church.  It was neat to see the symbolism of Christ being resurrected and ascending to heaven along side the actual physical climbing of stairs to reach the final stations.

The view from the top of the church was amazing!

 

After leaving Eisenstadt we travelled to Vienna. Our first stop was the city cemetery.  The headstones were big and ornate and really old.  It was really a beautiful, peaceful place.  I might feel a little bit different about it if I were there at night, but during the day I loved it! 

This is the cemetery where the musical greats Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss, and Schubert are buried. 

There is also a monument to honor Mozart.  Mozart was actually buried in in a paupers grave since he died a pauper.

It was fascinating to me to think that all these famous composers all lived and worked or ended up here in Vienna.  I love that music was such a big part of Vienna!

We stopped for dinner at Amon restaurant -- yummy schnitzel!





Nicole and Fritz - our bus driver



After dinner we went to the hotel, checked in and then got back on the bus to go into the city in the evening to explore and find some gelato!  Nicole, our guide, lives in Vienna so she was very excited to show us "her" city.  There were only eight of us who took the bus back into the city that evening so she had the bus drop us off next to one of her favorite gelato places.  Nicole and Fritz decided to join us for gelato.  It was so fun!  I was a little surprised at how much we came to really feel that Nicole and Fritz were a part of our group.  We loved having them join us in whatever we were doing!  Fritz had to get back to the bus and go where ever he went for the night, but Nicole stayed with us a little longer, pointing out other gelato places and fun sights that we would actually be able to see again the next day.  Nicole told us that the best way to see the city was to avoid the large open streets and to take the smaller side streets.  She took us down one of the smallest streets in Vienna.  I have to admit it was one of my favorite streets we saw there. 

This was as we came out of that street.  I loved the ivy climbing up the building!  It was so neat to see Vienna at night.  The temperature was perfect and it was fun to see everything lit up! Nicole pointed out a few other places to see and directions we could go and then she left us to our own devices.

 St. Stephens Church at night

The bus dropped us off, but Fritz was unable to bring us home because of restrictions on how long he could be driving, so we had to take the metro back to the hotel.  I was a little nervous about it but it turned out to be super easy.  We bought our tickets in the kiosk and then climbed on the train.

 

We had just gotten settled on the train when Nicole happened to get on as well.  It was as we were riding home that we discovered that she had forgotten to tell us to get our ticket stamped as we walked through the gate and so we now had metro tickets that we could use again.  Luckily, we weren't stopped by the metro police or whoever checks tickets. 

When we got back to the hotel we discovered that our hotel didn't have air conditioning.  They did have large standing fans in each room which helped.  We opened the window and put the fan in front to help pull in the cooler air from outside.  However, after one night of that we realized that something from outside was messing with Sarah's allergies and we decided that we couldn't do it again.  What do the Europeans have against air conditioning and ice for that matter?!?  They thought it was strange if we wanted ice in our drinks.  I missed being able to drink cold water! 

  

Tuesday we left the hotel at 9:00 in the morning and didn't get back until 9:30pm.  It was a long day but really fun and interesting.   We started the day with a bus tour of Vienna's city center. It was interesting but sometimes hard because buildings that were pointed out moved by so quickly.  Vienna is quite mixed with old beautiful buildings and newer modern buildings.  Lots of statues of famous or important people. The city tour led us to Schoenbrunn.

 

Schoenbrunn was the summer palace of the Hapsburgs, the royal family of Austria.  We also drove by their winter castle also in the city of Vienna.  Schoenbrunn is also called "mini Versailles" because Emperor Leopold, who commissioned it, wanted it to be like Versailles but didn't have the money to build it as big as the original so he made a smaller version--only about 1400 rooms.  He originally built it as a palatial hunting lodge for his son but under Maria Theresa, Schoenbrunn became the center of court life.  Maria Theresa had 16 children, only 10 of whom lived into adulthood.  Marie Antoinette ("let them eat cake") was one of the youngest of the children.  Unlike Esterhazy Palace where the rooms were set up in more of a museum style, the rooms in Schoenbrunn were set up in the way they were originally used so you could get a good feel of how the rooms looked when they were in use.   

 Lots of selfies!

We went inside and had a tour but sadly they didn't allow cameras inside so I didn't get any pictures of the incredibly ornate rooms.  It was beautiful though.  We did get pictures outside the palace and in the gardens.  

 

mom, Melissa, Linda, Sarah, me, Ada and Barbara

 

  

 

After the palace we drove a little more around the city and then got to have some free time to explore what we wanted to in the city.  We decided to go to St. Stephens cathedral which we had seen the night before so we could go inside and also climb up into the towers.  

There are two towers on either side of the church.  One is quite tall and can be seen from all over the city and the other is much smaller.  Our guide told us that after the war they gathered up lead from the cannons and bombs and melted it down and made a bell.  That bell is hanging in the smaller tower. They couldn't make the tower any higher because it couldn't take the weight of the bell.  Even now they only ring the bell on Christmas,  Easter and New Years and when they do ring it the tower shakes and sways.
We climbed 343 stairs up a small circular staircase to get up to the top of the taller tower.  It was very narrow and we found ourselves having to hug the wall tightly when people were going in the opposite direction of us.  Still it was a great view from the top.  

Melissa, Sarah and mom all took the elevator up the smaller tower to see the bell but I opted to stay down.  I explored the church while I waited.

 

Sadly, it was about this time that Linda realized that her wallet was missing.  She thought maybe she had left it at the top of the tower and she ran back up all those stairs to check but she came down empty handed.  Either she was pickpocketed, which they had warned us of, or she dropped it or left it somewhere and someone used the opportunity to take it.  I was so impressed with how she handled things.  Luckily, she had paid to have cell service in Europe so she was able to call and cancel credit cards immediately.  I think I would have been a wreck.

Next went to the Haus of Musik.  It was an interesting museum all about music, sound waves, hearing and composers.  There was a fun exhibit in the Mozart section that allowed you to type your name in and then based on the letters of your name it created a personal song written in Mozart's handwriting.  At another exhibit you got to lead the virtual Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.   You would pick one of six songs and then the orchestra would follow you slowing when you did or speeding up when you did.  At least that is how it was supposed to work.  It struggled for us until someone figured out the since it was designed for children we were holding the baton too high and so it wasn't able to read all our movements.

It was great fun though. We all sat and watched and laughed as members of our group tried to lead.

 

Waiting for the bus - me, Sally and Melissa

After the museum we were invited to dinner at the home of a former opera singer, Dr. Jutta.  She is very philanthropic and the money the tour company pays her for the dinner she gives to her charity to help educate young Viennese children and help them to love classical music.

After a very pleasant, although hot (no air conditioning), evening we opted not go back into the city but to come back to the hotel and maybe get to bed before midnight. 

Wednesday we left the hotel at 9:00 and went to see the Lipizzaner Stallions. They are famous horses trained at the Spanish Riding School located in the Hapsburg winter palace.  They were not doing a show (those take place on the weekends) but we got to watch them going through their morning exercises.  I was glad to have Melissa with me to explain all the different gaits (walk, trot, canter,  run) and about their side stepping and posting and what not.  It was really interesting.  

We were not supposed to take pictures of the horses, but I snuck a quick one with my phone.  They even had someone walking around during the exercises getting after anyone taking pictures.  At one point, without thinking, I made a comment about the "camera Nazi" and Melissa quickly pointed out that it might not be in the best taste to refer to people as Nazis in Austria.  

These were the non-contraband pictures we took.

After the Lipizzaner Stallions we met up with the rest of our group and drove up into the Vienna woods.  We ate lunch in a small vineyard restaurant called Wolff.

We ate outside under the trees and vines.  It was heavenly!

 Linda, Robbie, Sarah and Ada

Melissa, me, Sally and Mike Brinton

While there, we were serenaded by our tour guide, Nicole's dad on the accordion. Nicole and her parents were dressed in the traditional clothes of Austria--drindls and lederhosen.  

It was a nice, relaxing non-stressful afternoon with lots of laughing, singing and even some dancing!

After lunch, we drove though the Vienna woods and then returned to the hotel to get ready for our concert that evening.

Our Vienna concert was at Karlskirche or St. Charles church.  

It was a beautiful old church in which Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert and others have performed. Quite a neat thing to now be included among those greats!

Melissa would write long emails home to dad every night detailing our daily activities.  This was her take on our concert that evening in Vienna.

 

Our tour guide Nicole counted 200 people in the audience and made a point that these were people who came in and stayed the whole time not those who wandered in and out off the street. She also commented that  Viennese people are a bit particular and judgemental about the quality if music they enjoy. Lyle had been warned against doing too much Americana stuff and encouraged to keep it classical. He disregarded he counsel, trusting his gut, and in the end the man who had arranged the concert and given that advice told Lyle that it was perfect and well received and he was so glad we presented the selections we did.
I saw tears after Katie's Homeward Bound. I saw awe on the faces during Sarah's Benedictus. Lyle mentioned that my How Can I Keep From Singing was one if the highlights. You should be proud if your girls daddy!
It was a great concert. Unfortunately not flawless but a good concert. We performed two encores and they asked for a third had we had one to give them!

 

After the concert we headed outside to take a few pictures.

 Kathy, Tracy, Bonnie, me, Sally, Ada, Linda, Melissa, mom, Melanie and Sarah

We had a late dinner on our own after the concert.  A group of us ended up at an Italian restaurant.  I had lasagna.  Maybe I was just extra hungry because it was so late, but it was fabulous!  We had to be back to the bus at 11:00pm to head back to the hotel.  By the time we got back it was almost midnight and we still had to pack and be ready to leave for Prague in the morning.  It seemed like the longer we were in Europe the later we stayed up.