Friday, 01 January 2016

This morning we were greeted with snow. Not much, but enough to say it snowed while we were here. The kids raced up to the roof top to have a little fun.

All morning the kids announced everything they did:  “Our first day of 2016 we played in the snow in our pajamas!” and “The first food we ate in 2016 was a bagel with cream cheese from Starbucks!” etc.

Every New Year’s day, the Royal Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna Boy’s Choir put on a big show – it’s broadcast all over the world, including in the US on PBS, hosted by Julie Andrews.

We didn’t stand a chance of getting tickets, but could watch the show live outside the opera house.

Adam:  Brenda and I waited until 1:00pm to visit the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts). The kids opted to stay home – which suited all 5 of us just fine.
We were nearly the first ones to get in – which made our visit there thoroughly enjoyable just from a lack of crowds. It was fun for me to have many of the more famous paintings “all to myself” to look over without pushing and shoving.

The museum opened in 1891 and houses the primary collections of the Habsburgs – the result of over 700 years of family collecting.

When we arrived, the lines were out the door and we almost turned around and left.  I’m so glad we didn’t; the museum opened today at 1 p.m. (we arrived at 1:05) so these were just the handful of people who had been waiting for the doors to open.

The foyer entrance is splendiferous.

By far my favorite painting in the entire museum was this Vermeer.  They had only one of his paintings, and it was incredible.

This is my kind of “not crowded” at the museum.

“Oh, look … a Rembrandt self portrait. Oh, here’s another one. And another… and…”

[Below] One of Adam’s favorite series at the Museum – Diego Velázquez and his 3 paintings of the Infanta Margarita Theresa.

Poor Margarita Theresa … she was just a child when she was betrothed to her uncle Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. Velazquez was commissioned to paint some portraits of her at various stages of her childhood in the court of Madrid so they could be sent to Leopold while he waited in Vienna for his fiancee to get old enough to marry. I guess he wanted to keep track of what she looked like.  That struck me as really creepy.

When she was 15, she left Spain and went to Vienna to marry her uncle. He was 26.  They had four children together, but only one of them survived.  “After giving birth to four children, and weakened by many miscarriages, Margaret Theresa died at the age of 21.”  A tragic story.

Collection of sculptural facial expression studies.

Adam:  We returned home from the museum to grab the kids and have a late lunch/early dinner…

Because tonight, we’re heading back out!

We couldn’t get tickets for the New Year Philharmonic show, but we did get the next best thing … tickets to the Weiner Konzerthaus to see a special performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony – all four movements.

The symphony was performed by the Vienna Symphony which as been the “house band” at the Wiener Konzerthaus since 1913. Accompanying the 60 piece orchestra was the Wiener Singakademie, a 120-member mixed choir performing in Vienna since 1858.

(Skating rink we saw along the way – we might have to check this out tomorrow if there’s still time.)

Cameras were forbidden, so I could only take a few, furtive iPhone shots. We arrived early enough to find our seats and listen to the symphony warm up. We were up in the cheap seats, but grateful we got tickets at all. It was another standing room only crowd.

Detail of the ceiling. The Konzerthaus was built in 1913 and the largest hall accommodates 1840 seats.

You can gauge Holden’s excitement level long before the conductor takes to the podium.

I took one decent photo of the entire ensemble after the performance had finished. This was something special – I enjoyed it more than the opera a couple of days ago. The orchestra was magnificent. Anyone who doesn’t get chills when 120 voices burst into the “Ode to Joy” in the fourth movement should just pack it in and call it a day. Ludwig could throw together some notes.

Saturday, 02 January 2016

Today is our last day.  Isabella wanted to go back to that military supply store to buy another couple of €3 shirts for her friends.  When she texted them pictures of hers, they all wanted to know if she could pick some up for them, too.

It was a tight schedule, since the military store opened at 10:00 a.m. and we had tickets to the Lipizzaner Stallion show at 11:00 a.m.  We headed out early and got to the military store 15 minutes before he opened, so we found a gourmet cupcake store that was open and — most importantly — warm inside.  The kids couldn’t believe their good luck.

After successfully obtaining the shirts, we raced back to our hotel, dropped off the stuff and then headed out to the Spanische Hofreitschule – the Spanish Riding School, home of the Lipizzaners.

Adam:  On to the main event – Performance in the Winter Riding School. This building/arena was built in 1735. The Spanish Riding School has been performing continuously since 1572.

The show was about 1 1/2 hours long – with a series of different “acts” – starting with the young horses only partly trained, then on to the “naughtier” horses that are more spirited, don’t always behave, but are great at jumping and kicking.

These were the young horses.  The host announced, “You will see them make some mistakes, but you must remember they are still children.”

Josie and I, far right side of the photo.  We couldn’t get 5 seats together, so Josie and I were by ourselves.  All through the first half of the show she kept giggling and I finally whispered, “What’s so funny?”  The show was elegant and regal, set to classical music; there wasn’t anything funny about it.  She whispered back, “All the horses are farting, really loud!”  I said, “They’re snorting air through their noses … those are snorts, not farts.”  After that piece of information she didn’t find the rest of the show nearly as humorous but I was having a hard time stifling giggles.

These guys performed a two-horse ballet, Pas de Deux, in which the horses and riders mirrored each others movements the whole performance.

The next group demonstrated a series of movements based on a horses’ natural body language, the “Work in Hand,” to show how the horses are trained for the school jumps levade, courbette, and capriole.

After each horse came to center stage and performed his movement, he was taken to the side of the arena and it took two men to manage each waiting horse.

The “Airs Above the Ground”; all horses are under saddle, but the riders do not have stirrups.  When Adam and I took riding lessons last year, the teacher made us learn how to ride without stirrups for safety reasons (in the event that our feet fell out, we would not lose control of the horse and fall off.)  It was hard.  These guys were doing jumps; the balance and leg strength necessary for these movements is mind-boggling.

The last performance is the “School Quadrille,” — “8 riders working in formation at the walk, trot, and canter, with flying changes, pirouettes, the half pass and the passage. The ride is performed to classical music. Lasting 20 minutes, the School Quadrille of the Spanish Riding School is the longest and most difficult in the world.”

A few shots of the building interior.  

On the way home, we saw one last Christmas tree that hadn’t been put away yet.  Nearly everything celebration-related in the city has been packed up.  The festivities are over and everyone is getting back to real life in the new year.

Since we have to get up at 3:30 a.m. tomorrow, we called it day early.  We saved the best movie for last:  Forrest Gump (1994), which wasn’t strictly an 80s film but close enough to suit us.  The kids were under the impression it was a comedy (all the others were) even though Adam warned them right from the outset, “This movie is going to make you cry.”

And cry they did.  Through sobs Isabella said, “I thought this was supposed to be a comedy … it’s making me feel things!”

I’d forgotten what a powerful film that was.  Hours after it was over, Holden said, “Boy, Forrest Gump sure was a good movie. I’m really glad we watched it tonight.”

It was a heartwarming end to a fantastic family vacation.  The kids all three declared it the best trip we’ve ever taken.  It exceeded even our already unreasonably-high hopes.  We dearly hope to be back soon; possibly as soon as this summer.  Until then … Goodbye, Vienna!!