Czeching out and going for baroque

Vienna, October 14, 2001

Hi there guys. Thanks for all the people who have written with
condolences about the photos. I'm remaining philosophical as I can.
Apart from a couple of things like the Love Parade, there really weren't
that many photos there I can't just go back and take again. Gives me a
good excuse to live in Copenhagen one day :-).

After I wrote last, Prague was getting a bit much for me (and my hotel
booking ran out) so I decided to go to Plzen for a day. This was soley
and purposefully so when I get back home and I'm drinking beer with you
all I can say, "You know, I've actually drank Pilsner *in* Plzen". I
warn you, I am going to be absolutely insufferable when you see me
again.

Plzen itself is a pretty enough town, but they know everyone just goes
there for the brewery tour. Which I duly did. I was given the worst
directions in the history of navigation by the lady at the desk at the
hotel, but I eventually was able to just follow my nose.

There's not really that much to see of the brewing process itself, but
we got to watch these guys in white overalls poking their heads into
huge steaming copper kettles, drawing out ladles of mashed stuff,
looking at it intently, scratching their chins, pouring it back in, that
sort of thing. By the way, I think a shocking mullet and porno moustache
is a job requirement for brewery workers, they all had both.

The fun bit was nearer the end of the tour when we went down into the
cellars! These days it's all modern methods and industrialised, but they
used to brew the beer in huge (1 tonne!) wooden barrels kept in the
underground cellar at a constant 7-10 deg C. And just to make sure the
modern methods aren't impacting quality, they still brew a few batches
the old way to compare. Or is it so they can still legally claim "brewed
since 1883!" on the bottle? The tour guide was coy...

Whatever the real reason, it was the traditionally brewed stuff that we
got to taste. Unfiltered, unpasturised, straight from the udder. Or 1
tonne barrel, or something. Twas very good, much more bitter than the
regular stuff. Oh, and while I'm here I'm going to condecendingly point
out that Pilsner Urquell (referred to simply as "Pilsner" in these
parts) tastes soo much better on tap in Czech than it does bottled. And
it's even better still when you realise that it's costing you less than
a quid for a pint.

That afternoon I wandered around the rest of Plzen with a Kiwi and a
yank I met on the brewery tour; we saw inside the incredible gothic
church in the main square (for some reason there always seems to be
someone practising the organ when I wander into one of these old
churches at some random point, but I'm not complaining) and went and saw
the brewing museum that's there in the city.

I went back to Prague that night in a much better frame of mind than
when I'd left it. It's much easier going back to somewhere as you've got
some idea of the geography and how the transport system works and what
you should end up paying for a room and a taxi. On Wednesday night
Faithless played, so I went and saw that (good fun but a way too short
set for the price of the ticket), and then decided to head for Vienna on
Thursday.

I didn't have so much of a burning desire to go to Vienna as I had a
need for some civilisation! People who speak English (well!), public
transport systems which work (OK, that's being a bit unfair on Prague),
public toilets that are a bit clean, Body Shop outlets, English language
papers available, cars which stop at pedestrian crossings, that sort of
thing. And all this Vienna has so far provided. And as a bonus, it's
quite beautiful too!

But then as I got off the train and saw how much I was going to be
paying for food again, I thought that I'd have to make it a quick stop
and head straight to Hungary :-). Actually, that probably won't even
work -- I don't tend to spend much less travelling through "cheap"
countries, I just eat better and get my own room :-).

Where Prague has suffered a little obviously under the strain of the
tourist hordes, Vienna copes a lot better. There are a million and one
people in the street, but you can sense that a useful amount of them
actually live here. Yes, the absolutely gorgeous (and well restored) old
buildings are festooned with neon signs and have some tacky souvenier
shops under them, but it's done with a lot more class and style.

You notice strange things in different places, like the proliferation of
different types of shops. In Israel there were tattoo parlours
everywhere, in Denmark it's hairdressers and Vienna has an overabundance
of high-class lingere shops. There are at least two instances of one
particular chain on every street, plus another random one usually. This
bodes well if I manage to actually convince a Viennese woman to show me
her undies in the next couple of days :-).

I've been out to a couple of clubs so far this weekend but didn't
unfortunately get that far. On Friday I actually ended up at an indie
club, for the first time in god knows how long. As I was going in, I
thought the song playing sounded familiar and then I realised what it
was -- "My Happiness" by Powderfinger! This endeared me instantly to the
DJ as you can imagine :-).

Aside from just walking around Vienna itself which is, as I have said,
an incredibly beautiful city, I've done a bit of museuming. The first
one was the Royal Treasury, containing the collective booty of a few
hundred years of Habsburg rule. Rich bastards, those Habsburgs.
Wardrobes full of incredibly fine robes in silk and gold and silver
thread used for coronations and other public ceremonies of that nature,
plus solid silver table settings, the marks of various knightly orders
(the Order of the Golden Fleece is still apparently running today) and
of course a set of crown jewels. You've never seen a more expensive hat
in your life!

I suppose the ignorant masses all believed it a couple of hundred years
ago, but one of the things I found funny were the religious "relics" the
Emperors kept on hand in order to prove their descendence from God.
Things like chunks of the "True Cross" of Christ (what, as opposed to
all those fake crosses that flooded the market in 1753?), a tooth of
John the Baptist (so what, I've seen his whole hand in Istanbul!) and a
piece of cloth from the tablecloth used at the last supper (now really,
this is getting a bit silly!).

As well as these, innumerable other relics, religious statues, jewels
(the biggest single emerald in the world -- it's large and green) and
other trappings of state. I tell you what, if you had connections to the
Royal Court, you lived mightily comfortably. I'm guessing the peasants
didn't fare so well though. All that wealth had to come from somewhere.
Enough to turn someone into a communist...

Yesterday I also went out to see the Summer Palace of the Habsburgs, the
Shloss Schonbrunn (German speakers, just imagine dots over the o in
Schonbrunn). It started out as a hunting lodge but was then expanded
into one of the finest baroque edifices on the planet, and yet another
monument to the greatness of these guys who ruled by no other authority
than random parentage. Can you tell I'm a little cynical about
monarchies? Most of the ones still hanging around these days seem
harmless enough, but looking at the symbols of wealth and status of
these guys I couldn't help wondering how the other half lived.

But despite the opression at the time, the leftovers sure make great
tourist attractions. These buildings are incredible. Huge, for starters,
and covered in gold leaf, paintings, exquisite woodwork, statues,
clocks. The tour was through the the public and private rooms of the
palace which was still being used by ruling Habsburgs as recently as the
first world war. I saw an Imperial dunny!

The grounds were also suitably spectacular, containing acres of grass,
gardens, fountains, monuments and the obligitory maze which I was
disappointed to discover was a recreation as the original which had once
been three km in length was uprooted years ago. The new one is much
smaller but I still needed a few goes to find the middle and its
observation deck from where it all looks incredibly simple.

Last night I also performed one of the essential duties of a tourist in
Vienna and went to the opera. Not the state opera, as that wasn't
playing, but the "Volksoper", for "Die Fledermaus" with music by Johan
Strauss. I went for the 30 schilling standing ticket, which I was
pleased about as 30 schilling quickly turns into 100 odd when you add in
the compulsory coat-check, a pair of opera glasses (oh, did I mention
that I've already lost my new glasses? No? Bloody things fell out of my
pocket in a club in Prague and no bastard handed them in to the bar.
Wouldn't that shit you?) and a program. I'm pleased I got this last one
as it had a summary of the plot in English without which I would have
been completely lost.

I'm pleased I ended up at this one, it was a lot of fun. A typical
comedy of errors involving a big party, lots of champers and the ensuing
hangovers the next day. It wasn't even so bad standing up -- especially
since the French girls next to me found us some unused seats quite close
to the front for the final act (I thought the ushers would pounce on us,
but they were nowhere to be seen). It was frustrating not getting any of
the specific gags because of the language barrier (the performance was
in German, of course). At one point, the drunk prison warder (whose
actor must be the local equivalent of Charles "Bud" Tingwell or
something, judging by the cheer he got when he came on) is offered a
coin as a bribe for letting another character smoke inside. He looks at
it and says "Was is das?", the answer being "Euro!", he then says
something in German and the whole theater errupts in laughter, except
for me.

The best bit about the whole thing was the music, it was wonderful. I
recognised about three or four passages from the overture at the start
and from that point on it had me enthralled. It just sounded so amazing,
as if the musicians were in the room with you. Oh, hang on, that's
because they were.

I wasn't quite sure when it was all over this time, as none of the
actresses were quite chubby enough to perform the official opera ending
function, but I made up for that today by seeing an exhibition of Rubens
paintings at the Kunsthorisches Museum. Fat ladies in droves! Rubens was
court painter to the Habsburgs at one stage, so there was a lot of his
art here. There were also a number of Rembrants and other old masters
whose names I didn't recognise. Half of what you go to see is the
building itself rather than the art inside it. Every bit as intricate,
sculpted and gilded as some of the rooms of the palace. It must cost a
fortune to maintain.

I'm going to hang here until Wednesday (er, that's now tomorrow) when
I'm off to Budapest. Vienna is nice, but much more expensive than
Eastern Europe (but still not bad for Western Europe) and I've just done
some back-of-envelope auditing which reveals my financial situation to
be sligtly more perilous than I hoped it would be by this stage. So
perilous in fact that I don't think I'm going to be able to afford to
replace my Palm, or buy the mp3 CD player I'm desperate for. Urgh.

Anyway, from here to Budapest, there for a week or so, then down through
Croatia to the Dalmatian islands and Dubrovnik. From there I'll take a
ferry over to southern Italy and then work my way up through France,
Belgium and the Netherlands. If that leaves me with any time before
Christmas I'll duck down to Germany, which might even be cheap to fly
out of. But I'm going to delay buying any air tickets to the US until
the last minute until they get this Anthrax epidemic of theirs under
control.

So with that lovely thought,

Cheers, Robert.