Sept. 18 – 22

Museums, monumental buildings, cafes and random ramblings. All typical fare for us, for tourists.

A fashion runway show, secondhand clothing store, co-op purse workshops, and chats with a clothing designer in her shop . Each a respite from the frenzy of tourist traps.

We are pleasantly surprised at the welcoming warmth of the Austrians. They seem to embrace immigrants and people of color. Their patience with my lack of German language is appreciated.

On our arrival at the airport, we found it easy to take public transit including an express train and then the subway to our hotel, Le Meridien. The fancy lodgings are in an old building sandwiched between the Secessionist building (think: Gustav Klimt and others) and the Ring Strauss. We wander out to find a festival in front of the Rathausplatz. This plaza is full of stalls selling beer, wine, brats of all kinds, honey, flowers, jewelry, and is capped with a stage for musicians. I’m satisfied with festival, but really impressed with the building. Something of it and others we see in the area are reminiscent of Venetian arches and decoration. But it’s distinctly Austrian.

On our second and third days in Wien, we are museum-goers, seeking to understand the Hapsburg empire and the 20th Century Austria. The House of Hapsburg exhibit in the Hofburg Palace is full of medieval armor, weapons of war to keep the subjects in their place, tapestries with branches documenting the marriage of this courtly family with that one, the explanations of the upper echelons of society. It is also full of teenagers on a tour, being goofy and typically setting off invisible alarms.

A deeply troubling exhibit, for me, is the Haus der Geschichte Österreich. The exhibit is well-researched, has excellent displays, is interactive and informative. But I didn’t expect the articles of torture of the Jews, their sad stories and the description of how the Austrians embraced Nazism and had their homegrown fascists to break me down. I literally choke off sobs and have to leave. Luis and I meet in the cafe later and even see a permanent exhibit on Ephesus. It turns out that in the very early 1900s the Austrians excavated Ephesus and shipped the friezes, statues and columns to Vienna. All of this history makes me look at our world map with different lenses.

I hope to write more about the fashion show and the food. No promises. We shall see. First a limoncello nightcap.