MAL ROGERSvisits the city of Harry Lime, cream cakes, architecture and opera
Grüss Gott, as they say here in Austria. Lovely to see you. And the music in the background? No, not Mozart, nor even Strauss. It’s the theme from The Third Man. You know the one: “Ding de ding, di ding di ding . . .”
Featuring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, the movie classic is set in a devastated postwar Vienna. Naturally, a whole museum in the city is devoted to it. The Third Man Tour Museum (Pressgasse 25, 00-43-1-5864872, 3mpc.net or thirdmantour.at) has posters, photographs and other memorabilia from the era, plus a wondrous collection of the theme music being played by everyone from The Beatles to Nana Mouskouri. There’s probably a Daniel O’Donnell one lurking in there somewhere, too.
The whole enterprise is run by Gerhard Strassgschwandtner – crazy name, not-so-crazy guy – who also now owns the zither on which the theme music was played by Anton Karas.
Gerhard’s tour includes all the key locations, even down into the Vienna sewers – one of the oldest sewerage systems in the world. This is where the famous chase scene took place. Just mind your back.
But now, with the seemlessness of a metre of linoleum, we must move on, into the cobbled streets of this elegant old city. Because there’s more to Vienna than Harry Lime.
Austria remains one of the world’s cream-cake superpowers, boasting some 200 coffee houses in its capital. To sample the delights of these establishments is reason enough to visit Vienna, especially when they’re surrounded by rococo spires, Gothic domes and imperial palaces. You’ll need that coffee to help you recover from it all.
In the very best Viennese cafes, conversation will flow as freely as cream over apple strudel. Something I always like to slip into any conversation in a middle-Europe coffee house goes like this: “Of course, there are only three arts: painting, music and ornamental pastry-making. Architecture is a subdivision of the latter.”
Not original, of course, but it usually raises a wry smile. No better place to deploy it than here in the capital of the Habsburg empire, a city that is a byword for jack-the-lad architecture – and pastry-making. For goodness sake, they even had a seven-year court case here over who had the right to the name of a chocolate cake.
Harry Lime, cream cakes, architecture. What’s missing? Opera, of course, that wonderful mixture of music, art, theatre and people coughing. (That’s another favourite cafe quip of mine.)
Just down the road from the imperial palace – seat of the Habsburgs – is Vienna’s number-one landmark, the bombastic St Stephen’s Cathedral (Stephansplatz), one of Christendom’s finest buildings. Nearby stands the Staatsoper, the State Opera House, built by Sicardsburg and Van der Nüll.
In the 1860s, initial reaction was so negative to the building that Van der Nüll took his own life, and Sicardsburg died shortly after. Operatic, when you think about it.
Vienna has long been an intensely musical city, home to Mahler, Schubert, Strauss, Haydn and Beethoven; the Figarohaus (Domgasse 5) was the des res of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Now the Mozart Museum, it’s a good place to get in the mood for a concert by the Vienna Mozart Orchestra, which regularly stages concerts at the Staatsoper (00-43-1-5057766, wiener-staatsoper.at), home also to an annual opera ball.
Some of the greatest collections of world art have been assembled here in Vienna. In the vast Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts) the works of Bruegel, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens and Raphael compete for space.
The efforts of local boys Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele are scattered liberally about Vienna, most notably in the Upper Belvedere. This building, a palace, is itself an aesthetic marvel, the ultimate in up-yours architecture.
The MuseumsQuartier is a huge cultural complex in the old imperial stables, home now to the world’s largest Klimt collection. It also houses the work of some way-out modern artists. (Hanging’s too good for some of them.)
So much to do in one city: you can take your pick from art, classical music, opera, the Spanish Riding School, the Vienna Boys’ Choir and cream cakes. But, as our man Strassgschwandtner, from the Third Man Museum, put it, the real star of the show is Vienna itself. Vienna with its rattling trams, its exuberant baroque facades, its cobbled streets and, of course, the blue, blue Danube.
See www.vienna.info
Go there
Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies to Vienna from Dublin.
Where to stay, eat and go if you're off for a weekend in the Austrian capital Vienna hot spots
5 places to stay
Hotel Bristol. Kärntner Ring 1, 00-43-1-515160, westin.com/bristol. Hotel Bristol has been attending to Europe’s movers and shakers for more than a century. It’s next door to Vienna State Opera. Doubles from about €275.
Hotel Sacher. Philharmonikerstrasse 4, 00-43-1-514560, sacher.com. The top-drawer digs in Vienna: ornate rooms, exemplary service and bathrooms so big you could live in them. Doubles from €350.
Hotel Imperial. Kärntner Ring 16, 00-43-1-501100, hotelimperialvienna.com. Top-of-the-range hotel. If you’re a honeymooner, independently wealthy or just wantonly extravagant, try its Romantic Escape weekend, which includes daily champagne brekkie, rose-petal bath prepared by your butler (who also serves you a candle-lit dinner in your suite), tandem massage for two (not by the butler), horse-drawn carriage plus picnic basket – for both you and horse. Starts at €983 per person per night.
Steigenberger Hotel Herrenhof. Herrengasse 10, 00-43-1-534040, herrenhof- wien.steigenberger.at. A stylish masterpiece, this downtown hotel boasts an atmospheric bar plus extraordinarily good breakfasts. Doubles from €85.
Hotel Rathaus Wein Design. Lange Gasse 13, 00-43-1-4001122, hotel-rathaus-wien.at. A groovy hotel with 33 rooms dedicated to Austrian winemakers. You can sample their premium wines in the minibars. Doubles from €128.
5 places to eat
Mario. Lainzer Strasse 2, 00-43-1-8769090, mario-hietzing.at. Several places in Vienna exist solely to give Japanese tourists a taster of middle-Europe cooking.
This is emphatically not one of them: it’s full of classy Viennese citizens lording it in their finery. And that’s just the waiters.
Babette’s Spice Books for Cooks. Schleifmühlgasse 17, 00-43-1-5855165, babettes.at. Two thousand cookery books from all over the world (many in English) line the shelves here. A selection of recipes from them is cooked and served each day.
Heindl’s Palatschinken- kuchl. Köllnerhofgasse, 00-43-1-5138218, palatschinken pfandl.at. An informal, wallet-friendly Viennese eatery. Specialities include savoury and sweet pancakes, as well as goulash. As the Habsburgs may well have said, revenge may be a dish best served cold, but when it comes to goulash, it’s best served piping hot.
Steirereck im Stadtpark. Am Heumarkt 2a, 00-43-1-7133168, steirereck.at. Murano chandeliers and lavish decor mark this out as one of Vienna’s most exclusive eateries. The food’s not bad either.
Salm Bräu. Rennweg 8, 00-43-1-7995992, salmbraeu.com. This former Salesian convent is home to a distillery and a brewery. Sample the products in the ancient restaurant (serving meals since 1650, and they don’t mean 4.50pm), along with traditional hearty Viennese food – which is generally delicious and life- shortening.
5 places to go
Spanish Riding School (Spanische Hofreitschule). Michaelerplatz 1, 00-43-1-5339031, spanische- reitschule.com. The immensely influential classical dressage riding school features Lipizzaner stallions. Full evening performances and morning training sessions are both available for viewing.
Sigmund Freud Museum. Berggasse 19, 00-43-1-3191596, freud-museum.at. From 1891 to 1938, the founder of psychoanalysis lived and worked in this building. This is where he came up with the idea that, if it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.
Otto Wagner Museum. Werk Museum Postsparkasse, Georg Coch-Platz 2, 00-43-1-5345333088, ottowagner.com. Located within the Austrian Postal Savings Bank, this museum is dedicated to the work of Vienna’s best-known art-nouveau architect (or Jugendstil) architect. The bank itself, occupying a city block, is an important early work of modern architecture.
Schönbrunn Palace. Schönbrunner Schlossstrasse 47, 00-43-1-81113239, schoenbrunn.at. Once the residence of the Habsburgs, the palace and its gardens radiate style and class.
Hofburg Imperial Palace. Michaelerplatz 1, 00-43-1-533-7570, hofburg-wien.at. This was originally the winter palace of the Holy Roman emperor Franz Josef, the man responsible for Vienna giving it large to the rest of Europe. Visit the Hofburg Chapel at the Burgkapelle on a Sunday morning and you might be able to catch Vienna Boys’ Choir (wsk.at).
Check out
Viennese cafes are a byword for reviving and relaxation. Leon Trotsky regularly played chess under the vaulted ceiling of Cafe Central. Freud would partake of his Freudian sip at Cafe Landtmann. Head for Alt Wien Kaffee (Schleifmühlgasse 23, 00-43-1-5050800, altwien.at) and you can see, smell and taste coffee being roasted and brewed.
Good night out
For contemporary diversion, head for the Gürtel (the Belt), an artery of Viennese night- and cultural life. Numerous rock pubs and club bars are housed in the Stadtbahn arches, designed by Otto Wagner. The Chelsea (chelsea.co.at) focuses on guitar bands; nearby is the glass facade of the Rhiz (rhiz.org), home to Viennese electronic music. The city’s not all about Blue Danube Waltz.
Hit the shops
Naschmarkt. Between Karlsplatz and Kettenbruckengasse, wienernaschmarkt.eu. Here, with Otto Wagner’s art-nouveau buildings as a backdrop, you can buy anything from broken violins to ancient steam irons, not forgetting antique postcards, coins, lederhosen, cheap clothes and even furniture.
Hot spot
Flex (Augartenbrücke 1, 00-43-1-5337525, flex.at) was once Vienna’s big alternative place; it’s now more mainstream, attracting a wide range of clubbers. But don’t go to chat: the music system has a legendary decibel output.