The Way 'Wien' Were
Highlights from a winter week in Vienna
Sorry, I am pathologically addicted to bad plays on words—including combining words in two languages that probably should not be. Thus, the title of this (very overdue) update.
Wien, if you did not know, is what Vienna is called in German.
And, try as I might, I cannot seem to write short travelogues. I always end up writing book chapters of everything I did, plus everything I wanted to do but ran out of time for—and then more about all of it than anyone really wants to read.
Capturing Vienna is particularly challenging. As the former seat of the Habsburg monarchy, then capital of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Empire, the city has been a center of art, architecture, music and culture for hundreds of years.
We were there for five days in February and I could have stayed a month and still barely scratched the surface of everything I wanted to see.
In the interest of brevity—and email size limits—I’m breaking this travel post into two parts. This one covers the ‘classic Vienna’ - the one of the Habsburgs, Mozart, and Beethoven - that are gifts from the city’s imperial past.
Next week, I’ll write more about modern Vienna and the things that have put it at the top of lists of Europe’s most livable cities for the past 10 years.
Stephansdom and Stephansplatz
Like most European cities, Vienna’s central plaza—the Stephansplatz—is dominated by its main church. In Vienna’s case, this is St. Stephan’s Cathedral (in German: Stephansdom), which is also the main church of the archdiocese of Vienna and the seat of Vienna’s archbishop.
Construction of the massive Gothic and Romanesque church was mostly initiated at the behest of Duke Rudolf IV (1339-1365) of Austria, Carinthia, Styria and Tyrol, who is today considered the founder of the Habsburg dynasty.
During Rudolf’s time in the 14th century, Vienna was the capital of a major duchy, but its parish church was not the seat of its own diocese, and was still subservient to the bishops in Passau, in lower Bavaria. This apparently irked Rudolf something fierce.
To boost his stature, Rudolf initiated the expansion of the existing parish church to become an elaborate “metropolitan cathedral chapter” to rival the cathedral of Prague, the home church of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV.
Rudolf also ordered the creation of the University of Vienna—a project meant to, again, rival that of Prague’s Charles University.
He then forged1 the Privilegium Maius, a set of deeds supposedly dating to the time of the Roman Empire, which elevated Rudolf (and descendants) to the status of the prince-electors - the ones who voted to choose the emperor - of the Holy Roman Empire.
All this before dying suddenly at the age of 25 during a visit to Milan.
Construction on the Stephansdom continued over the next 350 years: with the completion of the church’s South Tower (nicknamed ‘Steffi’ by the locals) in 1433, the initiation of construction of the North Tower in 1450 (completed in 1578), the recognition as the seat of its own diocese (finally!) in 1469. Consecration of the elaborate baroque High Altar occurred in 1647 and by 1711, the installation of the Pummerin,’ Austria’s largest bell, as the church’s bell in the South Tower.
While all of this was going on above ground - construction for a different purpose was taking place underneath.
Catacombs, originally constructed to house the remains of the church priests, as well as the early Habsburg royals, were expanded to provide room for burials of the city’s dead until all burials within the city limits were banned in 1783.
Rudolf and his wife, Catherine of Luxembourg2, are interred in the Ducal Crypt that is part of the old section of the catacombs. This section also contains the partial remains3 of many subsequent Habsburg monarchs.
Further on, extending underneath the Stephansplatz above, the newer section of the catacombs (ironically, it looks significantly older than the older section because it has not been renovated as recently) contains rooms with the remains of approximately 11,000 residents of Vienna interred there in the 18th century.
Many of these bodies were of plague victims originally buried elsewhere in Vienna and moved to the catacombs. Over the years, convicted criminals were often forced to go work in the catacombs to stack and restack the bodies, coffins—and sometimes the bare bones of the dead.
Photos were not allowed on our catacombs tour. But, if you visit, I recommend taking the tour to see this unique, if creepy, perspective of the city’s history.
Imperial Vienna
Riding the streetcar from the train station through the city center, you are surrounded on all sides by the ornate Greek Revival and Baroque-style buildings of Austria’s imperial past.
Life-size marble statues line the rooftops and seem to be greeting the modern residents and visitors to the city.
The center is dominated by the Hofburg, the former imperial palace complex, that is connected to the Burgtheater (Austria’s national theater), and the Parlament (parliament building), and the Spanish Riding School. It is fronted by the Heldenplatz (Heroes’ Plaza) and the Volksgarten, with the quieter Burggarten on the other side.
The Hofburg is the size of a small town itself. You can see a birds-eye view here, which shows the many other buildings and enclosed courts and plazas that were added on over its 600-year history.
Today, the complex is home to the official residence of the president of Austria, as well as housing the Austrian national library, and the offices of the Organization for Security ad Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Vienna office of the international Permanent Court of Arbitration.
The former imperial apartments of Franz Joseph I and his wife, Empress Elisabeth, have been preserved as a museum in the Imperial Chancellery Wing and the Amalia Residence.
Just across the Ringstrasse from the main palace complex, the Vienna Art History Museum (Kunsthistorisches Museum) and the Museum of Natural History face each other across Maria Theresien Platz. They were created in 1891 by Emperor Franz Joseph I to house the Habsburg’s art collection and make it available to the public.
For music lovers
In 1438, Vienna became the capital of the Holy Roman Empire when the Duke of Austria, Albert V, was elected emperor. Subsequent Habsburg monarchs served continuously as emperor for the next 374 years.
In 1806, what had been the Holy Roman Empire was mostly subsumed into the larger Austrian Empire (later known as Austro-Hungarian Empire), which - at this height - governed most of central Europe, as well as the Netherlands and Spain.4
As the capital city, Vienna became an important European center of culture. Musicians, composers, writers and artists moved to the city to profit—creatively, intellectually and financially.
The composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived and worked in Vienna for most of his adult life. So did Ludwig van Beethoven. Franz Schubert a native of Vienna, was born and died there.
The world-famous Vienna Boys’ Choir, founded in 1498, (both Schubert and Josef Haydn were members) still sings at Sunday Mass in the Hofburg Chapel.
I visited the Mozarthaus, a museum in one of the composer’s former apartments located on Domgasse, within walking distance of the cathedral.
Dedicated to the life and work of Mozart, it provides some interesting insights into both his work and the life of a working musician during the late 1700s in the city.
You can not only see where and how he lived, but they have preserved work contracts, correspondence between Mozart and his friends and contemporaries as well as original drafts of his compositions.
For next time
Vienna is—for obvious reasons—the perfect place to hear classical music performed.
But you have to plan ahead—and I did not.
For most performances, you need to book months ahead in order to get good seats.
For example, the Vienna State Opera House is famous for selling $15 “standing only” seats. They are an amazing way to see a world-class performance for very little money, but they also sell out very quickly.
See here for “How to Get Cheap Opera Tickets in Vienna.”
This site aggregates the different venues and upcoming music performances in Vienna and allows you to book tickets ahead of time.
Also check out these tips on a post from Artsy Traveler about how and where to see music in the city.
Next week:
Shutting up now, but next week I’ll write more about modern Vienna, including the food culture, cycling infrastructure, modern architecture, and the social housing projects that are being studied as a model for the rest of the world.
Thanks for reading!
More accurately, he had it forged. But it was his idea. …
Catherine was the second daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, because Rudolf apparently always had his eyes on the prize.
The early Habsburg dukes evolved a very peculiar burial practice by which their physical remains were divided up to be separately interred in three different Vienna churches. The Capuchin Church (Kapuchinerkirche) got the body itself. The Augustinian Church (Augustinkirche) got the heart, and the Stephansdom got the internal organs. A room with shelves in the underground catacombs contains plain iron reliquaries filled alcohol and the internal organs of 72 members of the Habsburg dynasty.
Vast oversimplification, I know! The Habsburgs maintained control over their realm by both military conquest and a complex and creepy practice of intermarriage with their own relatives in the other royal houses of Europe. (See the infamous ‘Habsburg jaw.’) But I digress …
I like your plays on words. It's one of the things that makes you a good writer.