"Belvedere!"

Sometimes when I'm on a special trip somewhere, I enter a dilemma between trying to take as many pictures as I can of the the sights around me and neglecting my camera to just simply enjoy the numerous things that would be too arduous to photograph. Today I experienced such a dilemma, as our bus tour with Dr. O ended up overwhelming me with so many things to see and places to experience! All I can say is that I'm glad I have a month to see them all.

The day really began with a walking tour around some of the landmarks of the Innere Stadt, namely all the places attached to the Hofburg. First was the Monument Against War and Fascism, erected on the site of a former apartment complex that was bombed during the Second World War with hundreds of people still inside. The monument features among other things a harrowing sculpture of a Jewish man on all fours, scouring the Viennese streets and kept down by barbed wire. The other stark sculptures definitely contrast with the grand buildings around it. Maybe that is part of the point of this particular monument.

We soon proceeded to walk around the Hofburg, going by the Josefplatz and then to "the ditch." The differences in the architecture in different parts of the building would soon become apparent to us - to me this was most obvious in comparing the rather old Josefplatz with the Heldenplatz, apparently the newst part of the Hofburg.

In the afternoon we all got on a bus (and thankfully out of the rain) for a driving tour around the city, accompanied by the instructor whom we simply call Dr. O. Our first stop was the Belvedere Palace, residence of the famous Austrian war hero Prince Eugene of Savoy. I amazed to learn that the grand Upper Belvedere was considered the guest house, what with its view of the gardens and the rest of the city! Supposedly, Empress Maria Theresia once looked out on this view and said "Que [sic] belvedere!" ("How beautiful!"), thus giving the palace its name today.

I unfortunately don't remember how I got into this conversation, but on the way back to the bus I struck up a conversation with Dr. O about Arnold Schoenberg, the Viennese composer of the 20th century who worked with the twelve-tone/atonal method of writing music. She asked me if I liked his music at all. I told her that I haven't admittedly heard much of his work, and what I have heard I haven't liked too much - it just sounds too strange and dissonant to me! Yet I said that I liked the idea of such innovation and pioneering in music composition. Actually, I have heard some of Aaron Copland's own twelve-tone works, and some of them don't sound as dissonant as Schoenberg's; I like those a bit. (Others of his take full advantage of the dissonance for deliberate effect!)

The bus then gave us looks at two buildings designed by architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, whose style is quite different from anything seen at the Hofburg or Belvedere. One building was the Hundertwasserhaus, an apartment complex with uneven floors, un-alike windows, and a garden on top. The other was a factory incinerator that had been completely decorated with Hundertwasser's individual style. He apparently did not think that industrial buildings needed to be rigid, strict, and unappealing to the eye. He also supposedly hated straight lines, from what I've heard. He certainly sounds like an interesting architect worth reading more about.

Finally the bus took us to the top of the hills overlooking the city, where we saw nothing but a beautiful skyline barely interrupted by skyscrapers; Dr. O need not have apologized so much for having so little skyline. This view was certainly "belvedere."

The German word of the day is "meistens," meaning "mostly."