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vienna: general info
· city links
· history
· hostels
tours
· things to do
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Austria has a reputation for music and good music at that. Several world renowned composers called Vienna and
the surrounding areas home. Beethoven and Mozart lived in the town of Baden, just south of the city. Now recognized for it's
healing sulfur waters - thousands flock to Baden every year seeking rejuvenation. Joseph Haydn lived in Eisenstadt and worked
as the court musician at the Esterhazy Palace.
As for current musicians and performances, an afternoon with the Vienna Boys Choir is not to be missed. The Vienna State
Opera and Volksoper are other prime examples. Make sure to reserve tickets before you get to Vienna as ticket requests from
outside the country are given priority.
Every year, orchestras from around the world take part in The Vienna International Festival. Churches mansions and palaces across the city host more than 150 different concerts ranging from sacred music to opera and choral music to symphony.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum has works of art by Bruegel, Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Titian as well as Roman and Egyptian antiquities. Just across the plaza is the Naturhistorisches Museum which has the 25 000-year-old Venus of Willendorf one of the oldest works of art in existence. The Museum of Applied Art located farther down the Ring has an amazing one-million piece-collection of Rococo Baroque and Jugendstil furniture glass porcelain and fabric. Just off the Ring is the brilliant Secession Building one of the must-sees of Vienna. Built as a reaction to the overblown Ringstrasse buildings the museum is a work of art in itself andexcept for Gustav Klimts Beethoven Friezegenerally better than the hit-or-miss contemporary art exhibited inside.
Near the Sdbahnhof is the Belvedere Palace which houses a stunning collection of Viennese art from the art-nouveau era including Gustav Klimts The Kiss. These enchanting pictures are reason enough to visit Vienna. The palace also has a spacious garden with a great view of the city.
Another enjoyable museum is the quirky KunstHausWien designed by the artist Hundertwasser. The museum is a fantasy of colorful tile lumpy floors and peculiar architecture (trees grow out of the third floor window). Just down the street is a block of apartments that was also designed by the artist. Though not open to visitors the colorful fairy-castle facade always draws a crowd of onlookers. If you still have a hankering for modern art visit the Museum of the 20th Century (we found the exhibits to be a bit spotty).
Take the time to tour the homes of famous Viennese: Sigmund Freud (his psychoanalytic couch and other possessions are on display) Johann Strauss Jr. (where he composed The Blue Danube ) Beethoven (he wrote his Third Symphony there) and Mozart (called Figarohaus: its where he composed The Marriage of Figaro ).
Probably the most famous grave in Vienna is Mozarts, hidden somewhere in the St. Marx Cemetery when he died the great composer was buried in an unmarked paupers grave that to this day remains undiscovered. After the Mozart fiasco Vienna got its act together and began to bury its famous people in clearly marked graves in the Central Cemetery which now hold the graves of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schoenberg, and other Viennese dignitaries. To round out the cemetery tour travelers can visit the Imperial Burial Vault (Kaisergruft) the final resting place of the emperors and empresses of the last 300 years of the House of Habsburg. Were not particularly ghoulish but we enjoyed visiting the Augustinerkirche vault (it contain the heartsliterallyof many of the Habsburgs).
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