Wednesday is Opera Day. But before we attended the opera, there were places to go, things to do and clothes to try on. The day started out with a tour of the Stadtempel Synagogue. This is the one thing that Debbie realty wanted us to do in Vienna. The temple was the only temple to survive the bombing in WWII and remains an active temple for the Jews in Vienna. We arrived at the temple right before our 10am tour, which ended up starting more at more like 10:15. The tour guide took us into the synagogue, which was a beautiful oval shaped room with a high ceiling and multiple levels of seating. The tour guide then led us in basically a 3rd grade Hebrew School class explaining everything in a Jewish synagogue. In fairness, she does this because she doesn’t assume anyone coming to visit knows anything about Judaism or a synagogue.
At some point in her info session she got to the surviving WWII part. Most online information about this synagogue explains that the main reason it survived was due to its very close proximity to residential buildings. However, she explained that the real reason the Nazis didn’t destroy this building was due to a much more practical reason – this synagogue was the hub of Jewish life in Vienna, and thus had detailed records of all of the Jewish members of the community. The Nazis used this treasure trove of information in their relentless efforts to root out Jews. She even said that Eichmann (I think she said Eichmann) used one of the offices when he was in town.
She also explained that while there were over 200,000 Jews in Austria before the war, there are now only 15,000 in the entire country, with 8,000 in Vienna. That’s in a country of 9 million and a city of 2 million. Also, what remains of Jewish life in Vienna is almost exclusively Orthodox. She explained that there was only one temple in the City that wasn’t Orthodox. And earlier I mentioned the multiple levels of seating in the synagogue. Well, the first floor is for the men only and the upper floors are for the women. We went up to the upper levels to check them out, and due to the oval nature of the room and the way the seats are set up, most of the seats up there are like sitting behind a pole at Fenway. You really can’t see a single thing that is happening down below from any of the seats.
The tour took about an hour and then we headed out to our next stop – the most expensive coffee in Vienna, which happened to be very close to the synagogue. The four us ordered the standard coffee in the cone, and passed on the extras he offered. Each coffee cost 12 Euros, so the order ended up costing around $53! The newby coffee drinker LOVED these, while the veterans among us liked them.
After polishing them off, including eating the cones, we stopped one of us from getting another and headed to something we had seen on our walking tour. Every day at noon an old clock does a little musical thing for about 10 minutes. It’s hard to explain, but during the other 23 hours the clock has 12 characters that slowly make their way from left to right across the clock. It takes them each exactly an hour to get across, so you can tell the time by seeing where they are on the clock. But at noon, they all go across the clock, each to their own music.
We walked to the clock and Amanda met us there after her morning class. Actually, technically it wasn’t “after” her class since she asked the professor if could leave and meet her family. That was partially true, but she had texted earlier when we were at the synagogue that the class that day was extremely boring. So I kinda think the “meeting the family” was less of the goal than simply getting out of the class. Nonetheless, she arrived in plenty of time to see the clock do its thing. It was cute, but definitely something you only need to see once.
After the clock, we headed back towards the apartment because Amanda had a call at 1pm that she was going to take from our apartment. But before we got home we stopped at one of Amanda’s favorite coffee/pastry places, Joseph Brot, which once again was near our apartment. And for the second time today, our new coffee drinker grabbed a latte. It also may have been at this point that after Amanda left us to go to the apartment that Debbie said she noticed a little extra “pep in her step.” I wonder why. We are starting to wonder what we have done.
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| Does anyone know who the woman in the middle is with her second coffee of the day? If so, let us know. |
After Amanda left us, we just had to stop at the hot dog stand again and try to get the hot dog with cheese this time. We had also come to understand that most people do not get the bun, but instead get it cut up on a plate. I still wanted it in the bun, so that’s what I got, while the others got it the more traditional cut up way. Again the guy asked if we wanted it with cheese and we all said yes. But this time, since we had one cut up, we realized that it wasn’t like a Philly cheesesteak with cheese wiz, but instead the cheese was infused in the hot dog. In the end, the cheese was superfluous since we really didn’t taste it, although we don’t really know what one without cheese tasted like to compare.
On a side note, you may have noticed me saying “which was near our apartment” a lot – that’s because the place I booked was ideally located within walking distance of a lot of places we were going or were going to see. If anyone is planning to visit Vienna at any time I’d highly recommend staying in the 1st District by Stephansplatz, near St. Stephen’s Cathedral.
While Amanda had her call, the four of us went to go see State Hall, which both Amanda and Allie had suggested we see yesterday. They had told us it would be a short visit, but it was just so beautiful inside that we should check it out. So check it out we did, even with the 8 Euro per person entry fee. The girls were certainly correct, as the inside of the hall was a site to see. It looked liked a massive library.
After our short visit to State Hall, it was around 2pm. Due to the opera at 7pm, dinner was going to be on the early side at 5pm. We had wanted to see Amanda's apartment and this was the ideal time to do that. So we took the U-Bahn from the apartment to her place in the 2nd District. After a quick visit to see her place we left her to do some laundry and get organized for the travel tomorrow to London and headed back.
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| I title this, "Enough Dad" |
The two young boys decided they needed to rest, while the two old fogies decided not to rest and instead head back to the area of last night’s dinner and check out the shops. We also had forgotten to take a photo outside of the restaurant so we planned to do that as well.
We weren’t really sure where we were, so we chose to take the U-Bahn back, with the boys getting out at our regular area and Debbie and I would transfer to another line to get off at the stop that we had seen right outside the restaurant. In hindsight that transfer wasn’t really needed, we could have just gotten out where the boys did and walked. But we got to the area, took our selfie and started walking up the street to where Debbie had seen the shops.
It took a little while to find one of the shops she had wanted to visit, and when we went inside Debbie immediately saw a white jacket that caught her eye. She tried it on and liked it a lot, but wasn’t sure if she was going to get it. She hemmed and hawed for a while, and sent a photo to her mother and her “clothing advisor” Lisa. Not surprisingly, her mother was up early and responded with a lukewarm reaction. Lisa was not as much as an early bird so Debbie didn’t hear back from her right away. So we left and Debbie told the woman at the store that she was going to walk a little and think about it. But after a short while Lisa responded that she loved it. That was all Debbie needed, so back we went to the store and we are now the proud owners of a nice white jacket.
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| The "White Jacket" |
After our little shopping escapade, we walked up the street some more, where we realized that we were right near the apartment so we just continued to walk back to the apartment. We rested for a short time, then got all dressed up for the opera. Well, not really ALL dressed up, but we each brought one nicer outfit for this evening. Debbie brought a long skirt and I brought slacks and a jacket. It was getting a little chilly, so I channeled my inner George Santos and put on a light sweater over my shirt and under my jacket.
Tonight’s dinner, at Fuhrich, was right near the opera house (and yes, a short walk from the apartment, and was going to be a typical dinner with a lot of schnitzel. But I noticed yesterday when deciding which restaurant to go to of the two I had booked that this place had a ton of gluten free options, including gluten free schnitzel. So Debbie and I decided to share a gluten free schnitzel and a chicken-chickpea plate. The boys also ordered schnitzel while Amanda, who can have all the schnitzel she wants over the next couple of months, opted for gnocchi. Once again, everything was delicious and we followed the meal by ordering some desserts to share. In keeping with the “typical Vienna” meal, one of them had to be apple strudel. And because she only had two coffees so far today, Debbie joined in with the rest of us and ordered another one! Seriously, what have we done??
When dinner was over we took the very short walk to the Vienna Opera House to go see our very first opera. This opera house is unlike most others where the other houses will have one opera that plays each night for a while and then a new one will take over. The Vienna Opera House is different in that they have a completely different show each night. They put on 60 different shows each year, with over 300 performances a year and each night is different. Tonight’s show was an opera called Werther. It’s based on an old story and is a tragic story of a man, Werther, who falls for an engaged woman. The woman has strong feelings for the man but honors her commitment and marries the other man. Despite their feelings and his attempts to get her to ditch her husband, she remains with her husband. Werther eventually decides he can’t live without her and shoots himself. But before he dies the woman finds him and expresses her love for Werther, in what turns out to be a long death scene (all of Act IV).
The seats we had were pretty high up but we could see fine. The opera itself was sung in French, but each seat had a screen that would display the words in the language of your choice. Despite my clear fluency in Spanish that I had displayed in Paris, I did opt for English. It was a little hard to keep looking down, but thankfully for me the woman in the row in front of my also chose English, so I could just glance at her screen. The room itself was beautiful, albeit extremely warm. It made my decision to add the sweater unnecessary and I ended up taking both the jacket and sweater off and rolling up my sleeves. On Amanda’s advice, at intermission Debbie took a flyer for another show to use as a fan.
I can’t say that any of us will be running back to the opera on a regular basis, although Amanda is scheduled to see another one at the end of the month when my parents visit. And I do have to remember to tell my dad that while there is no formal dress code to attend the opera, one thing they do say is “no flip flops.” I am not sure Birks count as flip flops, but he may have to actually wear socks and shoes that night.
The show ended promptly at 9:30, as advertised, and we walked back to the apartment. Somehow we avoided getting Debbie a 4th coffee of the day, but we did. This was our last day in Vienna. Tomorrow we are being picked up at 11:30 for a flight to London. Jolly good.
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