K & L's Travel Blog

Kitty and I adore an obscure British film from the 1940’s by Pressburger and Powell, I Know Where I’m Going. Wendy Hiller plays a snobbish gold-digger who in the introductory scene establishes the pettiness of her character. She describes her intended wedding to a rich industrialist to be held in a remote Scottish island, “away from all those…those…people!” This line kept resonating for us today, as both our expression of our exhaustion dealing with crowds, and our recognition of the pettiness of our misanthropy.

I set out early for a Sunday morning photo shoot, hoping to find streets cleared of tourists and the early-morning work crowd. Kitty stayed behind in bed. It was a clear and cool day. I traced the same path we took downtown our first day. Just around the corner I noted the first my first “Stolperstein” or “stumbling stone” in Vienna. I’d seen these in Berlin, and this was one I’d seen here. I had walked right past on that first day, my eyes turned upward to capture architectural details across the street. But this time I noted the plaque with the names of a family who once lived here who were killed during the Holocaust. All those people.

I moved on, happy to get some unobstructed iconic shots. While this time was meant to be all about photography, the highlight for me came when I met a lady with a dog standing outside the Lipizzaner stables. I asked her if the horses would be coming through soon. She told me that yes, in about five minutes they should be appearing. We chatted in German. She explained she came every day (she was on friendly terms with the grooms and riders). Her aptly-named dog, Penelope, waited patiently and eagerly to see the horses pass. It was a thrill to see this fleeting horsey passage, but I was even more thrilled to have been able to converse (albeit haltingly) in German. 

Kitty and I set out about noon for a picnic in the Botanical Gardens. The sun was warm, but the gardens were a bit of a disappointment. Everything felt too regimented and there seemed to be more labels than plants. The gardens adjoin the Belvedere Palace complex with their ordered classical gardens. We fed birds and sat in the sun and enjoyed our sandwiches. Kitty noted that museums afflict her in the same way malls afflict me. It’s as though the breath is being sucked out of us. She amuses herself in museums by deciding what paintings she would like on her wall. I just pass out in the mall dressing rooms.  

We had been to the Belvedere in 1991, but I felt as though we couldn’t pass up a quick tootle through the galleries for a glimpse at Klimt and others. It’s a struggle from the ticket buying onward. Long lines and crowds of competitive and rude people. By the time we conquer the cloak room we are tetchy. I’m a bit lame from my AM outing. We view “Der Kuss” from afar.

We knew Kitty’s friend Lizzie was in town with her mother and nephew, but nevertheless it felt like a coincidence to literally bump into them in one of the galleries. There was much shrieking, and we had a stern warning from a guard (one of several reprimands we managed to invite). Here we’d been judging “all those people” and now we were the source of a generalized annoyance.

We make plans to rendezvous for lunch tomorrow, and Kitty and I move onto the Zentralfriedenhof (Central Cemetery). The 19^th century cemetery lies outside of town, but not quite at the end of the Straßenbahn line #71 (a Wiener saying: when one dies one “takes the 71”). According to Wikipedia, it is the second largest cemetery in Europe outside Hamburg with 620 acres, 25 burials daily, and 330,000 internments. The reason it is so large is that when it was built, the Habsburg planners did not foresee the end of their empire, so the population of the cemetery now well outpaces that of the city. At the entrance, the map outlines about 10 different faith areas, everything from Mormons to Buddhists to Greek Orthodox. We set out in the old Jewish section. All those people. 

There were long grass paths, like green alleys. It was disordered. Did I mention deer? When I researched I read reviews that complained the cemetery was unkept, but for us this was part of the charm. Then we read about toppled gravestones that were an anti-Semitic attack in the mid-1990’s.

This paradox is one we’ve encountered before in our travels. We get wrapped up picturesque charm, and then strike upon the underlying reality. It reminded me oddly of the time we were taken by the fishing boats in Nova Scotia, but then were challenged to consider the struggles of those trying to make a living in the dying fishing industry. Charming, yes, but there’s something else there that is easily missed. We’ve been setting ourselves apart from other tourists, and now realize we too are just part of the crowd of “all those people.”