Brody's View of Vienna

Today was our bus tour day with Gretl, a historian and opera dramaturg who has more knowledge of this city's ins and outs in her little finger than I have ever had about any topic. We started at Maria-Theresein-Platz again before driving through the First District towards the Belvedere where this photo of nearly the entire group was taken. Gretl explained to us that the Belvedere is a complex of two large buildings, the Upper and Lower Belvedere (though we largely stuck around the Upper Belvedere and will probably be heading to the Lower Belvedere a different day). Prince Eugene of Savoy, a military and diplomatic hero to the Viennese, built the Belvedere as his summer palace. For his work as a strategist and tactician in the defense of Austria during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, historians regard him as the greatest general in Austrian history. The Upper Belvedere was finished in 1723 and also houses an extensive art gallery that we will get to visit as a group later this month.

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We then went to the top of Leopoldsberg, a very steep hill that is, perhaps, Vienna's most famous. There, amidst some of the grandest views in all of Austria, Gretl explained to us the significance of Leopoldsberg in the 1683 Turkish siege. During the Battle of Vienna, the Polish King Jan II Sobieski met with his Polish-Austrian combined force on the top of this hill, at the same place we stood, and raced his troops down the hill to defeat the invading Turkish force. According to Gretl, this action was JRR Tolkien's inspiration for the Battle of Helm's Deep when Gandalf leads an army down the White Mountains to defeat the forces of Saruman.

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From Leopoldsberg, we drove further into Lower Austria to visit Weinhof Zimmermann, a traditional Austrian Heuriger. In Eastern Austria, a Heuriger is a wine tavern where local winemakers serve their new wines, typically in a lovely garden next to the vineyards. After a long day of going around Vienna and learning about Austrian history, going to Weinhof Zimmermann felt amazing and it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever gotten to be. On a crisp, cool evening, we enjoyed Riesling, Gemischter Satz, and a number of traditional Austrian dishes from Schnitzel to Blunzn to Grammelschmalz. While I am a very big fan of black pudding from England, I found the Blunzn to be an even richer flavour and will be on the lookout for more the rest of this trip.

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Once we had finished our meal and our wine, several of us went on a walk that turned into one of the most fun parts of this whole trip so far. Instead of returning to the bus stop like we had planned, we followed the advice of a local to head up a nearby hill for a stunning view of Vienna and I'm glad we did. After climbing for several minutes up a hill steep enough to compete with any back home in San Francisco, we found ourselves in a small rural Austrian village next to this sign:

After such a long walk and so much physical exertion, the laugh we all let out at seeing the name of the street we had just climbed made the whole thing worth it. And, to make things better, we had found ourselves next to a playground where everyone used the zipline and swings. Looking around at a group of slightly tipsy people in our 20s playing around in an Austrian neighborhood playground was a beautiful sight to see. It was as though we were kids on a field trip instead of adults studying history abroad. And, when we finally found that view before beginning the long journey home, I was the happiest I've been in a long time.