Tuesday 17 January 2012

Parks, music and Freud

Outside of coffee houses, life happens in Vienna's parks ...


where even in winter ...


and despite the grandeur of their surroundings ...

Double eagle on the entrance to Burggarten (top); the Neue Burg, seen from the Burggarten.

people gather to take a seat and read ...


or chat (even the rose bushes in the Volksgarten tenderly wrapped against the freezing air) ...


while Goethe broods darkly ...


Franz Joseph ponders ...


and even the dogs look well-dressed and aristocratic ...


Vienna's favourite son is everywhere in evidence - whether posing grandly in the Burggarten ...


or nipping round the city in in a Renault Scenic ...

Side view of the opera house; the shop at Beethoven's house.

In St Stephen's cathedral, at the heart of the circle that is Vienna's Innere Stadt, we happened to walk in on an evening mass with full choir and organ and these incredible illuminations of the cathedral's interior ...


We were also lucky enough to see the fantastic Magritte exhibition currently on at the Albertina Museum ...


Mais ceci n'est pas une pipe, non, it is Monet's The Water Lily Pond painted quite magnificently onto the stairs leading to the Albertina ...



While at 19 Berggasse, over in the 9th district, Freud's ghost rattles around ...


Photographic portrait of Freud; view from a window of his apartment; quote on wall of the staircase; his waiting room. All photos taken at 19 Berggasse, where Freud lived and worked for nearly five decades.

Detail in foyer of Freud's building

The original couch is in Hampstead, where he decamped for the last year of his life, but I liked this striking modern version in the Vienna house.


My love affair with Vienna goes on hold now until another trip becomes possible some day. Meanwhile I've been consoling myself by watching Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise (watch the trailer here, which opens with the start of the best scene in the movie, in Café Sperl).

And this is the film I'm dying to see (about Freud and Jung) when it's released next month ... 

And thank you Bella Bheag for this link, for a quick nostalgia fix when I'm pining for a Wiener kaffeehaus!



6 comments:

  1. Karen, this is one of my favorite posts, my friend. Just the normal day-to-day life of so many people around the world, talking with friends, walking in the parks, sharing a coffee. And, I'm hoping to see the movie the moment it arrives in Houston!!

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  2. I do love your photo essays, Karen. They are a thing of joy. If your travels ever bring you to Heidelberg or hereabouts, please contact me. I can be travel guide, interpreter, holder of photo equipment ...

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  3. you dovetail Merisi so perfectly..
    Must you leave Vienna?
    Now I must see that Jung/Freud movie!
    Love your travel adventures
    carolg

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  4. Beautiful Karen - as always.
    F xx

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  5. Just to let you know that I like your Vienna reportage, all posts, images and....
    Have you been in Grinzing as well? Must be nice and quiet during winter without too many tourists.
    xxxkarin

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  6. You've outdone yourself this time, Karen. Witty and delectable --- such varied aspects. Loved those conversing ghosts!
    BTW, Before Sunrise is a FANTASTIC film. The one about Freud and Jung is playing here now, you may provide the spur to make us go and see it ---

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