Many years ago - a previous life - I took the train from Vienna to London en route back to USA. I had spent seven months in southern Europe, and it was time to return to the US. My original plan was to take the train all the way from Athens, but at the last minute, I bought a cheap student air ticket to Vienna and bypassed the long and questionable train ride through Yugoslavia.
It was March, winter, the best time to tour a city like Wein, when the cultural season is in full swing. I took a few frames with Kodak
Tri-X film using my Nikkormat FTn camera. I can't recall who developed the film, but it is a mess of scratches.
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| Dorky American traveler in the Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna |
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| Schönbrunn Palace Glorietta |
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| Schönbrunn gardens, 28mm ƒ/3.5 Nikkor lens |
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| Schönbrunn gardens, 28mm ƒ/3.5 Nikkor lens |
Vienna is full of astonishing cultural and artistic treasures - churches, palaces, statues, concert halls, and museums - remnants from the glorious years of the Hapsburg Empire.* And it looks amazingly good. It is not an urban decay place. The photographs above are from the Schönbrunn Palace, the main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers.
The Karskirche is a Baroque church located on the south side of Karlsplatz. It is a curious architectural mixture of ancient Greek and Roman elements with Byzantine, Renaissance, and Baroque styles. Vienna is full of sights like this.
Vienna is the city of music. Here is Johann Strauſs the Younger (1825-1899). You see him all over town, along with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). Joseph Haydn, Antonio Vivaldi, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Antonio Salieri, and Franz Schubert also spent time in Vienna.
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| Staatsoper from the student ticket section |
As I noted above, European cities are rewarding in the off season, when cultural events are in full swing. As I recall, I bought a student ticket at the Weiner Staatsoper and had to stand in the upper balcony for a 5-hour performance of
Tristan und Isolde. Note how in those days I traveled with a suit and neckties. That is how you dressed in a city. Not only that, back then, gents wore a suit on the airplane, and ladies were similarly properly attired. Today, we have become swine, especially Americans.
In the future, you will see more photographs from the archives. Despite the flaws in these 1979 negatives, the data is still there. Will our digital files be readable (or even last) 40 years? Think about it - you already know the answer.....
* My grandmother told me she remembered visiting Vienna with her sister when it still was Hapsburg. It is amazing how many changes have occurred in one century.
