Vienna

We arrived in Vienna in snow heavy enough to stop the train, fortunately for us, in Vienna. We made it to our hotel without difficulty. High on our list of things to do in Vienna was to experience the Vienna Opera House. Our hotel was nearly across the street from it. The only performance available during our three night stay was the Verkungene Fest/Josephs Legende ballet choreographed by John Neumier, so that is what we saw, trudging through the snow the evening we arrived.

Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna Opera House)

So we had our "night at the Opera" (well, ballet). Here is the web site's sampling of the performance:

The opera house opened in 1869 to Mozart’s Don Giovanni in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph I. Its heyday was under the direction of Gustav Mahler from 1897 to 1907. During 1938-1945 under the Nazis, many works were not allowed to be performed. Many performers were pursued and killed.  Much of the opera house was destroyed by Allied bombing during WWII.

     Undoubtedly, the opera house has been well restored, but the glory days are gone. The performance we saw was first rate, yet paled in comparison to the ballet I had seen at New York's Lincoln Center when Rudolph Nureyev was still dancing, and Mihail Barishnakov career was taking off. We had a very pleasant evening, and did not slip on the ice even once.

Schloss Belvedere (Belvedere Palace)

The history of The Belvedere dates back to the late 18th century and the ruling Habsburg dynasty. During the 19th century, it served various roles both as a palatial home, and home to renowned art collections. In 1896, Emperor Franz Joseph I decided that upper Belvedere should serve as residence to his nephew Franz Ferdinand, better known as Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand triggered WW I, and the subsequent collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918.

    After WW I in November 1918, the art historian Franz Haberditzl submitted a request that the Belvedere be given to the state. The request was granted, and the palace was nationalized. Considerable damage occurred during WW II. The palaces reopened in 1953 and has served as a world-class museum ever since.

Perhaps the most celebrated member of the Belvedere collection today is The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. The painting is spectacular. The lighting is spectacular. The setting is spectacular.

There is so much there. We were both swept away by another work, the 1935 painting by Max Oppenheimer called The Philharmonic.  

Oppenheimer was an accomplished musician as well as artist. His understanding of musical nuance enabled him to capture the moment of crescendo so vividly, one almost hears the score. Gustav Mahler is conducting.

Gustav Mahler conducting

Max Oppenheimer fled Austria and emigrated to the United States in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution.

IMPRESSIONISM

A reproduction of this Van Gogh painting was in the living room of Jessica's childhood home on Van Ness Avenue in Los Angeles.  She finally discovered the original at The Belvedere.

Vincent van Gogh, The Plains of Auvers (1890)

FIN DE SIÈCLE AND VIENNESE SECESSION

Gustav Klimt, Avenue to Schloss Kammer (1912)    

Gustav Klimt, Cottage Garden with Sunflowers (1906)    

EXPRESSIONISM

Egon Schiele, Portrait of the publisher Eduard Kosmack (1910)

Egon Schiele, The Family (1918)

Egon Schiele, The Embrace (1917)

Restaurant Steirereck

     While in Vienna, we indulged in a pre-Valentine’s Day splurge at Steirereck, named as one of the 50 best restaurants in the world.  We have not eaten at all the restaurants in the world, but after a sumptuous dinner at Steirereck, we concur that “Chef Heinz Reitbauer pushes the boundaries of Austrian cuisine in thrilling ways at his beautiful restaurant in Vienna’s central park.”  Who knew that strange ingredients like calamansi, tench, salsify, bergamot, puntarella, yacon root and marinated reinanke could taste so good?

Kunsthistoriches Museum

     The Kunsthistoriches Museum was built during the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph to house the extensive collection of the House of Hapsburg.  Built on the Ringstrasse, it opened in 1891.

Top of the staircase

Ceiling paintings by Gustav Klimt

The museum has a wonderful collection of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

Pieter Bruegel, Winter Landscape

Leopold Museum

     Located in the Museum Quarter, the Leopold Museum houses the largest collection of the works by Austrian expressionist painter Egon Schiele and has many examples of Succession and Austrian art nouveau paintings, furniture and arts and crafts.

Egon Schiele, self-portrait

Egon Schiele, Wally, 1916, 

Gustav Klimt, Life and Death, 1916  

Budapest - part 2

photo by Richard Bogdán at Millenniumi emlékmű, Budapest

Millenniumi emlékmű (Millennium Monument) is to Andrássy Avenue as the Arc de Triumphe is to Champs-Élysées.

Museum of Fine Arts              Millennium Monument
Heroes' Square

Construction began in 1896 to commemorate 1,000 the year anniversaries of the 

Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin and the foundation of the Hungarian state in 896.

Behind us in the photograph, there are statues of 14 men. The man, second from the far right, is Lajos Kossuth, a famous Hungarian lawyer, journalist, politician and Regent-President of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1848-49. He was well known in the United States and - Cleveland, Ohio as a champion of democracy. 

                              Budapest                                                  Washington, D.C.

David E Davis Sculpture Garden

Euclid Avenue between Chester & MLK

Cleveland, Ohio

Buda
Our first day we began our exploration of Budapest, starting with Buda, the oldest part of the city, which was settled after the withdrawal of the Mongol invaders in 1242. Climbing to the top of Gellert Hill, we experienced a spectacular view of the entire city.

photo by Richard Bogdán

Perched at the top of Gellert Hill is the famous Liberty Statute (referred to by the locals as the world’s largest bottle opener). 

Behind this stature lies a remarkable back-story. After World War I ended, the Treaty of Versailles was signed five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Few would disagree that the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles contributed to the conditions that led to World War II. However, not just Germany was dealt with harshly. Hungary lost a large amount of land under the terms of the treaty.
    Miklós Horthy served as Regent of the Kingdon of Hungary between the World Wars. In the late 1930's, Horthy formed an alliance with Nazi Germany. With Hitler's support, Horthy was able to reclaim much of the Hungarian land lost after World War I. However, Horthy would neither contribute to the German war effort, nor participate in the deportation of Hungarian Jews, which ultimately led to the invasion of Hungary by Germany in March 1944.
   Early during the WW II effort, Miklós Horthy's son was killed in an aviation accident. A statue was commissioned in memory of Horthy's son, and the statue was begun but never completed. The statue was to become a figure, holding a broken propeller over his head while standing in the wreckage of the aircraft.
    Budapest was bombed by the allies at the start of WW II, and bombed by the Germans at the end of the war to destroy bridges and resources as a last stand against the Russian army that was advancing through Hungary toward Berlin. The Russians of course prevailed, and when the Russians "liberated" Hungary, they wanted a monument in Budapest to their "liberty" under Soviet style Communism. Thus, the Liberty Statue was transformed by the original sculptor from a figure holding a broken propeller to a woman (modeled after a Hungarian nurse) holding a palm frond to the sky. The aircraft wreckage disappeared from the plan.
     Interestingly, the statue does not face Budapest, but rather looks to the east toward its Soviet inspiration. After much struggle, Hungary did of course emerge from Soviet dominance. The Hungarians, an eminently practical people, did not take down the statue. Rather than removing the statue, the Hungarians decided to leave it where she stands to show the Russians what freedom really looks like.
    This back-story comes from Richard Bogdán, our Budapest guide and history buff.

Dohany Street Snyagogue

The Dohany street Synagogue was built in the middle of the 19^th century in Romantic style for the 30,000 members of the Jewish community of Pest. The onion domes are strikingly Oriental-Byzantine, as is the face; the patterns in the brickwork were inspired by ancient ruins in the Middle East. It was a architectural novelty in its day with some Christian touches like a pulpit and large organ.  

    The Jews of Budapest were largely assimilated and were well represented in the mercantile and professional  classes of the city. For that reason, the Hungarians, although allies with Germany in WWII, were reluctant to comply with Hitler’s orders to deport its Jewish citizens. However, when Hungary tried to exit the war after the writing was on the wall, a pro-Nazi government took over and in only 52 days with only 19 Nazi soldiers, they were able to deport about 600,000 Hungarian Jews, mostly from the countryside where the Orthodox Jews resided. Because the Nazis ran out of time, most of the Jews of Budapest were spared Auschwitz.

     The synagogue was spared as well.  As the tallest structure in Budapest, Nazis antennaes had been placed on the top of the domes and the Nazis headquartered themselves in the building.

The House of Terror Museum

This was the most reviled building in Budapest during the mid 20^th century. Converted to a museum, the House of Terror opened in 2002 amidst controversy. It is intended as a monument to the memory of those held captive, tortured and killed in this very building under the Arrow Cross Party (the Hungarian Nazi Party) between 1937-1945, and between 1945 and 1956 under the Stalinist-inspired AVO and its successor the AVH.

     The criticism is that it touches very lightly on the Nazis-era (one room) with numerous rooms dedicated to the abuses of the Stalinist Hungarian Communist Party. The museum opened shortly before an important national election to bolster the conservative right re-election. Fair or unfair, the museum serves as a powerful reminder of the barbarity and sadism of both the Nazis and the Communists. 

     At one point, we found ourselves packed into an elevator creeping lower into the depths of hell seemingly for eternity, trapped facing a video of a survivor describing in excruciating detail the methodology of executions performed in the basement dungeon. These two chapters of atrocity by the Nazis and subsequently by the Soviets are well captured by the design of the museum, assuring that the memory will not be lost by the Hungarian people or by the world.

_____________________________

On a lighter note, a section of Pest referred to as Elizabeth City is undergoing tremendous renovation. This building on Kazinzy Street (now becoming Culture Street) was saved from destruction.

We stepped through that door, and this video shows what we found on the other side.

First stop - Budapest

photo by Richard Bogdán
taken from the site of the "Statue of Liberty"
The Danube and the Pest side of Budapest in the background

Our plan here in Europe included touring Central Europe. We have begun our trip in Budapest. Our AirFrance flight from Paris was uneventful as was our ride to downtown Budapest, and to one of the most beautiful hotels we have ever seen.

Budapest is the capital of Hungary with a population of two million people.  The city is divided into two parts, separated by the Danube River, the hilly Buda side to the west, and the sprawling flat Pest area to the east. 

Brief history

Unlike US history which dates back about three hundred years, the story of Hungary begins in Roman times. The country has experienced many setbacks starting with the Mongol invasion during the 13^th century by two grandsons of Genghis Khan that wiped out over half of the population, an occupation by the Turks, absorption into the Hapsburg dynasty, and of course two world wars during the 20^th century.  At its heights, Hungary’s borders touched three seas—the Baltic to the north, the Black to the east, and the Adriatic to the south. Today, Hungary occupies a tiny fraction of that land and is land-locked.

Our stay at the Four Seasons Budapest was orchestrated by Deedee, my step-sister and travel agent supreme.

Completed in 1906, and completely renovated in 2004, it represents a fine example of Art Nouveau architecture. Originally, it was home to the London based Gresham Life Assurance Company and called the Gresham Palace.  Being off-season and referred by Deedee who frequently books clients at this property, we were upgraded to a remarkable room with a remarkable view of the Danube River.

view from our balcony

The lobby was a great mix of old-world elegance, with subdued modern touches. The chandelier at first looks like a piece by Dale Chihuly. It was actually made by glass artists from the Czech Republic.