It’s inevitable that, by having so many different projects going on, one will simmer on the back burner for a long time while I focus on others. This has happened with my historical novel, Double the Stars, which is in a fourth draft, and under consideration by three parties – but, having had a bit of time to learn the world of agents and publishers – may not get beyond that stage in this round (though I hope, of course, that it does). However, life is breathed into the project thanks to Cassie Herschel-Shorland.
Cassie and I met because I co-planned/hosted a ‘Herschel Evening’ at the Whipple Museum in 2010, where I read far too much of a far too early draft of the novel (a good learning experience; a long-suffering audience of about 50 people)! Cassie wasn’t at the Herschel Evening, but her father, John Herschel, and her brother, William, and sister, Amanda, were. They are a delightful family: generous and enthusiastic; all one could want in a subject of research – and in a neighbour.
It turned out that Cassie lived only a short walk down the road from me in the Greenwich area of London. She opened her doors to me and shared a great deal of material for which she’s responsible – mostly, textiles, including a dress that used to belong to Caroline Herschel, the heroine of my novel and Cassie’s great (great great) Aunt.
Wax seal of the Herschel family, in a carved wooden box that was so well-turned the seam didn’t show when it was sealed (perhaps Alexander made it?) – the box was tucked inside a beautifully crocheted green bag: all very small and delicate.
Along with being a Museum Access & Design Consultant, with a fine knowledge of conservation, preservation, and reconstruction, Cassie is completing an MA. Because of our growing friendship and her generosity in sharing her family (and family history) with me (a trip to visit her parents and see many Herschel objects first-hand, and a day trip to Bath with her and her father being some of the highlights,) Cassie was inspired to use Caroline Herschel as the subject for her MA Thesis – to work up an historical reconstruction, an image that is as accurate as it can be, of what Caroline might have looked like around the age at which she appears in my novel. It would be ideal, we agreed, if this could be incorporated into the novel.
As an artist and painter, Cassie has also talked with me about my modelling, and she asked me some time ago if I’d be interested in sitting in period dress. I hadn’t made the connection that she was interested in having me ‘sit’ as Caroline! This past Saturday, I did sit as Cassie made some preliminary sketches. We both know I’m not the right ‘model’ for Caroline, who was absolutely tiny, not curvy at all, and in fact, slightly disfigured by smallpox and typhus. But it’s good exercise for Cassie to think of poses: seated, holding a teacup, holding a book, holding nothing? Turned towards the window, turned towards the viewer?
The charming paper orrery.
We also got to go through a treasure-box of miscellaneous items from one of Cassie’s ancestors (also, I think, a great-aunt,) which was full of bobbins, thread, bits and pieces; tiny sketch-books half-full of intricate drawings, gorgeous fluid handwriting copying extracts of poetry, calling-card cases and crumbling fans made of ivory.
By far my favourite object was a tiny paper globe with two pull-tabs (which Cassie gingerly moved around) – the globe lifts the lid and there are a few layers underneath. The writing is in German, so I’ll have to nudge one friend or another to translate (Meghan!) but I was tickled, because it is precisely the kind of thing we’ve got at the Whipple Museum, and this is precisely where the Whipple obtains wonderful objects like this. Cassie’s partner David discerned ‘the heavens and Earth’ from part of the script, and it is definitely a paper orrery of some kind.
So, the Herschel project continues, but it’s become a part of life, of friendship, of discovery, and I’m so grateful. I would, of course, like Double the Stars to be published eventually, but it’s got to find the right home, and the right set of circumstances, to support this evolving endeavour. It isn’t just a book, and whatever book comes of it must be sensitive to that.
Saturday was a full day. I was collected at 9am to head over to the Chislehurst Arts group, where Rob Wareing was hosting his annual visit from South Africa portrait painting workshop. Rob focused on pastels, and spent about an hour doing a demo: me up on a high stool, sitting in my 1940s pink dress, with an intensely bright, hot light in my face.
I’d brought along my ukulele because after the day of modelling, I was heading over to my friend Rachael Black’s daughter’s 3rd birthday party, and I’d offered to do a little sing-along. (A fun side note: I met Rachael modelling for this portrait class two years ago, and we’ve been close friends ever since.)
The uke case (which people frequently mistake for a small violin) drew some amused attention, so Rob suggested I hold the instrument while he drew me. Much like my pose at the Atelier in Bruges, he actually ended up only sketching my face, so it didn’t matter what I was doing with my hands. (In Bruges, I started off carefully clasping my pink silk robe; two weeks in and my hands were in my lap, where I could move and stretch, because no one was painting them.)
When Ilaria del Turco painted me last autumn in Chelsea, and later heard that I played ukulele, she excitedly suggested we do a portrait of me with it – conjuring, for me, 1920s ‘Boardwalk Empire’ style nude/uke louche yet elegant poses. We’ve yet to do that, but it would be fun – and I’d love for gibson to be immortalised.
Holding gibson while Rob gave the demo was fascinating: usually my mind wanders in all kinds of directions when I pose, but because I only ever hold the uke to play it, holding it then meant all of the songs I know (about 20) floated up in my mind, and I was effectively playing without playing. Also, as Rob spoke, when his voice hit certain low notes, they thrummed through gibson, and it was a great challenge not to give her a strum.
pastel portrait by Joel Wareing, 2012
Rob’s son Joel, who teaches art classes as well, and is currently doing a Masters in painting, joined us for the day, and he was very pleased to get to work in pastels – he explained to me that his course is very technical and research-based, so he hasn’t had the chance to paint for awhile.
The room was comfortably full, with 16 people: 8 painted me, and 8 worked with Peter, a very cheerful fellow with an excellent tan, a bald head, and a prominent nose – offering a lovely contrast, for people to choose between me and him.
Later, at the birthday party, we sang ‘Wimoweh,’ ‘Puff the Magic Dragon,’ ‘With a Little Help from my Friends,’ and ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’. I must say that I had brilliant vocal back-up; there was some real harmonising going on! (Despite the fact that I have the worst timing one could have with a musical instrument and still function.) So all in all, a great success.
The only tricky bit was that some of the sweet 3-year-olds at the party (including the birthday girl,) understandably wanted to have a go on the child-sized instrument, so I had to pack gibson quickly away and explain that next time, when I’ve got it back from France, they can bash on my Mahalo uke all they want.
I’m back in London just in time to do my best to avoid the Olympics, and in the meantime I’ve been able to take part in a few exciting events. Last week I had the opportunity to perform my poem, ‘A Bedbug in Manhattan,’ which I wrote and performed for The Mustard Club’s Resonance FM Radio programme ‘The Gilded Vectors of Disease,’ based on the golden critters adorning the outside of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The LSHTM is displaying a free 2012 Showcase Exhibition, highlighting some of the exciting work they’ve done over the past year. Rebecca Tremain, who arranged and hosted the radio series, invited me back for a live reading, and I was backed up by the dulcet tones of singer Patricia Hammond and musicians Emily O’Hara and Simon Marsh.
We then proceeded to play with insect costumes.
The other exciting bit of news is that the guided walks, Sick City, which I’ve lent my voice to, is now live! The brains and voice behind the project is Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow Richard Barnett, who also played host to the ‘Bedbug’ programme above, at Rebecca’s invitation. Richard writes and presents live guided walks on the medical history of London, and he’s gone digital, putting them online in the form of a smartphone app, which is free to download. So, if you are in London, take yourself on a guided tour. If you aren’t, though, these are a delight to listen to anyway, for fascinating insight into what lies beneath the streets of London, in layers of time, history, and physical earth. Click on ‘conceived in gin‘ to hear one of the more challenging pieces I read for one of the walks – on the history of gin!
It was probably ambitious to think I’d write weekly in a month of sitting for six hours every day, five days each week, and then using my afternoons and days off to explore Belgium. So: I survived the month of modelling in Bruges.
On one hand, the modelling itself was as you might expect: ‘I sit, they paint,’ I wrote to my mom.
Bill Whittaker’s stunning – and rapid – portrait of me, done in about 4 hours.
But in fact, there is a lot going on – in my head, in conversation, and especially in Bill’s teaching. All of this, I wrote down as notes for what will become ‘The Naked Muse,’ my non-fiction reflections on this experience, combined with my five years of past modelling experiences.
So instead of writing about that here, I thought I’d put up a few more pictures of exploring, a few artworks by the wonderful people I met, and say how much I recommend a holiday to the quirky, waffel-filled, pocket-sized, picture-perfect city of Bruges, where I was privileged to live for a month.
Something that’s pretty exciting right now is that my writing of ‘The Naked Muse’ book has been interrupted, because a publisher has asked to see the first two chapters of the non-fiction travel memoir I proposed to them about my Vespa adventures to, and in, the South of France. I’m calling it ‘Vespa for Beginners’.
Amazingly large stork nest in Sluis, the Netherlands, where I cycled twice, the second time with Leslie Duke & Meghan & Brian Sours.
I want to thank my blog readers for this, because I hadn’t thought of the journey itself as something to write about until I began to tell people what I was doing, and they asked me to blog so they could read about the trip. So, it might become a book! Here’s hoping.
It was awfully silly that it hadn’t occurred to me, really, since I try to turn everything into a book. And you’ll be pleased to hear that I still need to collect Vespa from Les Adrets, and have booked the return trip for the end of September – so stay tuned for Episode II…
Brilliant illustration of me reading Jane Eyre, by Meghan Sours.
There’s quite a lot of book-related stuff fizzing and bubbling right now, actually, and it’s all come up in the past week. I’m going to keep mum until there’s anything concrete, however, and we know how long that can take. It may be heartening to hear that it involves two novels I’d ‘shelved,’ so though I don’t know what will happen, it’s nice to think that old work mightn’t be dead.
I could say the situation ‘has great potential,’ but then I’d sound like I work for Foxtons. And I could say ‘fingers crossed,’ but really, we’re all writing and typing and that would be awkward. Sometimes it feels like I’ve built a house of cards: it could fall and reveal a solid, pleasing little structure, or it could fall, and there will be nothing underneath.
Because people tend to have difficulty recognising me, I can look so different (I should be a spy) – a photo from two days ago, after my haircut!
So this may be a bit of a post where I’m not saying much, only to say I’m off to Bulgaria tomorrow, where it’s supposed to be awfully hot and sunny, and I’m glad for that. But I have missed rainy, grey London, and I’ll look forward to being back for a stretch, and hopefully to having more to share, and hopefully seeing some of you, whom I know, in person. Meanwhile, good luck writing, reading, etc!
On Friday 11 May, I trekked up to Crouch End Broadway for my first day of book-selling for Peirene Press. Lucky for me, it was a sunny day.
I first hiked to the far-flung reaches of North London (I live near Greenwich, so it really does seem far away,) to meet Meike, the publisher and mastermind behind this successful independent press which exclusively translates award-winning European fiction into English for the first time. On that afternoon a few weeks ago, it was cold and rainy, and after two and a half hours standing by the book-stall with Meike, I was absolutely frozen.
Undaunted, I resolved to carry out a full day of book-selling, not least because I love the concept behind Peirene – novellas (and one short story collection thus far) which can be read in the time it takes to watch a film.
The lovely Peirene Press books!
I was also pleased to no end, upon arranging the book-selling with Meike, when she sent me a copy of each of their books so I could read them (in order to talk about them, in order to enthuse about them) — and I absolutely love the books, which are dark & deeply intellectual, but quick reads. There is a lot to think about if you choose, but zippy stories are at the fore. Each book is very different from the next, and they vary in their origins – there are German, French, Catalan, and Danish texts. This is stuff that I admit I haven’t read much of, save Pushkin’s Eugine Onegin, (loved it,) and I quickly discovered two more presses whom I’m in love with, though Peirene gets credit for opening my mind to European literature.
Pushkin Press has a similar bent to Peirene – or perhaps I should say Peirene is like Pushkin, as Pushkin have been around longer. Pushkin Press produce deliciously pocket-sized books, or at least purse-sized books, translated from European literature. I just finished ‘Dying’ by Arthur Schnitzler. There’s a good review of it here. The story and characters ring absolutely true, emotionally. I spent the first half of the book slightly distracted by the fact that I was not convinced that Felix was actually dying, but it didn’t matter because the whole point was how his conviction that he is dying preys on his mind. The psychology and philosophy in this book is rich, and I want to come back to it. It would be a brilliant book to teach in a philosophy course, or a literature course.
Another press I’ve discovered, whose books I would like one copy of each (please. My birthday’s in January, for the record.) is Persephone Books. Meike has taken a cue from this successful press in setting up Peirene, and I feel like I’m getting to know, and help grow, something that will make a difference, and could last a long time. Creating a community of readers, creating beautiful books whose exteriors and interiors are treated with equal import – form and function, cover and contents. I want a book that will enlighten and transport me, and if I want to stroke it and sniff the pages, so much the better. Peirene’s doing that for me, and I’m so very excited to see where she goes next.
How best to arrange the books…
If that isn’t enough of a reading list for you (all books from Peirene, Persephone, and Pushkin,) I’m going to try to refocus this post and talk a little bit about my day book-selling. It was absolutely lovely, a sunny day, with lots of people walking up and down the Broad Street. It was our first day trying a Friday – so far, the Roaming Store has only been out on Saturdays, so Meike was curious about how that might be different.
The morning was busy, and I set up the stall with great care, worrying that I might miss something (Meike wasn’t coming until the afternoon, when she’d stand in while I wen to get lunch). I set up the stall to my satisfaction, and then stood and smiled and wondered what would happen. I quickly realised that, as Meike had explained, we need to be active in talking to people, and drawing them in, but it is a delicate balance of noticing when a person is pausing or hesitating – when they are expressing an inkling of interest in the Stall (even if it is simply ‘what is this?’) that I step in and say, ‘Can I give you more information?’ ‘Have you heard of Peirene Press?’ or something similar.
I would say only two or three times in the entire day did I get a ‘no’ to one of those types of question, and even then, there were only maybe two grumpy people, so that was pretty good. The best times were engaging with chats with people, getting across the message about the books, and sharing my own enthusiasm and recommendations. There were a few exciting encounters where someone was already familiar with us and had read a lot of the books, and wanted to know when the next was coming out, or had read about us online and wanted to know more. And I did sell books!
I was on my feet the whole day, but buoyed up by intermittent conversations. Fortunately, it didn’t get very windy, and the sun was actually in my face for much of the morning – probably an unusual occurrence. I’m wracking my brain for where in the Blackheath / Greenwich area would be suitable for a Peirene Roaming Store / book-stall, and I have a few ideas…
Before I went to Vienna, I mentioned that I’d been invited to a ‘Blogger’s Breakfast’ and exclusive tour of the ‘Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist’ exhibit at the Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace.
I’m pleased to say that my review of this has led to my first piece with the British Medical Journal, which is posted here. So I shall not say too much in this post about the exhibit, and ask that you kindly read it in the link, but I will put up a photo of the delightful Martin Clayton, Exhibition Curator, whose job we all must envy enormously.
I also think it’s brilliant that, despite the fact that I was joking in my post about ‘meeting the Queen’ for this event, I did actually see the Queen! By pure coincidence, just as I was leaving the exhibition, I ran smack into crowds assembled to see her ride past in her Carriage to give her Speech at Parliament.
I was able to snap a photo of the Regalia going past in a slightly less ornate carriage, and then I decided to look at the Queen rather than look through my screen, so I didn’t take a photo of her. But it was a perfect end to the morning.
Megan volunteered to sing with the St Augustin choir when she moved to Vienna, and she invited me to attend Mass on Sunday to hear the music. I was stunned to enter a cathedral-sized church, with not only the organ, but what sounded like a full orchestra, and a many-voiced choir high up in the back. It was a stunning performance, and I’m also amazed that many of the singers are volunteers: Megan is of course a trained singer, but I really think to get that sound they must have to tell some people that they can’t join? Anyway, I sat in a beautifully carved, desperately uncomfortable pew (wood, with a panel right across the lower-shoulder blades that meant one could not lean back comfortably, but this isn’t about comfort, after all,) and was steeped in clouds of incense.
Megan’s choir sang a ‘Messe C-Dur,’ which I take to mean a Mass in C-Minor, with music from Schubert.
One of the characters about whom M writes in her own blog is a formidable lady who apparently runs things, whom M dubbed ‘Mildred’ because she didn’t catch the lady’s first name. This very lady exchanged addresses with M so they could write to one another, upon which M learned the lady’s name is actually Lisa. Lisa invited M to lunch after Mass, and Megan had already arranged to meet me, so I was absorbed into the invitation. Later, M & I decided that ‘Mildred’ was a more apt name than Lisa for our hostess. Tugging a wheeled shopping bag behind her at alarming speed, this 80-year-old lady blazed down the road to Cafe Mozart, explaining (in perfect English – she taught as an English teacher for much of her life,) that she wanted us to see the professionalism of the waiters at this Cafe, and that it had been re-built on the site of the oldest Cafe in Vienna, and that all the tourists go to cafes for the cake (guilty!) but the food is in fact amazing and we had to try the lamb…
The tornado calmed somewhat: we were seated straight away, and Mildred announced that she was there for her usual lamb, and helped us select some traditional dishes. I chose Tafelspitz. This was beautifully boiled beef in a clear broth, floating beside a knuckle of bone with perfectly softened marrow ready to eat. There were slices of boiled parsnip and carrot, and a separate small dish of creamed spinach, accompanied by a perfect dome of golden-fried potato shreds, and finally, two small dishes: cream with chives, and apple sauce with shreds of fresh horseradish. Mildred instructed me to mix the latter sauces all together to get a ‘blend of sweet and sour,’ and it really did taste amazing. I cut off the strip of perfect fat along the crescent of boiled beef with some guilt, feeling like I should eat every morsel of this carefully prepared dish, and I even made sure to try the bone marrow (not bad for a former vegetarian).
Megan had a large, fluffy pancake chopped up and served with cream and sweet berry sauce. She later said she’d had three cakes in one meal: that was her main course, another traditional dish treated as a main course. Mildred had her lamb – the best in Vienna! – and then she continued to force-feed us by ordering two cakes for dessert. One was an enormous thin, crunchy waffle cone coated in hard chocolate, filled with cream and fresh strawberries, with a bit of shortcake and strawberry mousse hiding within the cone. The second was a marzipan and coffee flavoured layer cake. We also had coffee (I carefully tried a tiny espresso – I’ve learned that coffee with milk makes me jittery to the point of being unwell for hours, but for some reason coffee with no milk seems ok) and Mildred dashed back to the church to find her coat, which she was convinced she’d brought with her, but we gently insisted she hadn’t.
An important point to note about this lunch was that Mildred, with the help of our waiter, selected a glass of white wine for Megan and me, and a glass of red for herself, which she offered to us to try. ‘Is this Austrian wine?’ I asked with surprise – ‘Of course!’ Mildred said, ‘But it has a French name.’ (She’d picked a Cabernet for us.) It was incredible wine, as was her red, and it restored my faith in Austrian wine which had been severely tested the night before, in the taverns.
‘Mildred’ (Lisa) and Megan in front of the Sisi Fountain.
Throughout lunch, Megan and I sat and listened to Mildred’s stories. We talked about the concert and opera Megan had taken me to, and Megan was amazed at some of the famous people Mildred has heard perform in Vienna throughout her lifetime – (I’m afraid I don’t have the understanding of this subject to be suitably impressed, but I’m sure Megan will name the correct names with the correct amount of respect on her blog when she writes about this). At one point, Mildred told us that she’d finally come to appreciate how important it was to buy herself tickets to get good seats to shows. ‘When I was young, I was too worried about saving money,’ she said, ‘My mother wanted to have a good seat for the opera, but I never got her one…I wish I had now.’ We all got teary at that, and then the tornado took off again, and we hurried behind like ducklings, careful not to get run over by her two-wheeled shopping bag, as she took us on a swift walking tour through the city, to the Volksgarten.
‘We used to have to queue for hours for potatoes,’ Mildred told us, ‘I remember getting up at three in the morning, and standing there until eight in the morning…and the people two, three ahead of me, they got the last two potatoes. There were none left…They gave us peas. We realised every single pea – every single pea – had a worm in it: we soaked the peas overnight, we peeled them apart, one by one: into one bucket went the peas; into one bucket went the worms. We made everything out of peas: bread made of peas, soup made of peas, flour made of peas…I remember we had to take a train to cross the border; the train was so full of people, and we did not know when it would leave. I was young and not afraid: I climbed right to the top of the train, to sit on the roof! My mother was afraid, but she would not leave me: she climbed up beside me. We waited and waited; we climbed on that train at 10 in the morning…it left at eight at night. In the night, the Russian soldiers climbed on the train: they were looking for women. I was twelve years old. My mother, she covered me with a blanket, she hid me…’
The impromptu tour from this remarkable woman, woven with her remarkable memories, helped me revise my opinion of Vienna. It has the same sort of love for life, food, family and friends as I’ve felt travelling in Bulgaria: the feel of a satisfied being which still remembers the pangs of hunger, the memory of fear. A culture that knows what it is to want, but no longer has to want, and so rejoices in a bounty it did not always have. A culture entitled to its cake.
I remember riding up a steep, winding road on my Vespa, going at about 20 miles per hour, ‘vrim-vrimming’ towards a perched village in the South of France in the winter sunshine, my friend Caitlin bravely holding onto my waist. When we made it to the top, and paused to overlook the sprawling landscape, I said, ‘This is one of the most romantic things I’ve ever done.’
Saturday in Vienna was like that, and I laughed about it with Megan, but we also acknowledged that (and forgive me for a hugely sexist comment,) maybe it is easier for us to share these sublime moments with our girlfriends, because frequently the men in our lives just don’t experience it the same way (thus far, I can think of exactly one exception).
So, cruising the Danube River in the sunshine, passing vineyards and ruined castles, was one of the most romantic things I’ve ever done in my life with a girl friend.
But first, we took the train to Melk Abbey. It is a sprawling complex perched atop a rocky outcrop, overlooking the charming, tiny town of Melk. The abbey is painted a similar rich yellow to Schonbrunn Palace, and all I could say as we approached, was, ‘well, it gives you an idea of the wealth of the church, doesn’t it?’ We were blessed with a gorgeous, sunny day, so we took a walk around the gardens first, admiring a cafe/orangerie gazebo that surely must be used for weddings. It is like a cake itself, painted with pastel murals inside; baroque, beautiful, and over-the-top.
In the Herb Garden, overlooking Melk, and beyond.
The gardens are dotted with a surprising variety of what we could only conclude was ‘modern art,’ including mirrors with words you could read by looking into the opposite mirror, metal grates for vine flowers which also employed the use of phrases and words, and a mirrored gazebo with a mirror in the ceiling so you could read more sayings and phrases. There were quite a few mirrors, come to think of it. It was a great chance for Megan to stretch her German vocabulary, and she did an admirable job, but as far as we could conclude, the words and phrases ‘friendship, life, death,’ etc didn’t amount to any deep philosophy. The gardens were beautiful, though, and we especially admired the herb garden perched on the south-facing side of the hill overlooking the village.
Finally, we gave up the sunshine to go through the Abbey. I do admire the organisation of these tours – again, like Schonbrunn, you aren’t pelted with information, but enough is there to get a very good idea of the history of the place, without feeling like your brain has been drained of all ability to think. I also got a distinct flavour of how carefully constructed these stories are; a definite bias or possibly even propaganda element: but then, surely that is true of how any place (palace, museum, monastery,) presents itself, and I’m perhaps being sensitive to being in Eastern Europe (ish).
Ecclesiastical bling.
Megan and I were particularly taken with the famous library, and here I’m going to go into a painfully American reference. Most girls, growing up, will have seen the Disney film version of Beauty and the Beast, and most girls who are like me will remember that they cared little for the Beast and his castle, but would have given their right arm for the library, into which Belle is absorbed. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the impossibly huge room, and, crucially, the ladders which reach from floor-to-ceiling, giving access to any book. Melk Abbey’s library is a real version of this dream-library.
We gawped. We pined. We gazed. And we were desperately curious as to whether the monks (who presumably reside in much of the complex that tourists aren’t allowed into,) still make use of the books here. God I hope so. If these books are chained away for tourist eyes (and we can’t take photos!) – and I saw sugar ants running a path through one of the windows, making my guts constrict – oh, no, the books, the books…(Swoon.)
The church within the abbey is a riot of baroque gold, in-your-face theatrical drama. We later learned (from Mildred, whom you’ll meet in the next blog post,) that it was in fact designed by someone who designed theatre sets, which explains a lot. I had a great discussion with Megan about how this sort of ostentation does not befit what I would think of as a concept of ‘god’ if I believed in ‘god’ – and to be fair, the nearest, most comfortable religion, or spirituality, I’ve come to in recent years is Quakerism, so that is the other end of the spectrum.
Along the Danube.
Megan made an excellent point that at the time, this church needed to draw people in, or back in, and creating high drama and theatre drew people to church. The spectacle for the rich, was something that impressed the poor, and seemed unreachable but worth worshipping, aspiring to, even if that would only be reached in heaven. As we looked at the gold decor and considered this, some startlingly modern music began to play – and a wedding party began to process out! So we stayed to watch the bride (I, all the while, amazed that this spectacle had become a living spectacle, and that these people having the wedding must be aware of and ok with the fact that they too were on display,) and we admired her dress, and Megan cried a little bit because ‘I always cry at weddings,’ and then we went back out into the sunshine.
A rather important part of our day excursion to Melk was the round-trip nature of our transport. We’d bought a ‘package deal’ that included rail fare to Melk, entrance to the Abbey, a river boat cruise to another village (name escapes me at the moment,) and rail fare from there back to Vienna. We were aware that there were only four boats per day, so M kept careful track of the time in order for us to be on time for our boat. Upon arriving in Melk, we’d seen the well-marked sign, pointing across a footbridge to where the boats were.
So we gave ourselves a bit of time – plenty, so we thought – to walk there. Except, upon crossing the bridge, all sign-posting broke down, and we found ourselves in a car park, not beside a river with boats as we’d anticipated. We were slightly nervous, but still convinced we had enough time, and M asked the car park attendants about the boats; they waved us in a direction, and we followed it. There were signs for about four different docks, pointing in four different directions.
Village along the Danube.
Nothing on our tickets, or in our guidebook, or on the signs, indicated which dock we needed to go to. It was then that the ‘hero’ of our day appeared: a battered-looking taxi driven by an equally battered-looking cab driver, asking if we were looking for the tour boat (we were,) and of course, instead of telling us where to go, attempting to usher us into his cab because he would take us. We declined and hurried to the nearest dock, following a short path along the river, only to be told by the man at the dock that we were meant to go to the dock over there, (far enough that it would take too long to walk, at that point,) and we were probably going to miss the boat.
At which point, our cab driver pulls up, grinning, and says (it doesn’t matter that it was in German; it translates into any language,) ‘I told you so.’
So we climb into the cab, and he break necks it to the dock, in a huge fluster of worked-up excitement, scrambling out and saying ‘you must get the tickets!’ and the lady at the ticket booth shouting, ‘no, just go to the boat!’ and the true hero of our day, the man at the correct dock (young, blonde, and handsome,) smiling and saying ‘calm down, the Captain has seen you, you will make it on board.’
And then our cab driver charging €10 (TEN EUROS) for this favour he did us. We didn’t have the time to argue. I concluded that we would not have made the boat if it weren’t for him, and he probably made a killing on this whole procedure, ‘panic-inducing’ included, and he must be in cahoots with whomever put up the poorly marked signs. Once we settled aboard, I had a beer.
Sunshine!
Laughing and sweating, Megan and I felt like silly tourists indeed, but once we were off, the cruise unwound into an unreally beautiful stretch of lazy blue sky, John Constable-esque clouds, ruined castles, and terraced vineyards. It was here I acknowledged the romance of the day, and felt that despite being dependant on the weather (as any outdoor trip is,) this would make a brilliant honeymoon. Just try to give yourself time to find the right boat dock.
On the train back to Vienna, I watched lightning cut through the sky as Megan had a nap; we were tired from walking and from sunshine, and we realised that we hadn’t even had lunch (an no cake! But we made up for it the next day…) so we shared some cheese, crackers, and nuts on the train. A heavy storm lashed across the train as we sped through the flat, green landscape back to the city. By the time we arrived, the storm had passed (or we’d passed through the storm,) and we decided to press on with our original plan of visiting a classic tavern for supper.
At supper, with the obligatory accordion player in the background.
Heurigen, or wine taverns, are classic locals’ places, found on the outskirts of the city. They sell their own wine, and have a buffet from which you can choose your own salads, sides, and roasted meat. The plate of food is weighed up and you are charged by the weight; this amounts to a much cheaper meal than ordering from the menu, and you also are able to get just the right amount of food. Megan and I weren’t terribly hungry after our picnic of cheese and nuts, but we wanted to try the real Heurigen experience, so we popped into a few taverns before settling on one with a bustling atmosphere that was more full of locals than tour groups (choose carefully).
There was an accordion player, and too much cigarette smoke for my liking (the only complaint I have about Vienna,) but we enjoyed modest plates of potato salad, bean salad, and a perfect piece of roast pork each, and a glass of absolutely awful, sour white wine. I was intrigued that the wine was so terrible.
The advertising is true! This even looked like the guy in the above photo, and I’m sure it is him…he wasn’t quite so smiley in real life…
We took our time over supper, and then wandered towards the tram, before peeling off and deciding to poke our heads into a different Heurigen, unsure whether we’d be able to try another glass of wine (I was still hopeful,) or whether we’d be expected to have another buffet. We were welcomed into a bustling tavern, more busy than the last and equally full of locals, and were served glasses of red wine just as the accordion player and violin player struck up a song accompanied by a young lady singing bawdily.
For the next hour, we were somehow caught up in a whirlwind of music, in which the accordion player, who had patted Megan’s behind upon entry, took it in turns to sit beside us and make us seriously consider leaving (if it weren’t for being trapped and also deafened by the accordion – not my favourite instrument!) and also conversation with the sweet young woman singing – it was her first night there, ‘you could tell those two were Spanish,’ (she said, referring to the harmless but leering musicians,) she was training as a singer…she and Megan had a good chat about music (shouting a bit over the noise). Then the tables around us struck up some local songs, and everyone was singing, and the red wine was just as vinegary and terrible as the white wine, but it didn’t matter.
The too-friendly-but-harmless accordion player, from whom we made a calculated escape!
We escaped when the musicians moved to the far end of the room to serenade other customers, and caught the tram home to Schwester Christine’s apartment.
On Friday, Megan and I met (after her morning school run with the children,) at ‘Schloss Schonbrunn,’ Schonbrunn Palace, an enormous yellow building rivalled only by Versailles, set within sprawling park and gardens a short train ride out of Vienna. The palace was begun in 1695 and completed by Maria Theresa’s court architect in the 1740s. The stout Maria Teresa is the main figure overlooking the palace – she has a touch of the Queen Victoria matronly severity about her.
Images of her, however, jostle with another female figure: ‘Sisi,’ or Empress Elizabeth, a troubled icon made, unfortunately, into the face of Vienna: tea towels, barbie dolls, etc. Why anyone would want their daughter to look up to an anorexic, nervous, depressed woman who felt trapped within an arranged marriage and was assassinated whilst travelling is beyond me. She’s a tragic figure when looked at from one perspective, and an unhappy girl who didn’t do much with the power and wealth she had to hand on the other. She was also, apparently, a poet, and I was curious about this, but wasn’t able to find her work in any extensive translation.
The tour of Schonbrunn is well-handled: guests are herded through in timed group tours with audio-guides pressed to their ears, but they don’t give too much information, so you come out of the tour of a select handful of rooms without feeling totally exhausted, having been able to actually absorb much of the history piped into your ear.
I know, it’s too big to take home in my carry-on luggage…
Megan and I didn’t tour the grounds or gardens of the Palace, as it was drizzling with rain and we were after higher things: schnitzel. Megan used my visit as an excuse to track down a recommended ‘locals’ schnitzel place near the Mariahilferstrasse. We decided to share a schnitzel, but were each served an enormous plate with a huge schnitzel, and a side of fries/chips. (It was pork – or was it chicken? – schnitzel, I should add: we didn’t go in for the veal.) Undaunted, we each devoured the entire delicious, pounded, succulent fried meat.
Megan had to rush off to meet the children (not a good idea to run after eating schnitzel,) but she sent me a text about the street market we’d passed on the way to the tavern: it’s only on twice a year! I decided to wander my way through the market. On leaving the restaurant, I saw a pair of bewildered tourists looking at their plates: each had two huge schnitzels on them. So we had split a dish after all!
I wandered through the market and bargained for a painted metal soldier: a little drummer man which I gave to Megan later as a gift. The market was full of antique typewriters, jewellery, bric-a-brac; local foods, high-street goods from the shops behind spilling out their sale items into the road, makeup, books…I wandered all the way back into town, browsing and window-shopping (apparently a Viennese Major Sport,) and eventually made it to Cafe Demel, another famous ‘must’ on par with Cafe Sacher.
apfelstrudel at Demel.
I explored the whole cafe to see the interior decor before settling at the small bar to enjoy a pot of green tea and apfelstrudel (apple strudel). Demel sells chocolates wrapped in beautiful boxes and papers, so I bought a few of them as gifts to bring home. I whiled away the time like a good cafe-goer before meeting Megan – rushing from leaving the children – at the opera, where we made it into our standing spots just before the doors closed.
Not the best view of the stage, but a good view of the house!
Thus followed a brilliant evening at the opera, only marred by my nagging cough, which was fortunately (in this case) backed up by the nagging cough of someone standing behind me – so when an angry Spanish or possibly Portuguese tourist turned and shouted at me to leave, I was able to say ‘it isn’t me!’ because, just by chance, that time, it wasn’t!
The Viennese will shoot glares at you over their shoulder silently (like the couple at the concert did to me the previous evening) – but this lady wasn’t having it. The thing is, she was leaning over the people next to her, filming the show with her phone! Ah, etiquette in the theatre. Or Opera. Or concert. Buoyed up by water and lots of Polo mints, I managed to get through the show without annoying anyone too much (except for the grumpy woman who left halfway through anyway).
Kelley Swain 