For my final look-back, I'm going to share with you my penultimate day in Vienna. I visited (on my very own –
gulp! – in a country where I speak
none of the language –
eek!)
Schloss Schonbrunn, a huge (there are 1,441 rooms!) 17th
Century palace.
See, I wasn’t kidding – even standing at the grounds entrance gate a good
distance away from the castle, I still couldn’t get it all in! Thus, I turn to
Google Images to do so instead:
Inside, you can’t take
photographs (which is a shame, but understandable), but you can pick up an
audio guide...or a booklet. No prizes for guessing which one I opted for! But
just as my experience with the Mona Lisa in Paris (see my moan here –
http://debspenpot.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/paris-post-une-moan-lisa-and-thats-not.html
), today’s preference for technology left me cold. During my visit, I only
spotted one other person with the booklet – everyone else was using the (to be
fair, quiet and non-static) audio guides.
While I appreciate the technological
advances society has made, over-reliance on technology is, to me, prescriptive and
prohibitive to real, actual experience. You can’t take the audio guide home as
a souvenir, as I have the booklet. You listen to someone else telling you the
history before you even take in each room and its contents (because, as soon as
you see the number relevant to that part of the tour, you press the keys on the
guide), rather than discover and react to your own first impressions, then read
up on it after. You are a sheep following a well-trodden path as you listen to pre-recorded
directions and look at what you’re told to look at, oblivious to the other
sheep and the potential of non-sheep (like me!) standing around you as you bump
into them without excusing yourself, rather than being an individual
(definitely me!), spotting what interests you, sourcing your own intrigue...and
your physical space!
Am I a relic, then, wanting to be
present and to actively engage in my experiences, rather than to hold a device
which assimilates this for me?!
Anyhoo, I’m getting away from my experience of Schonbrunn...!
So, rant aside (sorry!), there I am,
wandering around this amazing stately palace, taking in the sights and noting
thoughts and reactions on my (free!) booklet (and yes, I realise that I’m a
special case – non-writers wouldn’t be doing this!). What struck me the most,
then? Well, the splendour and sumptuousness of the interior, without doubt –
royalty really is another world! I’ve googled the interior and copy a couple of the
images here, so you can see what I mean:
This is a ceramic heater - much more elaborate yet less cosy than one of our fireplaces! - in the Porcelain Room, which is decorated with "213 pen-and-ink drawings which were executed by Franz Stephan and some of his children." Talented family!
On a people-level, I was
impressed with the character of the Empress Elisabeth, who born on 24
th
December 1837. At 16 years old she married Emperor Franz Joseph, and was known
to her family as ‘Sisi’.
Sisi was, so the guide booklet
says, “...a self-confident woman. She led an independent life, travelling
extensively...she kept up her extensive correspondence and wrote her diaries and
her poetry...” She seems to have been a bit of a feminist and certainly an
individual, and I regret now that I didn’t pick up the book about her in the gift
shop, as I’d like to know more about her and her writings. Ah, well, another
visit sometime beckons!
The room which made the most
impact was the one in which I felt, like a shiver over my skin, the stately and
poignant atmosphere – and this was the Vieux-Laque Room. Remodelled in 1765 (so
before Sisi’s reign) at Maria Theresa’s instruction, it forms a memorial to her
beloved late husband, Franz Stephan.
The guide booklet says, “Black
lacquer panels from Peking were set into the walnut wainscoting and embellished
with gold frames.” I found the decor to be truly moving; not overly melancholic
but suitably sober, with lavish embellishment to mark the greatness of the man
she lost. After her own death, a note she’d written was found in her prayer
book. In it, Maria Theresa “...had noted the length of her happy marriage,
right down to the precise number of hours.”
Moving outside, then, the grounds
of Schonbrunn are vast, incorporating gardens, an orangery, Roman ruins, and
even...a zoo! Unfortunately, during my tour of the palace interior, it began to
rain heavily and, though I waited almost an hour, it refused let up, so I didn’t
get to see the gardens or the zoo (which I was really looking forward to!).
Other things that I didn’t have
time to do in Vienna include seeing an opera, riding in a horse-drawn carriage,
or heading outside the city into the mountains...
...all of which means I shall
just have to go back, of course! I’d better get saving those pennies...!
