Tripping in Vienna

In 1969, as my family prepared to move to Tripoli, Libya, where my dad had taken a job as a geophysicist, a revolution took place on September 1st of that year. Muammar Gaddafi came to power after overthrowing the government of King Idris I. My dad arrived in Libya a few weeks later in November and my very pregnant mother, my sister, Judy, and I followed along in December. I was not quite 13 years old, Judy was 15. 

There were lots of expat families in Libya at the time and school-aged kids in Tripoli attended kindergarten through 9th grade at the Oil Companies School. This school was centrally located in the area where most of us lived and we typically walked to school. However, kids attending high school had to be bussed to the American Air Force base, Wheelus, to attend their last three years of school. Once Gaddafi came into power, however, he sent the American military packing. Wheelus closed its doors and, with it, went our only high school. The oil companies scrambled to find alternatives, bringing in representatives from multiple boarding schools from across Europe and the U.S. to make presentations to our parents. And of course, the companies covered the tuition.    

For our family this meant Judy headed off to boarding school in Switzerland just months after we arrived in Libya. It wasn’t what my parents had planned, or even knew about when my dad took the job, but we were there, so we went with the flow. Or rather, my parents did, I had nothing to do with decision-making at the time. Two years later at the age of 15, I also headed off to boarding school in Switzerland, taking quite a few of my Tripoli classmates with me and leaving my parents and baby sister Shannon, then only two years old, behind in Tripoli. 

I tell you all of this to give you a bit of history as to how I ended up spending my sophomore, junior and senior years in a swanky Swiss boarding school. And also, how I ended up, at 17, on a very memorable trip to Vienna.  

The school I attended had what they called In Program Travel. I can’t remember exactly how many there were, but two or three times a year the admins would post a sign-up sheet on the community bulletin board near the dining room, each with a specific location of an upcoming trip we could sign up for. Of course we would decide among friends where we wanted to go and sign up together. As seniors, we could plan trips and travel on our own, which is how I ended up backpacking across Sardinia with a classmate. That’s a story for another day, but suffice it to say we had a fabulous trip. Over the years I visited a lot of Europe on these trips, and I loved them. 

What makes Vienna so memorable to me is Schönbrunn Palace. No, scratch that. What makes Vienna so memorable to me is that, for the first time in my life, I dropped acid and then I visited Schönbrunn palace. So when I say “Tripping in Vienna”, I mean that literally. Although not at the present time, of course, but rather 46 years ago. 

I can’t remember how many of us there were in our small group, but on this outing we were on our own, not a chaperone in sight. We entered the grounds on the west side directly into some gardens. There seemed to be lots of centers with fountains, and each time we got to a fountain we thought this was the center of it all. I guess we hadn’t done much prep for our visit because I’m not sure we even knew what Schönbrunn was all about or what to expect. So, off of each center fountain would be several paths, like spokes, leading to yet a bigger fountain. Oh, we thought, this one must be the center of it all. That was kind of our theme for this visit, the “center of it all”. Along the way we paid particular attention to how perfect the trees and grounds were groomed, not a leaf or a blade of grass was out of place, no branch sticking out beyond its neighbor. It was all just perfect. 

We kept walking, finding more paths, fountains and groomed perfection. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw just the edge of a yellow building. We headed that way and, when we came out into the clearing, we were looking at Schönbrunn Palace, the never-ending building that contains 1,441 rooms. We could not believe our eyes. This, clearly, is the true center of it all! Then we turned around to see nearly a kilometer of perfectly manicured trees, bright flowers planted in perfect order, a stunning fountain and beautiful lawns stretching to the top of the hill where our eyes landed on the Gloriette. It was the most spectacular sight I had ever seen. Beyond this point I remember nothing else, except to say it was a pretty fab day. Thanks, Gaddafi!

The stellplatz Steven and I were staying at was run by the same company as the one in Salzburg, and upon check-in, we received a tea towel as a welcome gift. I guess this is to compliment our Salzburg candy dish. Because of our stay in Salzburg we were given a free night if we paid for six, so that’s what we did. We ended up adding another day at the end of our stay, for a total of eight, there was just so much to see. It was about a 45-minute bike ride to the Old Town, and on our first try we deemed Vienna lacking in the bike lane department. Well, there were plenty of bike lanes, but certainly not as well laid out as in other cities we’ve biked around. But with each subsequent trip we found new and better routes, which made the trip easier and more fun. 

On our first day into town we visited the Leopold Museum. Because of COVID, we had decided our exploration would take place outside as much as possible. But even pre-COVID, as a general rule, we don’t visit a lot of sights that have an entrance fee, it’s just not in the budget. If we visited every museum, castle, palace, ruins, church, and so on, we would go broke fairly quickly and be back at the ranch before you could say, “Twelve euros, please.”  We do visit some paid sights, but we are judicious in choosing which ones. In this case, an exhibit of one of Steven’s favorite artists, Egon Schiele, was at the Leopold, so of course we had to go. Schiele is a little dark for my tastes, but another artist who was greatly influenced by him, Friedensreich Hundertwasser (say that fast, three times!) was much more colorful and therefore more to my liking. 

We spent a couple of hours in the museum and really enjoyed it. One thing I found to be very clever was the modification of five of Schiele’s paintings as examples of the new COVID rules visitors should follow. This was my favorite part of the entire exhibit.

On our next outing we visited Schönbrunn Palace. I was so excited to show Steven around. We rode our bikes into a side entrance and through the gardens and out the front gate where we parked and locked up so we could visit on foot. We later found out riding bikes on the palace grounds was verboten when we were stopped by a security guard when trying to retrace our route home. He practically did a body block when we tried to ride back through the front gate. I guess he didn’t see us ride out earlier. Oh, well. It wasn’t much of a detour to go around, which we did. 

First things first during our visit at Schönbrunn, we went to an outdoor cafe on the palace grounds and had breakfast right in front of the palace entrance (See main banner image above). What a view! Do you know the difference between a castle and a palace? Both structures provide housing for royalty and others, but a castle is also built for defense while a palace is built to show off wealth. A bright yellow palace with 1,441 rooms is pretty showy. And this was just a summer home! Oh, and it was a wedding gift to empress Maria Theresa. Those Habsburgs really knew how to do things right, until the entire monarchy fell in the early 1900s. Now the palace is owned by the people of Austria. It is still sometimes used for matters of importance; President John F. Kennnedy met with the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. 

As usual, we did not go inside, however, we did take a 40-room online tour of the interior. If that is of interest, you can find it here.

I did notice that the grounds were not quite as perfect as I remembered, however, it seemed to me there has been a cut in the garden maintenance crew. As we walked up to the Gloriette we noticed seven self-propelled lawn mowers. What the heck?? I swear they used to have guys out there with tweezers. 🙂  Anyhoo, another fab day was had at the infamous Schönbrunn Palace and that made me a happy camper. Steven enjoyed it, too. 

Most of our days in town were spent on our bikes just touring around. The thing about buildings in Vienna is that they are huge and very long. One day we parked our bikes and walked to see places and it was exhausting. And we barely made it to the end of the building! Biking is definitely the way to go. On a Sunday we took our longest ride, joining up with the EuroVelo 9, a 2000 km biking route that starts in the Baltic Sea and ends at the Adriatic. Of course we talked about doing one of those trips, but it took us about an nano-second to nix it. Sixty-ish kilometers is about as far as we’re ever going to go in one day. 

On our last big trip into town we went to visit the Naschmarkt, Vienna’s famous outdoor food market. We planned to have lunch at Neni’s right in the center, but arrived in plenty of time to stroll the lanes and peruse the goods. Between the spices and the sellers insisting we sample their offerings, Steven said it felt like we were back in Morocco! We did try a few things, and of course, bought a few things. Our lunch at Neni was delicious, so thank you to my BFF Cindy for the recommendation!

We spent our last day in Vienna at the campground. Well, I did. I am sad to report that Maxx, our little washing machine, is kaput. Steven spent the majority of his last day in Vienna riding his bike back and forth to the hardware store for tools and various things to try to salvage him, but to no avail. Maxxi cannot be repaired. I confess his demise came at my hands, I knew better than to overload his little spinner, but I guess I did it anyway. Something broke, he sprung a leak and that was that. In the days ahead we really, really missed having him onboard, so we have ordered him again and anticipate delivery in Sens in just a few days. We will travel there to liberate him on our way to Switzerland. YAY!

UP NEXT:  Spoiled rotten in Prague

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