… I felt totally lost in Vienna. The studio apartment had no maps, and I couldn't seem to track down a tourist information place. The internet maps I found didn't seem to link to anything I could recognise. So after a shaky start to my relationship with the metro, it was the metro I depended on in the end. The main part of town was actually only a stop away. While I was wandering around being overwhelmed by the opera house I stumbled on a hop-on-and-off bus, so I travelled on it for an hour and got some sense of what was where, as well as a map – which I probably won't need now, because I'll be in the hands of locals.
My impressions of Vienna on this chilly grey day were not favourable. Everything seemed grandiose and out of human scale, shrieking empire and power. Things looked grimy, with an excess of ornamentation and gaudy gold. The only thing that really gave me pleasure was the merry-go-round of salvaged objects, an arts entertainment project; and the knowledge that half of Vienna was parkland, although I saw no evidence of this. Gutenberg appeared like an old acquaintance to guide me to lunch, and nearby buildings returned me to a sense of subtlety.
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warsawandbeyond2014 