And in Stephansdom no less, where you don’t need an appointment.
The path to Stephansdom via the Graben and the line of 21st century people waiting in front of the Wiener-Neustadt Altar
Beyond the fact that I didn’t need an appointment, why did I choose to go to Stephansdom for my vaccination? For romantic reasons. I have never forgotten the tour I took of the catacombs very early on in my Vienna days. There are bones of Bubonic plague victims in those catacombs and I am slowly coming to accept that COVID-19 is our plague.
As a bonus to that historical connection and a beautiful setting in which to wait, an Advent meditation was starting just as I was leaving. Simple and meaningful, with a small choir and short bursts of organ music and a homily on finding room at the inn.
Stephansdom has survived plagues (and wars and reformations) and we shall, too.
This morning we had our first frost. It seems a bit late this year and was most welcome for that crisp feeling. One notices something has changed. Maylo, in any case, was moving quite a bit more quickly than he has been!
I am on the tram going around the Ring and found myself, as so often in the past 33 years, looking at the marquee on the Burg Kino to see what was showing (“The Power of the Dog” and “Dune” among other things) when I realized there was no point. Like so much else it’s closed for the next three weeks.
It seemed like a good idea to get in a couple more stretches of the Rundumadum hiking trail before we go into lockdown again tomorrow (even though we will still be allowed to walk outside with close friends for purposes of physical and psychological recreation) so off we went.
The weather was suitable for November, as you can see on the photos–a gray, slightly melancholy day–and it was a good day for walking. This is a mood I love in Vienna, like a physical expression of the melancholy underlying the lighter side of life here. It’s not all waltzing and champagne, or concerts and cakes, especially not in the middle of a pandemic.
The Wiener Linien (public transit authorities in Vienna) rather fell down on the job today as they did last time, at least as far as the busses went. We arrived punctually at Süßenbrunn train station to catch the bus that was to take us to the starting point of our first stretch. It never came. On the other end, we arrived at the bus stop with about five minutes to spare and waited almost 15 minutes. That one never came either. What with walking from Süßenbrunn to Bettelheimstraße and then from Erbpostgasse to Stammersdorf, I estimate we covered 10 km today, about 1.5 more than intended. Thank goodness for good shoes!
Like the last few stretches, these were flat, with small ponds. (The swimming pond for Gerasdorf bei Wien looked especially inviting–or would in summer.) There are still signs of agriculture, including some vineyards :-), and we saw quite a few horses, yet there was also a lot of building going on, the cranes quite visible on the horizon. Given my tendency to pessimism, I did wonder how much longer there would be any fields left. All the more reason, I suppose, to enjoy them while one can.
The next stretch went along the Marchfeldkanal (canal) for a long stretch. We enjoyed the crows and magpies and got into an interesting discussion on the–as any student of German knows–often senseless gender assignment of different creatures or objects. Magpies and crows are feminine (“die Elster” and “die Krähe”) while bird as a generic term is masculine (“der Vogel”). Larger birds of prey like the eagle are, apparently, more typically male, a point my (male) hiking companion seemed to take greater exception to than I did.
As we got closer to Brünner Straße (the road to Brunn or Brno in the Czech Republic), the landscape changed slightly. It became more wooded and slightly, but only very slightly, hillier. The bus stop was opposite a rather garish industrial structure in the middle of what was otherwise fields and woods, closed, of course, on Sunday. Given that the bus did not arrive and the next one was scheduled for an hour later, we were happy that there was a nice little path running along the road that took us to the tram in Stammersdorf.
Today is almost like the November days I remember from 30 years ago — gray, damp, chilly. It isn’t raining, but the pavements are damp with condensation; it isn’t that cold in temperature (about 4°C), but it is a penetrating chill. The air, as always on these days, is a bit acrid because the cloud cover holds in all the exhaust. And it may be a bit warmer than back then. Certainly it is somewhat brighter as the buildings are for the most part cleaner and this year’s spectacular foliage, in yellow and gold, is not yet completely gone.
I just saw the mayor of Vienna, Michael Ludwig, on my street. He looked very happy and was, of course, walking around without any security detail. Ah, Vienna!
Today we carried on with the second half of Trail 18 and more than all of Trail 19 (we missed a sign and probably went about 2 kms out of our way). And today I have photos! 🙂
It was a beautiful sunny day (although with such a wind that a friend sent a message: “Hopefully you will not get blown away!”) with beautiful flowers (see above), including lots of elderflowers (visible on the left of the photo below), which my hiking partner collected to make syrup, and some interesting wildlife. We saw a bird that neither of us had ever seen before and I couldn’t find in my field guide and which I think may, in fact, be a pet that escaped and is now living it up in the fields of the 22nd district. In shape it had some similarities to a dove but was much larger, had bright blue markings on its head, and interesting black and white striping on its tail. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
We were still in a very flat part of Vienna with scattered small bodies of water. It is still quite rural (see below) and had horses! As with other parts of the Rundumadum trail, I was amazed to see food being grown on a relatively large scale (the 10th district also has proper fields with grain and vegetables). From the underground train you can see extensive greenhouses and the paths we took today were almost all through open fields. Really extraordinary for a city of almost two million people. Long may it last.
This was such a nice stretch that I would like to come back and perhaps even swim in the Süßenbrunner Teiche (ponds).
ecbinvienna 