In fact, they’ve been at it for the last 10 days or so, but I’ve been so busy trying to make my little dog comfortable that I haven’t thought to post.
A few mornings ago, though, he needed to go out at about 4:30. In that queer light of dawn, when it is still dark but you can start to see without streetlights, we headed to the nearest park. As we approached, the scent of the lindens and the songs of ecstatic birds washed over me and gave me joy.
I saw a story on the ORF website this morning that the Volksgarten in Vienna, famous, among other things, for its stunning rose garden, came into being 200 years ago yesterday. It was the first garden in Austria to be designed and created by an emperor specifically for the people. (The emperor at the time was Franz I, great-nephew of Empress Maria Theresia.)
For several years, I apartment sat for friends of my family’s. It was a 200m2 flat in a distinguished old building (took two days to clean those traditional double windows!) right behind the Parliament in Vienna. The Volksgarten was less than a five-minute walk away and I sat there often.
Two other vivid memories: riding past on the tram and seeing the Lippizaners grazing in the Volksgarten (the Hofburg caught fire in 1992 and the horses were led to safety in the park) and sitting on a bench in the rose garden not quite a year ago having gone to Josef-Meinrad-Platz to test my way out of quarantine. I got there only to find that the computers were down and no testing was taking place. It was the first time I had been out of the apartment in over a week, and it was wonderful.
More (in German): https://wien.orf.at/stories/3196759/
Two days ago I caught a whiff of a sweet fragrance as we set out on our morning dog walk. Yesterday it was clear it was the linden blossoms of one particular tree that gets a lot of sun. Today it reminded to let you know — it must be June, the linden trees are out.
Happy June!
Every year the MA 42 (the “Magistratsabteiling” of the City of Vienna responsible for public parks and gardens) choose certain mixtures of flowers that they plant everywhere. The daffodils and red tulips are gone, but these have come out. I have no idea what they are (I am the kind person who is happy to work in a garden as long as someone else tells me what to do), but they are tall (about a foot and a half) and look like something out of Dr. Seuss, if you ask me. Fun.
Walking with Maylo in the park on this chilly (down over 10°C from yesterday!) morning I came across this message. Wanted to share it with you.
Happy Second Day of Christmas! 🙂
There’s a bird whose song I’ve been delighting in on our morning walk. He sits on an old TV antenna atop a roof and fills the morning air with what sounds like rapture.
I can’t help thinking that the choice of color here is not random. Vienna is voting on October 11 and I can imagine that many of the people who work for the parks and gardens department are at least originally Social Democrats. (As I have observed before, it’s not called Red Vienna for nothing. ;-))
There was some question today whether the parks would be closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. A friend of mine was quite worked up about it because–as so often happens–the people who were behaving carelessly were ruining things for the rest of us. (She said people had been partying in the park near her.)
Given that this was hanging over our heads, I checked the news especially before going out with Maylo this afternoon and saw that the Minister of Health had specifically said that parks were not (yet) going to be closed. Nonetheless, it was hard to miss the police present in one of the parks we often walk in. Three police officers just keeping an eye on the distance between people and occasionally speaking to pairs or trios, asking them to move farther away from each other.
Because I was alone with Maylo they didn’t say anything to me. We even were able to sit in the sun a bit. Then there came the announcement over the bullhorn, “Hier ist die Polizei. Bitte gehen Sie nach Hause.” (“This is the police. Please go home.”) Slowly, reluctantly, people got up and started to shuffle, more or less, home. It was only when Maylo and I were about halfway home that I realized they were almost certainly talking to a specific group of people, no doubt behaving carelessly. They only said it once and did not do a tour of the park.
We shall see where we go from here.
What a concise reminder of bits of Viennese and Austrian history, all in one sign at the Institute for Social Sciences of the University of Vienna. They are located at what I have always known as Rooseveltplatz. Obviously, it has had different names over the years, reflecting eras and events in Austrian history.
I can guess at most (all) of them. Maximilian was Emperor Franz Josef’s brother, who had the nearby Votiv Church built. Freiheitsplatz (Freedom Square) probably expresses the hopes of the new democracy after the First World War. Dollfuss was the Austrian chancellor assassinated by National Socialists in July 1934. Hermann-Göring-Platz is sadly self-explanatory. And then Freiheitsplatz again until it was named after the U.S. President Roosevelt.
Interesting!
The Parks and Gardens Department in Vienna have pretty much declared summer. They have put out their summer flowers along with a welcome addition of the last few years–a sign telling you what is growing in the bed. One thing I greatly enjoy is watching the flowers grow and fill out until they reach their peak in the fall. 🙂
