A Little Winter Music

The city of Vienna is recognized by the echoes of its past; from the sounds of waltzes and marches, the rustling of crinolines and the whisper of those who walked its streets for centuries.

Text & Photo by Ivana Kladarin-Panić

This dry and warm winter, a decades-long exception, has left the majestic Austrian capital without a snow cover. But even without the snow, nothing changes. The city of Vienna, a city imbued with the past, future and present, stands firm and majestic. Whiteness is its interior feature. White is not a colour; it is the light emitted from the sky and from the building façades of an ancient empire.

This Babylon on the Danube, where every language of the world can be heard throughout the year (from tourists as well as its 1.5 million multi-national residents), shines in its splendour. The mythical Danube, deep and mighty, rolls towards the Black Sea, moving away from its source in Schwartzwald, and connecting Europe with the East. It is as determined and timeless as this city through which it flows.

Though there was a settlement here during the Roman Empire and during the time of the Hun invasion, the city is first mentioned as "civitas" in chronicles from 1137, during the time of Count Leopold III. The beautiful Austrian capital was named Vienna or Wien. It is believed that this name comes from Vindobona, the settlement’s name during Celtic and Roman times, which was based on the Celtic name for forest brook (Vedunia). The Hungarians, like Serbs, call the city Beč. As a Roman border fort facing Pannonia, Vienna developed in the Middle Ages thanks to the Babenberg dynasty and flourished under the Hapsburg dynasty from 1278 to 1918. It reached its apex in the late nineteenth century, when – with a population of 1,600,000 – it came to be one of the major metropolises of Europe.

The best known section of Vienna is its famous Ring. UNESCO has entered this part of the city on its World Heritage List. It was conceived and built at the time of Emperor Franz Joseph I, the idea being to separate with a boulevard the city’s outskirts from the city centre, which housed palaces, theatres and shops.

In the heart of the city, not far from the Ring where two pedestrian streets intersect, St. Stephen’s Cathedral – Stephansdom – towers into the sky. Dark and elaborate, it has withstood the onslaughts of time. They say it is as old as the Austrian state. At the top of the cathedral stands what is probably the most famous church bell in Europe – the Pummerin. The chime of this bell, cast from 180 Turkish cannons seized during the long siege of Vienna, always marks the New Year.

There are so many famous buildings in this city that they cannot be mentioned in this short account. Grandiose palaces such as the Hofburg – Vienna’s Imperial Palace – and the Schönbrunn Palace (the winter and summer Imperial residences), or the Belvedere Palace (constructed for Prince Eugene of Savoy), which are the most frequently visited tourist sites, are worthy of a larger story, but I will but mentioned them here. One should tour them and afford oneself the pleasure of absorbing their dazzling beauty. One cannot speak of Vienna without mentioning the famous Wiener Hofreitschule – the Vienna Spanish Riding School where the world-famous Lipizzaners perform their dance in the Baroque environment of the Hofburg Imperial Palace.

Sparks of the former splendour of a great empire may also be seen in buildings such as the Vienna Opera House (Oper), Parliament, the University and the Applied Arts Academy.

Vienna is a city of museums. There are so many of them that the city fathers could not name them all. Special attractions include museums such as the Albertina Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Natural History Museum, the Circus and Clown Museum, the Clock Museum and the Tobacco Museum.

Vienna’s history is coloured with sounds of timeless music. The giants of what is today classical music – Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, Schubert – lived and worked here. The year 2006 was declared the Year of Mozart, when the city celebrated the 250^th anniversary of his birth. The event was marked by a procession through the city in which actors dressed in period costumes and walked the city streets. The famous candies mozartkugel and cakes, say the people of Vienna, were the best sold articles.

The city invites the visitor to walk as it is the best way to take in the city and merge with the surroundings. After doing just, I decided to join the celebrations of last year; I went to Figarohaus, Mozart’s home, and accompanied by the sound of "A Little Night Music", I let another, rather gray winter day pass in the best possible way.

Jat Airways flies to Vienna twice a day. The Serbian national air carrier depart from Belgrade airport on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays at 8:15 a.m. and on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 8:35 a.m. Flights to the Austrian capital in the afternoon hours are set for 4:50 p.m. on Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, at 5:10 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and at 6:15 p.m. on Fridays..