To celebrate our first anniversary and take a break from the relocation rigamarole, Hubs and I hopped a bus and headed over the border to Wien, home of Wienerschnitzel:

This:

Not this:

Southwest of Prague and just over the Austrian border, Wien (Vienna) has a lot more to offer than smashed, breaded, fried meat on a plate (although I would have been ok with that):

Ok I’m done with the Wiener jokes… promise. All the above were from the Prater amusement park downtown, featuring a 100+ year old ferris wheel…and a lot of wiener wordplay.

We got into town on Thursday afternoon, and spent the first few hours just walking off the 4 hour bus ride. We traveled via Student Agency, which has really nice busses with onboard wi-fi and movies. But at the end of the day, it’s just still a bus. Although it was faster than the train. Our first stop was downtown, for the obligatory Schnitzel sampling and some downtown wandering.

Friday we spent part of the day checking out the one thing that puts Vienna on my personal map*: The Spanish Riding School, home of the Lipizzaner stallions. (Can I tell you how tempted I was to add ‘word famous’ to that sentence, but restrained myself? You’re welcome.)

Without going into too many horsey details the school is famous because it’s the oldest running one of it’s kind IN THE WORLD; training horses based on classical riding techniques that were pioneered in ancient Greece and on which most modern dressage is based. Additionally, it features a single breed of horse, the Lipizzan,  cultivated for their athleticism, strength and intelligence required to perform maneuvers of classical riding. The horses are the gymnasts of the equestrian world. The training emphasizes communication between horse and rider, moving at the horse’s pace: it doesn’t even begin until the horses are 4 years old. Compare that to the two year olds running the Kentucky Derby, and are done by the age of 6, the average Lipizzan takes about 8 years to develop specialty – and that fabulous coat that gives them the moniker “of the Dancing White Stallions” – performing well into their teens and twenties.

And yes, the dancers are all dudes. 70 of them live and train at the Spanish Riding School in the heart of Vienna at any given time of year, though they take ‘holiday’ at a farm outside the city where they have access to liberty time and, of course, the ladies. They are born black or dark brown and gradually “grey out” as they age over a 6-10 year period.  Although for a bit of horse trivia, Lipizzaners aren’t considered truly white because their skin is a dark pigment. For the bonus round, at least one dark brown, bay or black Lipizzan is trained at the school with the others as something of a good luck charm. While we were there, there were three.

Summer is kind of the off season for the School, but we were able to catch the morning exercises to music, in which 4 small groups of the young stallionsare put through the paces of their training in the main arena for about a half hour at a time.  Afterward, we had a tour of the school and the stables, and I learned enough to put every single one of you reading this to sleep (if you aren’t already) with bits of horse trivia.

On Saturday we woke up to rain, so decided to make it a museum day and check out Schönbrunn Palace. My verdict: it was a seriously overrated cattle chute style audio tour through the private apartments of various Habsburg monarchs. Better was the Belvedere, which is an old palace turned art museum and featured tons of Klimt (including The Lovers/The Kiss) and Egon Schiele. I admit, I didn’t get the appeal of  Klimt until I saw the works ‘in person’ and the texture and color really comes alive.  The details in the expressions of the faces, and the flecks of gold, really make a much better impression in person.

But I have to say, one of the most unexpectedly delightful things about Vienna were the parks. From the carefully-tended, bench-lined Volksgarten to the wily, flak tower-littered Augarten, each had it’s own flavor, and charm. Augarten was hands down my favorite. It’s one of the oldest Baroque gardens in Vienna, but there are the stretches of wildness that make you feel far away from the city. Then there are the flak towers, rising like random, concrete phantoms above the crowns of the chestnut lined paths. It’s magical.

So get yourself to Wien. Have some Schnitzel. Take a walk in the park. And if the dancing horses are your thing, go watch the “dudes of the Spanish School” work their magic.

As usual, the full album is up on Flickr.

For fiction favoring the famous horses of the Spanish Riding School (among other remarkable equines), check out the work of Judith Tarr. Her latest release is a lovely collection called Nine White Horses.

*once upon a time I played Blue Danube with the Rainbow City Orchestra. It was, at the time, the longest, most complicated piece I’d ever played, and I was one of TWO cellos. I almost had a nervous breakdown, but it taught me a lot about cello, music, and staying alive during 6 minutes of music on stage. I’m grateful, but that song still gives me terrible, terrible flashbacks.