Returning to a city we’d already been to was a rare treat on this trip as we were already partially familiar with the geography. We ate linner (as we like to call the random meals we eat at odd times due to travel) at the Naschmarkt. This is a fascinating street market that is about 1.5 kilometers long. It’s worth wandering through if you’re in Vienna.
We then wandered the central part of the city with the intent of finding the costumed-concert ticket-sellers that you can find around Vienna. We enjoyed our concert experience so much in Salzburg that we decided to attend another one (more on that later). We found one in front of a Mozart statue, and immediately noticed that the concert venues in Vienna are larger and more expensive, but we decided to go for it as the concert we were interested in was almost sold out.
After checking out some more sights, we got ready for our concert experience.
Now, onto the concert... first of all, I do recommend the whole experience, but Vienna as a concert venue was a different experience from Salzburg. Some of these differences were good and some not so good.
We’ll start with the good, the venue was another spectacular location for an orchestral performance. We sat in the balcony which provided an amazing view of the whole hall. The music was absolutely sublime and performed incredibly well. This time there was a much larger orchestra that even included opera singers performing both solos and duets, which were absolutely breathtaking. The musicians wore period costumes which also added to the uniqueness of the event. The music pieces were definitely more recognizable, and included a fabulous rendition of The Blue Danube Waltz by Strauss.
Now onto the bad... tourists can be annoying. Of course, I recognize the irony in this statement as we are tourists ourselves, but we found the behavior of some of the concert-goers to be particularly reprehensible at this performance. It was announced in multiple languages that taking pictures or video of the performance was not allowed. So what do some people do the minute the music started? They broke out their phones and some even went as far as to film over our shoulders. This is what annoyed us more than the people who were slyly trying to take pictures. It was the sheer brazen disregard for the etiquette of the experience. I felt particularly bad for the ushers as they spent the entire time trying to police the bad behavior. I completely understand wanting to capture the memory, but not at the cost of interfering with the overall enjoyment of the rest of the audience.
Our “favorite” culprit was asked repeatedly to stop filming, and she still was trying to sneak pictures and film of the performance. When it became clear that she could no longer get away with filming, she began watching her videos during the performance, shaking my head.
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