The hills were alive…

Vienna, Austria Vienna in the late 18th and 19th centuries was blessed with an astonishing group of musical geniuses. Since it was Sunday — and an absolutely gorgeous spring Sunday — we went to call at the homes of three of them. We’ve visited the Beethoven and Mozart residences on other trips, but there are still more to see.

We started at the home of Johann Strauss, Jr. His father was famous for his conducting skills, but his son built on that talent as a prodigious composer, who also conducted. If you’ve ever hummed or waltzed to “The Blue Danube,” you’re honoring the right Strauss.

His city apartment is now a museum which contains some of his instruments, and details of his life. He was often caricatured in his lifetime, as in one silhouette showing him conducting himself.

He must have been a bit vain and media-conscious, as he would constantly tailor his dress, hair and beard to reflect the fashions of the moment. Our favorite photo shows him with Brahms in 1894, who we were surprised to learn was his contemporary. However, Strauss (on the left) was actually seven years older than Brahms. He just dyed his hair and beard and wore a snappy suit.

Fooled us.

Nothing takes away appreciation of his talent, however. He and his music were so beloved that a golden statue of him, exuberantly playing his violin, is across the street from our hotel, in Stadt Park.

Having paid our respects, we next went to the home of Josef Hayden.

He was a prolific composer of what is known as the classical period. He is regarded as the father of the symphony and the father of the string quartet for his more than 100 symphonies and almost 70 string quartets. Haydn also produced numerous operas, masses, concertos, sonatas, and other compositions. He was a busy man, and also seemed to be quite loved by many, who called him “papa,” His visitors’ book attests to the volume and significance of his numerous callers.

A devoted admirer of Hayden was Johannes Brahms, whose own residence in Vienna no longer exists, so a room in Hayden’s flat is dedicated to him.

One more genius remained on our list to visit — Franz Schubert. His home was the saddest, as he basically moved in here with his brother’s family and died of typhoid shortly thereafter, at the young age of 31. He left behind a prodigious volume of work, including the haunting “Ave Maria,” which is so often performed. The building centers around a courtyard, which is very pretty. But I think it has an element of sadness to it.

We had some time and some walking to do between house calls, and spent time admiring bits of the city and soaking in the warm sun.

Don’s Food Corner

The house museums in Vienna are closed from 1pm to 2pm every day they are open. I guess that means the staff gets to go to lunch. That also meant we had to take our lunch then as well. That’s a bit too early for our usual one main meal a day — since we basically had just finished breakfast by then. But we rose to the challenge and slipped into one of the old cafés — Café Savoy.

They had all the usuals, but we branched out. I had deep-fried slices of emmental cheese. And I mean three THICK slices of cheese. Breaded and deep-fried, it was like something out of Wisconsin — a cousin of fried cheese curds. It came with some tartar sauce and a jam of cloudberries. There was also a little serving of salad, but who noticed with all that fried cheese.

Jo ordered what she thought would be a little salad of beets, apples and walnuts. The salad was huge so she didn’t really need to order a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. And we really didn’t need that order of fried sweet potatoes.

We didn’t clean the plates and when we mentioned to the waiter that it was all too much, he said, “Hmm, but it was baby portions!”

You’d think you’d see a lot of fat people here, but you don’t.