Postcards from Vienna, a Travel Diary
My first time in the Austrian capital.
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I am traveling through Austria for two weeks, starting with Vienna. A few years ago, my sister, Yana, moved to Innsbruck in the Austrian Tyrol region, to teach Behavioral Economics for her post-doc. I visited them in February 2022 and wrote a post about the snowy Alps, nude spas, and a short trip to Italy. The summer trip looks a lot different.
The two main reasons I wanted to explore Vienna are its famous art museums and Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise — one of my favorite films — that takes place during one summer night in the Austrian capital. Linklater uses Vienna as a backdrop for romance, treating it with an admiration usually reserved for Paris or Barcelona. I was desperately in love with Ethan Hawke after watching that film and thought that if I ever came to Vienna, I would retrace his steps from the movie. Though that hasn’t happened, I have walked through Vienna for the last few days with my camera and taken a few photos.
As far as photography goes, Vienna is not my kind of city to inspire me. It is too understated in its vibe and too epic in its architecture. I don’t do well in beautiful places that lack chaos and density, and I don’t even pick up my camera when I travel to Paris or Amsterdam, both cities that I love but cannot take a single photo in. But this time I wanted to play with and photograph fragments instead of my usual social documentary approach.
The last photo taken at the Albertina museum reminded me of this one.
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So funny, I have that too with certain cities but it doesn't make any sense. I lived in NYC for twenty years, the city most inspiring to all, and barely took photos there. Always traveling. But I have since, during the pandemic, taught myself how to see differently again, to be better at slowing down and noticing, and that has opened up Amsterdam and Paris for me, with time. (It's different for everyone of course, not saying other points of view aren't equally valid to what has worked for me.)
Love the Albertina. I know Vienna a bit. My mother (1921-2022) and her family were Viennese. My grandfather and some of his siblings made it out after the Anschluss. The “real” Vienna, to my mind, hides behind its genteel facade. I have profoundly mixed feelings about the place. It would be a challenge to get beneath its surface.