People
keep complaining about the weather. “Oh,
my god! When will it stop snowing?” “When will it get warmer?” Complain complain complain. I love it.
In fact, this may be the best winter I’ve experienced in DC since moving
here in 2000. I love the cold. I love the snow. And this year, the winter is especially
wonderful to me. It is the
winter I went to Vienna, and I feel like when I've been carrying around Vienna everywhere I go, so long as the weather remains chilly. When things finally start to warm up, something about Vienna will disappear from my daily consciousness.
Vienna
was amazing. I had an absolute
blast. If you love history, go. Just go.
You won’t regret it. Or, if you
love beautiful things, Vienna has a lot of beautiful things. Good food, too, but not recommended for
vegetarians. I’m sure there are places
for them, but one really should have an affinity for wurst and schnitzel. Just don’t get the deep fried hot dogs. That wasn’t right.
One
thing that Vienna does not have in the winter is Third Man tours. They are
just from May to October. No private
tours either (yes, I tried). So what is a rabid
Third Man fan like myself to do? Make my own damn tour.
Site
1: Hotel Sacher. This is where Holly Martins stays while he is
in Vienna, put up by the Allies, or more specifically, Major Calloway. I only have shots of the exterior. We didn’t go in to eat, drink, or even view the
lobby, because the place was a veritable tourist trap and very crowded. I got all windswept before we went and said
I’d love to spend just one night there, but the cheapest room is €395 (roughly
$550), so … that didn’t happen. Next to
the Hotel Sacher is the Café Mozart, where Graham Greene and Carol Reed hung
out. Again, very touristy, so we didn’t
go. Incidentally, to the south of the
hotel (the building to the right) is the back of the Vienna Opera House and to the west (where I was standing on the balcony taking this picture) is the Albertina Museum (we got
there too late to warrant paying the €11.90 apiece).
Site
2: The Red Army Bridge. It’s actually now called the Reichsbrücke
(Empire Bridge), but when The
Third Man was filmed, it was the Red Army Bridge. It’s touted as Vienna’s most famous bridge on
Wikipedia and was built in 1872. Given
how bombed out Vienna was during WWII, it should be called the Miracle
Bridge. At any rate, this is where Lime
meets with Winkel, Kurtz and Popescu and discusses what they are going to do
about Karl, the sole witness to the staged death of Lime. Incidentally, I found out later re-watching
the film when I got home that I should have been on the other side of the
bridge facing Mexikoplatz, which is where Reed’s camera was, because you can
see Heiliger Franz von Assisi / Jubiläumskirche (St. Francis of Assisi Church or Kaiser Jubilee Church) in the shot on the left. One can no longer stand on the bridge as the characters do (so yeah, I ran out onto the street for my shot). There is a walkway and bike path below the
bridge. Also, the bridge was renovated starting after the film was made through 1952, which is why you no longer see the suspension.
Site
3: The Prater. We were there on Christmas Day, which I expected it to be closed, but it wasn’t.
It has a bit of a goofy museum that is made out of the cars they use on
the wheel with little scenes of the area throughout the years. You can rent out certain cars that are
outfitted with a table and linen for a romantic meal. Inside the cars, there’s a lot of graffiti. The view is pretty impressive, though.
Site
4: Zentralfriedhof (Vienna Central Cemetery).
It was a very grey Christmas in Vienna,
but oddly enough, I really enjoyed walking around this cemetery. So many famous people were there (the music
area alone housed the remains of Beethoven, Mozart [well, they actually don’t
know where in the cemetery he’s buried, since he was buried as a pauper, but
he’s in there somewhere, and there is a nice monument for him], Brahms,
Schubert, Strauss, and Müller). But I was
there chiefly for the site of the beginning and end of the film, where Harry
Lime (and also Joseph Harbin) is buried. The area this is located is gruppe 43A, reihe 14.
Site
5: Exterior of Anna Schmidt’s
apartment. This is the big reveal scene,
when Martins sees Lime’s face in the glowing light of an open window. It’s a rather unassuming little
area. Directly in front of it, to the north, is the
National Theater (Burgtheater), and across the street from that is the Rathhaus
(City Hall). It was very quiet with no
one around, and the grade on the street is pretty sloped (enough to have a
warning sign).
Site
6: Exterior of Harry Lime’s
apartment. It's a pretty big deal
that they filmed this where they did.
His apartment is near Josefsplatz, which is very close to the royal
apartments of the former Emperor and also to two important churches
(Michaelerkirche and the Augustinerkirche is across the street ) and literally next door to the Spanish Riding
School where the Lipizzaner Stallions are kept.
The building is called the Palais Pallavicini, built in 1783.
Site
7: The
Third Man Museum. This is near
Nachtsmarket, where you eats all the good foods. This place was awesome. I thought I was a fan. These people are Super Uber-uber fans.
Their collection was astounding.
Because
I didn’t get a chance to check out the tour, the main thing I missed was the
sewers, which I can live with. I did see
the entrance to the tour, because it is close to the Secession (which we didn’t
go into but walked by). This was by no
means all of the sites from the
movie, but what I saw I really enjoyed.
Hope you like it, too. I may do
another post that goes into my deep regard for Prinz Eugen von Savoy, but we’ll
see (he’s not connected with movies in any way).
As a bonus, I'm including something that I think is one of the best things I've ever laid eyes on. It's in the Kunstkammer section of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum). I saw the boat behind glass, but this video shows what it looks like when it is activated. They had a whole section of clockwork items. This is something that completely captures my imagination. Enjoy!
