Vienna; Sunday, 20 November, 2005

It has taken then a while, but in 2000, the Austrians unveiled their first monument to commemorate the (specifically Viennese) victims of the Holocaust. Located in front of the Jewish museum on Jüdenplatz it's made up of a "library" of books, each one with its spine turned in and the pages showing. Around the base are the names of the concentration camps where the Jews of Vienna died (Both Dachau (See Munich) and Salaspils (see Riga) are mentioned along with the more infamous Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Treblinka.

The Jewish museum itself tells the story of an earlier attempt by the citizens of Vienna to remove the population, back in 1420-1421. Along with reconstructions of what the Jewish area had been like before the expulsions and slaughtering the museum also houses the ruined foundations of the Synagogue, which was all but destroyed in 1421. The museum ends with a small room dedicated to the late Simon Wiesenthal (he died a few weeks before my visit) the Nazi-hunter and honorary citizen of Vienna.

From there I spent some time wandering through some of the squares and small lanes that make up the centre of the old town before catching the tram back out to Schloß Belvedere to have a look around. In the daylight the palaces (there are two of them one at the top and the other at the bottom of a slight hill!) are even more spectacular than they are at night. The palaces themselves hold large art collections, which according to all the guidebooks are well worth seeing. As I am not a massive fan of art, and as the entrance, charges are quite steep, I decided not to. In front of the top palace there was another of the small Christmas markets that spring up around Vienna like a fungal infection, and so at just about midday, with a light snow shower taking place I settled down to my first Glühwein of the day…

I had a long wander around the grounds of the castles before walking through some back streets to Karlsplatz, home of the Karlskirche (Charles Church). The building is stunning from the outside with its massive dome. Inside it’s more stunning with the whole of the dome painted in frescos. At present, they are being restored (and have been for a few years). However, instead of this restricting the views it provides a spectacular chance to view them up close as you can take the works elevator to the dome to view the frescos up close. You can also climb the last few flights of scaffolding stairs to the very top of the lantern, designed to bathe the church in light if it was not under scaffolding inside, but now offering spectacular views of the centre of Vienna.

Next door to the Karlskirche is the Wien Museum, which tells the history of Vienna from its original days as a prehistoric settlement up to the end of the Habsburg Empire at the end of the First World War. An interesting museum made all the better by being free on a Sunday.

On the other side of the city centre, about a 1/4 of a mile north of the cathedral, underneath a café!, are some of the remains of the Roman city preserved to see with Hypocausts and floors still intact.

After all that, and with the light fading, I decided to head back to the hotel for a brief rest, and to thaw out again before heading back into town for the evening.

The Haus der Musik is located in the offices of the Wiener Philharmoniker (Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra) this is a fascinating museum, which not only takes in the history of the Philharmonic Orchestra (Which, lets fact it, if your not into the music could be quite dull) but also the whole science of sound. I spent nearly 2 hours in the museum behaving, as they expect you to, as a child hitting every button and trying every computer screen. The museum explains how we hear, how we interpret and how we can be fooled into misinterpreting sounds. You can create your own music track using the base sounds of life, and conduct an orchestra in time (or at least attempt to!)

After spending more time than I though I ever would in a museum dedicated to music, I emerged back into the night and a heavy sleet shower so I hunted for warmth, and beer, in a local restaurant. I had my first Wiener schnitzel of the holiday before eventually admitting defeat to the weather (but with a litre of beer inside me to give me some internal anti-freeze) and headed back to the hotel.