On the train from Vienna to Graz (our third trin journey)
It is always sad to say good-bye to Vienna it’s a truly great, dynamic city. Yesterday’s recordings went well despite the weather, from 20 C in Bratislava to 5 C in Vienna and feeling colder with wind chill and light snow. I have recorded the chimes of the bells of the Maria am Gestade, a gothic church which was the favoured by the sailors that worked on the Danube. Running thought the town I just managed to capture the 3pm chimes of the Alte Hofburg clock too. I have also recorded the ambient sounds of the Judenplaz; a town square in Vienna’s Innere Stadt where the Jewish community was located prior to the Second World War. Rachel Whiteread’s monument to Austria’s holocaust victims is in the northwest part of the square. The walls of the memorial resemble the walls of a domestic library room which could be a cast of one of the rooms of the apartments from the square. The books are turned with their spines facing inwards. On the concrete plinth there are carved the 41 names of death camps to which the Austrian Jews were deported.
I couldn’t stop myself from recording the journey on the tram back to our apartment on Yeppenplaz, particularly as it was one of those vintage narrow trams that creak, groan and rattle their way around the Viennese side streets.
Today travel from Meidling station gave me an opportunity to record the announcements from this railway station.
Wow! The train between Vienna and Graz travels along the Semmering Rail line, UNESCO world heritage track through the most beautiful alpine countryside; we are very high in the mountains on a winding train track with lots of high level viaducts and tunnels with many of the peaks covered in snow. My ears are popping as I type….
