Jess's Christmas Adventures · Diary No. 5

Vienna: Pandas, a Schnitzel Bigger Than the Plate, and One Glowing Heart Tree

Christmas trip·Vienna, Austria

I woke at half past five, before the alarm I hadn't set. Six mornings a week of dawn feeds will do that to a person. In my head, the penguins were already lined up for breakfast, giving me the look — the one that says the fish is late and so am I. Fifth city of the week, and my feet have opinions now — but opinionated feet are not stopping for anybody.

Last stop of the loop: Vienna. I'd come down from Prague on the Railjet — the best part of four hours of snowy fields, frozen rivers and villages sliding past the window, flask of tea in my bag and my notebook nearly full of Barnaby's dictation (a hedgehog, a length of stolen ribbon, a present that must not be shaken — it's going to be a good one). Then Vienna: a hushed main station smelling of coffee, trams gliding past like polite red ghosts, and my boots squeaking on fresh snow. No lion roars. No parrot opinions.

The zoo

Straight out to Schönbrunn, naturally. I am incapable of behaving like a normal tourist. Tiergarten Schönbrunn, in the palace gardens, founded in 1752 — the oldest zoo in the world. A busman's holiday, Barnaby calls it, and he is quite right, and I do not care one bit. The giant pandas are the stars and they know it: two great black-and-white mountains holding court over their bamboo in the snow. I stood there happily clocking everything, the way keepers do — how the best shoots get hidden about the enclosure so the pandas have to forage properly for them. One of the panda keepers caught me nodding along and gave me the smallest, most understanding nod back. Keeper to keeper. We are everywhere, and honestly, I wouldn't want to escape.

Lunch

Then back into the centre for a serious appointment: Figlmüller, on Wollzeile, just behind the cathedral, frying since 1905. I walked in hungry as a keeper after morning rounds and ordered the famous one — the Figlmüller Schnitzel. Reader, it is enormous. Thirty centimetres of golden, wafer-thin pork, crumbed and crisp, hanging off the edge of the plate on every side like it had overflowed. The waiter set it down with the straight face of a man who has watched a thousand tourists go quiet, and I went quiet. It came with the famous potato salad, and I drank a glass of Almdudler, the Austrian herbal soda, because I was on holiday and fizzy herbs are a personality now. I did not finish the schnitzel. I gave it everything a keeper's appetite had, and the schnitzel won.

The market

Fed and slightly spherical, I set off for the Christmas market — and took my mandatory wrong turn, veering down a lane that led nowhere useful but had excellent candles. I came back up Kärntner Straße under chandeliers of light strung right across the street, as if the road had dressed up for a ball, and there rose the State Opera, all arches and glowing windows. This is the city of the Opera Ball: one night a year the opera house empties its seats, lays down a dance floor, and fills the place with waltzing debutantes and tailcoats. No ticket for me — I smelled faintly of schnitzel and had snow in my boots — but I could almost hear the orchestra tuning up. Then Rathausplatz, the town hall lit up like a gingerbread palace: stalls, striped awnings, wobbling skaters, cinnamon in the air, steam rising off other people's mulled wine. Above it all, the Heart Tree hung with glowing red hearts — and every so often one comes gliding down a wire from the tower into the tree, and the whole square goes "ooh" at once. I went "ooh" too. Twice. I bought a cone of Maroni — roasted chestnuts that heat your coat pocket like a tiny bonfire — a spoon-standing hot chocolate, and a Lebkuchen heart iced wonkily with my name, for the zoo team. Definitely for the zoo team.

Home

The Nightjet, home through the dark — Brussels at breakfast, the Eurostar after, flask empty, boots still damp, the Lebkuchen heart down to its last corner. I have no defence. Somewhere on the home stretch I opened the notebook one last time and it smelled of five cities — cinnamon, chestnuts, woodsmoke, river air — and I wrote "visit more zoos" on the last page, which I realise is not how weeks off are supposed to work. Back in London tired to my bones and completely happy: pandas, the schnitzel that beat me, and a tree full of hearts. Tomorrow it's back to my own zoo and my own animals. I can't wait.

— Jess

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