Across the Pond

Only three months until we move back to L.A.... More and more I find myself thinking about the things I will miss when we leave Vienna. Here we go, starting with treasures from the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace: Mandarin ducks, sitting alongside the pond. (My blind friend Annemarie pointed them out to me first. She was a passionate bird watcher before her eyes got bad. I will miss her too.) Lilac bushes, their fragrance and lightness, the violet and purple against the green foliage The (almost) untamed wilderness behind the zoo, the dandelions and daisies in the meadow, the damp, cool forest further on.

In the morning, before the crowds arrive, Vienna's Schönbrunn Palace and the park behind it belong to the early birds: ducks, chattering in Neptune's Fountain; slugs, slimy and rust colored, making their way across the empty paths; gardeners, plucking weeds, working silently with rakes and hoes. Serenity reigns. My early morning Schönbrunn is an empty canvas. In that sense it is like other morning destinations, not different from the places in L.A. where I used to run off the night and enjoy the promise of a new day. For all I know it is not even different from Canaletto's early morning Schönbrunn 250 years ago. (In the image shown Canaletto depicts the gardens as busy, but by the look of the shadows he was painting in the afternoon.) The first buses arrive before nine a.m., earlier in the summer. Tourists swarm out by the dozens. From their guides they hear about Empress Maria Theresa under whose reign Schönbrunn Palace as we know it was finished in the 18th century. The...