The Times

The author in a Hong Kong meat market.

If I Went Around The

The famous wit and author hits the high spots... with names and addresses BY ILKA CHASE author of "Three Men On The Left Hand," "Free Admission" IN CONTEMPLATING a trip around the world the first problem that usually arises is which way shall we go, east or west? Either way the distance will be the same, so what are the factors to be taken into consideration in coming to a decision? My husband and I pondered the problem and ended up by heading east. Western Europe we know relatively well, and we reasoned that coming back to it from the more exotic and unknown lands of the Orient might perhaps be something of an anticlimax, whereas going the other way, our interest and expectation could only keep mounting. And if we went again, east is the way we'd go. After a three-day stopover in Paris we flew to Vienna, which for us was unexplored territory. It is a delightful city and should you be planning to go there in June, there is one major suggestion I would make. Try to reserve tickets for the opera through your travel agency in this country long before you leave. June is festival season and true aficionados book places a year and two years in advance, so that if you arrive without them you stand a dandy chance of not getting in. For one who prides herself on being something of a sophisticated world traveler, it is humiliating to admit that my husband, the good doctor, and I were like hungry waifs pressing our noses against the pastry cook's window. We had to stand in the street watching music lovers who knew the ropes, and had squirreled away their tickets in advance, filing serenely in while we remained without, seatless and unsung. FORTUNATELY, that is the only department in which we did go hungry. If you are hungry in Vienna you are either sorrowfully poor or on a diet. Not only are there extremely good restaurants—the food at the Drei Hussaren, the Imperial Hotel, and the less swank but highly satisfying Deutsches Haus is excellent—but there are coffee shops guaranteed to satisfy the soul and bulge the waistline. I recommend Demels on the Kohlmarkt and the Konditorei Lehmann. Their restoratives will perk up the most jaded sightseer—Kaffee mit Schlag, that cloud of sweet whipped cream and little cakes and tiny roll sandwiches and wild strawberry tarts. There is also, of course, Austrian beer. You must try Gosser, it's the top. We would definitely repeat our visit to Schonbrunn, the superb white and gold palace where Maria Theresa and her sixteen children lived and where, one assumes, Pa was allowed to shelter, too. And we would reserve at least two mornings for the Kunsthistorisches Museum, one of the great treasure houses of the world. It has an enormous gallery full of Brueghels, and there are Cranachs and Rembrandts and the great Vermeer, The Artist In His Atelier, his back to the viewer, painting the girl in blue. There are Rubens, Frans Hals, Memling, and the giants from the south—Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. Go. The Redoutensaal is another delight. This elegant concert hall in the Imperial Palace was once a ballroom and today is devoted exclusively to the music and operas of Mozart. A musical experience we would not repeat, on the other hand, is the Volksoper. We saw Wiener Blut by Johann Strauss. In our naivete we thought we couldn't go wrong on Strauss. Live and learn. It [?] a shoddy, ham, inept performance. NOT TO BE MISSED is the Spanische Reitschule, the Riding School that was founded in 1565, where the beautiful white stallions called Lipizzaner perform on Sunday. This is a haute ecole of equestrianism, dressage riding, in which the horses and their centaur riders go through a kin[?] of ballet of gaits and patterns accompanied by music. It is a beautiful spectacle and takes place in an enormous oblong three-storied white and gold hall illuminated by superb crystal chandeliers. From Vienna, we flew to Athens and will surely take that route again. Athens, I think, can never be a disappointment. The Acropolis still rates as one of th[?] incomparable sights of the world, and atter thousands of pictures and millions of words, seeing it for the first time, one is still left speechless by the serene, enduring splendor of the ruined Parthenon and the other superbly proportioned temples of the height. The honey-colored columns embrace the deep blue sky, and to stand looking out over the city and the Attic plain is a moving and unique experience. Athens has its ten[?]s, museums, and tavernas, the small restaurants that are counterparts of the bistros of "We would definitely repeat our visit to Vienna." "Athens and the Aegean cruise ... incomparable." "Istanbul, the Blue Mosque ... on to Bangkok." "Fantastic Bangkok, a highlight of the trip." PHOTOGRAPHS FROM MONKMEYER Suburbia Today, February 1961