VIENNA AFTER 10 P.M.

Evening Star, Issue 19615, 22 July 1927, Page 12

VIENNA AFTER 10 P.M.

In Vienna the opera, and the play begin so early that when they are over you come out not yawning lor bedtime, but with the refreshing feeling that the night is young. To begin with, at this hour, round about 10 o’clock, you have not dined. 'Pile theatre was full ot the sandwiches and almond cakes and drinks that hero go hand m hand with music and drama, and you need'feel no embarrassment in parading the foyer witn a sausage in one hand and a slab oi ham in the other.

So you are not really hungry, only, as 1 suggested, ready (or dinner, or nacht maid (night meal), as it is more appropriately called. Yon have probably ordered your table at Sclnmer’s, in tho “ Street of Seven Stars,” or the Riedhol. These are old-fashioned restaurants, renowned for their cooking and clientele of celebrities. In summer yon sit in an old courtyard, open to the sky, with lights among the small green trees. In winter tho indoor rooms arc welcoming, with their simple wooden furniture in tho old Austrian “bier Indie’’style Everyone you know or know about sc-tins to be there. At the next tabic a world-famous librettist beams through bis monocle at a lovely sylph who has just down, from Paris to discuss her lines in seme new production. Beyond them Count X is entertaining his charming friend from the ballet There, morose and alone, sits the Baron Von. Q , who, they say, has shot so many Hons in Africa, bulls in Spain, and armadilloes in Pern. Whom can ho he waiting lor? Or is there really no rendezvous?

Having eaten, wc considci how to amuse ourselves. In carnival lime the cafes, such as the Sachor, opposite the opera, are open most of the night, and as wc go along their lights ami music beckon us in every street. Down m the more remote side of the town is the. Prater, a huge park, where a lair runs nil the year round, a mixture of the best of Wembley and Montmartre. If you arc energetic about scenic railways or an enthusiastic shier of cocoanuts and rider of intensive merry-go-rounds, yon can join Tom, Dick, and Harry in seeing life there with both pleasure and profit Or if you have confidence in tho shape of your ankles you might dance in the Ktir Salon in the Start Park. There they have no overhead lighting, hut, borrowing a hint from Nice, an illuminated floor. Meanwhile, less adventurous, wc decide on a cabaret—tin? Moulin Rouge, the Chapeau Rouge, Hollo, or the Chez Leopold and TViesenthal. They arc all more or less the same. Yon will hear llm same jokes and see the same women wherever von go.