Wine Women( and Men) And Song

That was what Vienna was famous for in the good old days. In fact, I think one of the innumerable Strausses wrote a piece of music , had to be a waltz, called "Wein, Weib und Gesang". Yes, I've just checked wikipedia and it was Strauss II in 1869. Well , times have changed since that patriarchal time and nowadays we men know our place. Which in our case was the back of the bus taking us off to one of the famous wine restaurants in the Vienna Woods and Hills. Took about an hour to get there and we arrived ready to rock and roll. After the excitement of the performance we needed to come down.

The Heurigen
We entered a place reminiscent of a bomb shelter and were fed wine and large chunks of meat from various animals. And Saurkraut of course. And potatos.

Fairly rough and ready but saurprisingly good. Lots of wine and beer and pork later we were surrounded by exhibitionists from other choirs all singing German or maybe Austrian drinking songs. Soon they sounded like they were singing the same song again and again, sometimes swaying in time with the music and sometimes not.


There was a gypsy fiddler and his accordianist who played absolutely marvellous music, csardas to get the head spinning and then Danny Boy ala Fritz Kreisler and then more dancing.

The Basques arrive

Things were beginning to warm up when suddenly a train of people entered the bunker. Amidst great language difficulties, they announced, using a mixture of mime, dance and various unrecognisable tongues, that they were a Basque Choir from near Bilbao and wished to dedicate a song to us. They entertained us with some Basque music both sung and played on the quaint one handed flute. ( Talk about making life difficult for yourself).


Our urge to respond was overwhelming and we answered with "Saoitheo" and Maureen Walsh singing the solo beautifully. We had them on the run at this stage and finished them off by lilting a Basque song "Gabona Beri" which they admitted they had never heard of. They are great people and we have a merger in hand as we have their contact details. So now we have two Choirs wanting to sing with us. I hope they arn't those holiday romances which fade when you go home.

The Romantic Injection

We were well warmed up by this stage. Someone, I can't remember who, asked for a "Romantic Injection" (of music I presume) and an extended period of singing and dancing ensued.





























It could well have gone on all night if little Astrid (or Schatzi as we now called her) had not appeared frighteningly sober and said the bus was leaving in 20 minutes. Some panic attacks later we were all out and mounted and delivered back home very pleased with ourselves.