Spanish Riding School
I never really wanted to go to the horse ballet at the Spanish Riding School. Probably (I thought) it would be overrun by hordes of tourists discharging themselves from their cruising boats on the Danube, perhaps craving respite from trudging around museums listening to mountains of facts from a guide-by-rote about the Saxe-Coburgs and the Austrian Empire (inter alia). And the only thing I knew of Lipizzaner was from a tense interchange between Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman in Crimson Tide.
I get it – I am a cultural wasteland.
Mrs: “Do you want to go to the show at the Spanish Riding School?”
Mr: “How long will it go for?”
Mrs: “About 70 minutes. Don’t worry we’ll get the cheapest seats”.
Well, that didn’t quite happen. Fate, and a sketchy internet connection, had intervened by rejecting our effort to buy tickets on the line.
So, we pedalled to the venue to do commerce face to face, arriving about 35 minutes before the show. The venue was already buzzing. We were directed to a cash desk.
My initial efforts to communicate with the cashier were obviously so well nuanced that a wall of German came back.
“English?”, I whined, sheepish about my linguistic ignorance.
“Sorry, the show is sold out”.
This was obviously a HUGE disappointment for Mrs B.
“But…”, continued the cashier, fate starting to smile on us, “I have four tickets that may become available. If you can wait here until 10:59 and they are still available, you will be called and you can buy tickets. You just need to write your name here”. It was 10:30. We weren’t top of the list. The show was scheduled to commence at 11:00. We waited, and watched dozens of people who enquired after us being rejected. One family (from the US) had bought tickets for August 10th, not October 8th. (8/10 not 10/8 – an easy mistake to make maybe?).
Then it was 10:59. And then 11:00. The doors had been closed by the usher.
And then they started calling out names. The first two names called failed to present to the cashier. Then…
“Andrew Burbridge”.
We promptly presented, and paid (€40 pp), received our tickets, and were ushered almost secretively in through a back door to take some seats in just about the plum best location in the house, perhaps other than being the Royal Box. We were at horse level, eye-to-eye with the beasts, and directly behind the middle of the goal if it had been a football game. All the presentations of horse choreography were done directly towards us.
And it was very special. Definitely recommended, especially if you’re into all things equestrian, but even if you’re not.
https://www.srs.at/en/