empress for a day

Want to walk a kilometer in my slippers? Well, you’re in luck! The Schoenbrunn Orangery offers a splendid tour called “Sisi’s Treasures,” where you may experience imperial Vienna through the eyes of the legendary Empress Elisabeth, aka, me.

For a mere 150 Euros you get the essence of life as, well, if not me, at least one of my servants.

Your tour begins at one of my castles (Schoenbrunn or the Hofburg), where you can marvel at my exercise equipment, ridiculously uncomfortable chairs, spectacularly formal silverware, and the minutia of my everyday life: hairbrushes, chamber pots, pen nibs. After all of that touring, you’ll be treated to a 3-course dinner at the Café-Restaurant Residenz (bring a sweetheart–there’s candles and ambience. Alcohol in abundance for an extra charge), and then, to top off your evening, you’ll attend a concert at the Orangery, performed by the Schoenbrunn Orchestra. It’s an explosion of all things Viennese!

What is an Orangery you ask? Fair question. It’s a fancy greenhouse, originally used to grow citrus trees in winter, so we royals were spared nasty diseases like scurvy and rickets. Here’s a sketch of Nicola Picassi’s Orangery, built in the mid-1700′s, it remains one of two noted, enormous Baroque Orangeries in the world (the other is in Versailles, of course–those French, always competing!)

If the above has you thinking: enough already with the Empress for a Day stuff you can always opt for the Mammals and Melodies Tour–in lieu of my castles, silver and underwear, you get a trip to the Vienna zoo as well as a beef in aspic dinner (that includes a shot of Swiss Pine schnapps!) and the Orangery concert described above.

waist training unpacked

amazing what a little whale bone and leather can do

A corset is a garment that girds the torso and shapes it according to the fashionable silhouette of the day. Most often it has been used for cinching the waist and supporting the breasts. This is what Wikipedia thinks, anyway. What is my definition of the corset? Thank you for asking. It depends on the day. When plagued by PMS and the like, well, a corset is a necessary evil–how else can one distort the female form into the hourglass ideal whilst hormones and nature have in mind something closer to, say, a treble clef?

But some days, when I’m feeling rather sane and disgusted by mankind in general, I’m all over the empire waist of the peasant gown. As sexy as a glo-worm on steroids. Think: 19th century muumuu. The ubiquitous and ever-popular caftan. Comfort over form. A bon-bon popping outfit to die in, er, for. On my corsetless days, nary a portrait artist would be permitted anywhere near the Hof. Could you imagine the damage to my reputation as history’s most perfectly molded empress should the Paparazzi catch me all bloated on one of my fat days? Can’t you just see the headline, with one of those arrows photoshopped in and pointing to my abdominal region: Sisi’s baby bump?

It is no secret that I boasted an 18-inch waist, and that I had my dear hairdresser Franziska measure it each day, while she tight-laced me into an hourglass so extreme, only three grains of sand might fall through it at once. Ladies, imagine squeezing yourself into a Spanx girdle, and then rolling a second one on over that, and then a third. Do you see the picture I’m trying to paint? Beauty is pain. Pain!

And, training the waist on a daily basis is not without its digestive consequences. All one’s intestines pushed up and down, the liver squeezed like Mr. Obie, causing an ancillary lobe to grow out the edges, ribs cracking, one’s waste compacted to the hardness of a battering ram. Not that I’m complaining–merely pointing out that maintaining the image of the perfect figure is not for sissies (not to be confused with sisi’s).

sisi’s top 5 fad diets

Another January, another set of resolutions to follow and then abandon. What’s an Empress to do?

Known as much for my gorgeous hair as my fanatical exercise regime and eating disorder, I think I’m an authority on history’s most bizarre and compelling fad diets. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Sisi’s Very Own Milk, Blood, and Pastry Regime. Balance is key, ladies, if you wish to mitigate a sweet tooth. Upon awakening, take a vial of stag blood along with a full stein of milk (if possible, from your very own cow or goat). Fast until dinner, at which time you may allow yourself another shot of blood and/or milk with which to wash down a pastry or two. Extra points if you execute 10 pull-ups on your trapeze.

2. Pickled Eggs and Pork Fat. Nothing complements the skin like suet, and the vinegar from pickled eggs ensures that you’ll not wish to eat another thing all the live long day.

3. Prost! William the Conqueror’s  alcohol-only diet. Though it was remarkably unsuccessful, leaving the corpulent and very dead monarch in need of a casket big enough for his girth, it certainly was fun while it lasted!

4. The Graham Diet. As we all know, lust of food is related to that other type of lust: the one responsible for epilepsy, spinal diseases, and all manner of madness. The visionary minister Sylvester Graham came up with the original vegan, bland diet in order to assuage his own sexual cravings. His legacy lives on, thanks to Nabisco and those ubiquitous crackers.

5. The Tapeworm Diet. If all else fails, there’s always parasites. Before gastric bypass was invented, this was the only option for some morbidly obese individuals. Unfortunately, tapeworms are ill-behaved and tend to become unwelcome guests. Before long, not only are they helping themselves to your food, they’re bold enough to insist upon stealing the luster from your hair, skin and nails as well. Although they can help you shed the pounds for spa season, longterm, you’ll wish you never invited them.

Mahlzeit!

 

 

have yourself a wiener little christmas

The little ones are so cute, but the Viennese shopkeepers have been known to slap naughty hands!

Christmas in Vienna, anyone? Consider this:

Choirs from Austria, other European cities and the U.S. will offer their voices to at the International Advent Caroling at Vienna’s City Hall until Christmas Eve. Admission is free.

 

Christmas Market! Sample traditional gingerbread, roasted almonds and honey while you take in the backdrop of the Burgtheater and Vienna City Hall. Wear your woolies!

 

 

Merry Christmas. Love, Sisi

The Maria-Teresien-Platz is aglow with festive holiday spirit. You might even catch a glimpse of some cult followers impersonating your favorite dead Empress (December 24th is my birthday after all)!

Whether it’s home for the holidays or some exotic adventure, Sisi and company wishes you a very happy Christmas–and remember to eat well and drink often–Mahlzeit!

o come let us adore me

If you didn’t live in the mid-nineteenth century, the closest you’ll come to Victorian, Edwardian and Regency tchotchkes is etsy. (Not to be confused with regretsy). Today, I am pleased to present a variety of fine hand-crafted items that approach the pomp, fuss and discomfort of my own splendid era. Enjoy!

I always enjoy ornaments that feature baby’s severed heads.

Hello Mr. Emperor!

Too big for gifts that hold jewels. Save these for the youngsters.

anti-itch cream not included.

Who said discomfort can’t be hip?

Tag. I’m it!

tobacco enema, anyone?

the pearls are a nice Viennese touch, yes?

One cannot utter the word Vienna without conjuring Freud and medicine and, well it must be said, the bowels. Did we not invent the term anal-retentive here in Austria?

Late in the 18th century there was this theory flying around that one could resuscitate the dead by blasting tobacco up the rectum. I Scheisse you not!

That smarmy Habsburg, Joseph II, wished to fortify his army with the latest surgical techniques, so in 1785 he opened the Medical-Surgical Military Academy and stocked it full of Florentine wax models, all anatomically fitted with organs, in order to advance medical science for the Empire. It was here that the tobacco-as-resuscitator theory bloomed.

Thankfully, by the time I sat on the throne, this idea was disproved (thank God nobody marched out to my assassination site with a bellows and a pail of tobacco water!). But it did serve as the basis for the notion of resuscitation, and paved the way for electric stimulation to the heart and all those other 20th-Century miracles … in addition to providing fodder for Bram Stoker.

beer pairings Munich style

Not exactly Budweiser horses

We all know that Bavaria is famous for beer — Oktoberfest was invented by my uncle, for God sakes — but the popularity of our breweries cannot be understated. In Munich, you can enjoy a hand-crafted Pils with your morning rye toast, a bottom-fermented Bock with your noon-time Brat, and a stout Doppelbock alongside a bowl of Spaetzle before you polka the night away.

So, you’re convinced. You wish to book your flight, get off the plane, stein in hand, and lumber up to the first Brauhäuser you find and you want the best bang for the Euro. I suggest, as I would for any European adventure, a consultation with Rick Steves.

Pop upstairs for a polka

But, if you’d like the shorthand, go with Sisi’s recommendations herewith:

• Jodlerwirt near the town hall. It’s squeezebox and dirndls and lots of wurst with your dunkle.
• Altes Hackerhaus is fancy and old and famous for its Hacker-Pschorr beer. It’s a must in courtyard weather season.
• If you like crowds, kraut and variety, head to Andechser Dom. Reservations suggested during peak hours.
• And, if you’re a total alcoholic and prefer to just get down and funky without sullying up your calorie intake with actual food, go directly to Heilig-Geist-Stuberl and tip one back with the locals!

Want to tour the big six? You can read more about the conventional Munich suds scene here.

the mothers-in-law

With all the buzz about the new TV program Monster-in-Laws, it seems that less-than-charming mothers-in-law are once again in the public eye. I am quite sure that if I were alive today I would be glued to that particular reality television show, nodding in agreement when the Relationship Expert intervenes, wagging her finger at a meddlesome crone, and letting her have it.

It’s no secret that my own mother-in-law, the Archduchess Sophie, was a difficult woman. She disapproved of my exercising, my love of animals, my need for the occasional rest cure, and, of course, she was most affronted by her son’s complete obsession with me.

My monster-in-law in younger days

Never mind that she took complete possession of my children from the moment of their births–installing their very cradles in her apartments. Indeed, she turned my little ones against me, caused friction between the Emperor and myself, which all but drove him into the beds of countless tarts, thereby causing the eventual venereal diseases that necessitated the aforementioned rest cures.

But, having a son myself, I suppose I understand a mother’s love. Sometimes a woman forgets her boy is no longer a babe in short pants who needs to be reminded to wash his hands before supper. I certainly made mistakes with my own Rudolf, and if you asked that mousy woman who married him, she probably would not admit to collecting any Sisi Souvenirs.

Occupy Vienna: why my marriage nearly wasn’t

He tried, but he couldn't do it...

Just in case you were wondering, my husband, Franzl, was quite a fetching young man. What is the parlance of the day? Hot, is it? Yes, well, not only was Franz Josef hot, he was the target of assassination–which, one must agree, made him even hotter.

Ironic that it would actually be yours truly who got the fateful knife to the heart, but we shan’t go there on this particular occasion. No, today we will talk about why the revolutionaries wished to do in the Emperor the year we were married.

It was 1853, the very year Franzl and I would fall in love in Bad Ischl, and all of Russia and Eastern Europe was in uproar. A Hungarian nationalist, one, János Libényi (who was, quite frankly, a bit hot himself), came at my future husband with a dagger. But here is where good old-fashioned Viennese overkill thwarted the assassins efforts. My Franzl wore a sturdy military collar–a sort of Kevlar of the day–and the knife only grazed him, giving him bragging rights. “Now I am wounded along with my soldiers,” he mused. “I like that.”

Rebellions abounded in mid-19th-century. The Milanese were skewering Austrian soldiers to Italian doorways, Hungarian revolutionaries were burning likenesses of Habsburgs in effigy. It was the season of Carnival, and amid the whooping it up, there was the occasional decapitation by sword.

Austria was big in 1853. Bigger than any country save Russia. The population of 40 million was made up of Germans, Slavs, Italians, Magyars, Romanians, Jews, gypsies. There were Hungarians, Czechoslovakians, Yugoslavians, Poles. And there were lots of people starving. While Vienna sat seemingly untouched by all the poverty around–with its balls, its operas, its Court life–millions of people in the surrounding countryside were jobless and homeless due to “sink or swim” policies that they had no voice in establishing.

Europe was a mess.

A simple memorial cross won't do when it comes to honoring the Kaiser

Of course, at the time I was a giddy teenager, and I found the whole assassination attempt thing terribly romantic. As in concert to my 22-year-old future mate’s “That was awesome” sort of response to nearly being stabbed to death, I took similar delight in the tale of how an Irish count stepped up and intervened on Franzl’s behalf, and then that would-be assassin was ceremoniously hauled off and hung.

As for memorializing the spot where my monarch’s near death occurred, my people did what they typically did when narrowly averting disaster. They erected a church!

king ludwig’s facebook of tarts

Pick a tart, any tart.

We did not have People and Us and Entertainment Weekly. We did not have Twitter or Facebook. But we did have King Ludwig’s Wall. My uncle’s Schönheitengalerie was really the who’s who of 19th Century tabloid dish, with mistresses, royals and gorgeous tarts all peering out through coquettish smirks.

Not that I wished to be in their number. Heaven forbid! Still, one cannot help but be a little put out by the public parade of those, who, er, put out.

King Ludwig was far from her only friend...

There was that Italian slut, Floozi…I mean Florenzi, who kept King Ludwig happy for forty years. Then there was the British chick, Digby, who had her way with most of the Bavarian Royal Family. But of all my uncle’s lovers, none was as dangerous and beguiling as Lola Montez, who was single-handedly responsible for dethroning the randy ruler, and causing complete mayhem (Occupy Munich!) throughout Bavaria.

There is but one consolation for yours truly with all this wall business, and that is my wretched mother-in-law, meddler in all affairs, is forever immortalized amongst those tarty tarts. Even though she was, um, my Uncle’s sister (and, yes, that would make her my aunt), the Archduchess Sophie was thought of as a hottie, back in the day. But that was before she tossed her feminine whiles to the wind in favor of the good old fashioned ass-whipping style she became known for.