My Mornings I Have Hitherto Passed In Lounging
About The Kaernthner Gasse, St Stephen's Platz, Kohlmarkt, Etc.
For an
hour before dinner the fashionable promenade is on the rampart in front of
the palace of Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen; in the evening on the Prater,
in a carriage, on horseback, or on foot.
The Prater is of immense extent
and offers a great variety of amusements and sights. I generally return
home at night pretty well fatigued from my rambles.
There is another great inconvenience at Vienna, resulting from the
fluctuation of the current money, and this is that a stranger, dwelling at
an inn, is sure to be disturbed five or six times in the morning, sometimes
as early as five or six o'clock, by Jews who rap at his door to enquire if
he wants to exchange gold and silver against currency or vice versa. I
used to lose all patience at being so disturbed in the morning, and was
obliged in self-defence to put an affiche on the door of my room to this
effect: "Man kauft und verkauft hier nichts; kein Wechsler darf
hereintreten." "Here there is no buying and selling; no money changer is
allowed to come in," and I hereby recommend to all strangers not to treat
with these Jews, but on their arrival, or at any time they think fit, to go
to a banking establishment in this city, where every day after eleven
o'clock you can exchange your gold and silver for paper at the just rate of
exchange, as published at the Bourse, paying only a very slight premium,
and on leaving Vienna to go to the same establishment to change your
superfluous Wiener Waehrung for Convenzions Muenze or gold and silver
money.
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