Strudlhofstiege

+++ This Munzee is a white sticker without a green edge. +++ The Strudlhofstiege is an outdoor staircase in the Viennese district of Alsergrund. Opened on November 29, 1910. It was built by a design of Johann Theodor Jaeger and is regarded as an important Jugendstil work. It was renovated in 1984 and 2009. Like the street on which it can be found, it is named after the sculptor and painter Peter Strudel, who owned property on the street above the staircase. The 1951 novel "Die Strudlhofstiege oder Melzer und die Tiefe der Jahre" ("The Strudlhof Steps or Melzer and the Depth of the Years"), written by the Austrian author Heimito von Doderer, is named after the staircase, around which some central plot points take place. +++ The plaque containing the poem "Auf die Strudelhofstiege zu Wien" by Heimito von Doderer:

On the Strudlhof Steps in Vienna

When the leaves upon the steps are lying
from the old stairs is heard an autumn sighing
of all that's gone across them in the past
A moon in which a couple, holding fast,
embraces, lightweight shoes and heavy footfall
the mossed urn in the middle, by the wall,
outlasts the year between the wars and dying.

So much is past and gone, to our dismay,
And beauty shows the frailest power to stay.
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