Vienna, 2nd day

roof detail - Esterházy courtyard. Note the faces.

The last post left us at Esterházy Schloß.  Schloß is German for castle, and this castle housed the Esterházy family.  You can tell from the diacritical “á” that they’re not Germans.  In fact, they’re Hungarian, and Eisenstadt was part of Hungary until the Hapsbergs annexed it.  Today, the castle is all about Haydn, who lived there.  They have regular concerts and a lot of information about him.

We will be in Hungary tomorrow.

Beethoven's, Mozart's, and Schubert's graves

We got back onto the bus and rode to a cemetery in Wien.  The cemetery is apparently the place to be when you’re dead, because it had lots of formerly famous and rich people there.  There is one corner of the cemetery where W. A. Mozart, L. v Beethoven, J. Strauss, F. Schubert, J. Brahms, and C. W. Gluck are buried.

Hrdlicka's wife's grave

A few meters away from the Great Decomposers is the grave of 20th century sculptor Alfred Hrdlička‘s wife, Barbara.  He carved her tombstone, and it’s pretty brutal.  No “In loving memory” with wreathes and flowers here.

After the cemetery,we went downtown to the Vienna Opera House, where there is an outdoor exhibit of Hrdlička’s work.  More pictures later.

From there, we bussed to the top of a hill and looked out through the fog at the whole city.  Then we went to a beer hall in Grinzig for a boisterous dinner.

It is now Wednesday morning.  We’ll see how long it takes to get the photos resized and uploaded to finish this post.  Update: 11:30 PM.