Eisenstadt

On our way to the Alps for an excursion, we stopped by the city of Eisenstadt where we were to get a tour of an Esterhazy castle and also went to a Jewish synagogue and museum in the little city. Hans-Jorg, one of Kathy’s friends who spent some time with us gave us an introduction to the Esterhazy family: They were a rich and aristocratic family with large land holdings and they chose this area in the Burgenland as their headquarters for their reign. As Hans-Jorg said, Burgenland means, “land of castles.” The Esterhazy family owned land in 5 countries and they ruled over 200,000 people with 20 castles and fortresses by the end of the 18^th century. A main point of interest at this castle is that Joseph Haydn was the court composer, and he was so good and the Esterhazy’s liked him so much that they employed him full time. He also happened to be a friend of Mozart and a Free Mason, this shows that the Esterhazy’s were sponsors of culture.

After the Esterhazy castle, we went to the Kalvarienbergkirche, which is a very odd shaped church that sits on the top of a hill overlooking the plains. The appearance of the outside serves a purpose, it is supposed to resemble a mountain because Jesus had to carry the cross up the mountain. The church was pretty small, but it had a pretty neat little hall of 33 different stations with religious depictions that represented each year of the life of Jesus Christ. One of the most notable aspects about this church is the fact that the composer Joseph Haydn’s tomb is in a side room right near the entrance of the church. The Haydn organ is also still there.

We then made our way to the Jewish Museum, which was one of the first Jewish museums after the war. It’s located in Eisenstadt because that is where the Jews were expulsed from Vienna. This was an interesting experience because we found out that the Jewish population in Austria is about 8,000 in total. The synagogue itself is very small, and they actually don’t hold any services their because there are not enough Jewish people in the area to come, so the only time they ever have any sort of religious service is when there is a group of people coming.

At the end of all this, we hopped back on the bus and drove out further from Vienna to make it to the Alps. An hour or so later and a gondola ride up the mountain and we were there and all settled in, ready to take on the next day. Although a few of us decided to set out on a little hiking late at night to go check out the sky. The beauty of the Alps is that there is no light pollution, it was incredible!