Day 4: Eisenstadt

On our way from Budapest to Vienna, we stopped in Eisenstadt, a little town just on the other side of the border between Hungary and Austria. We had one reason (Josef Haydn) and two destinations (the Esterhazy Palace and the Haydn House). The town center was pretty quiet that Sunday afternoon as we ate lunch as quickly as we could at a little cafe. Then we hurried back to the palace for the tour before the scheduled afternoon concert. It turns out there was no need, as the tours started late, and neither guide seemed to know an abridged version of the palace tour. So we heard all about the family that had employed Josef Haydn, including their connections to the ruling Austrian Hapsburgs and their marital woes. The one happy marriage ended prematurely with the death of the wife at 35 (left). We also saw the baroque palace chapel, complete with preserved(?) body in a glass coffin, supposedly St. Constantine, the Roman legionnaire who converted to Christianity.

The Haydnsaal (Haydn Hall) is an ornate performance hall in the palace. The Chorale was scheduled to go on at 2:30pm, but I don't think the formal singing started until 3pm. Not that the audience minded, all 5 of them or so. And they were hurried off the stage 20 minutes later so some kids could play dress-up and make believe. Ah well. The acoustics were at least as good in the open-air courtyard below, where they sang "Nellie Bly" as a parting gesture to the palace.

Second stop: the Haydn house and museum, where we had cheerful guides with better English. For 12 of his 40 years in service to the Esterhazy family, the composer and his wife lived on one floor of a house just down the street from the palace. The prince even paid to have the house remodeled and expanded after two different fires. Like the Mozart house/museum in Salzburg, the museum contains portraits, some personal effects, and compositions. By the way, that marriage was also arranged and unhappy, and like many of the Esterhazys, they also took lovers. Poor Haydn: as my memento of his home, the only thing I took a picture of was his kitchen. You can see a photo of a piano-forte he used in the header on the museum's website.

Our Trip, By the Numbers

Clouds over Frankfurt am Main.
Photo credit MAH.

Dear Husband and I have returned from our choir trip to Central Europe, a whirlwind 9-day tour of 4 cities in 3 countries. I keep using the adjective "fabulous" to describe the traveling, the hotels, the sight-seeing, the performances. It took me 2 hours to go through my photographs (not to mention his). Over the next few weeks I will write up and illustrate some remembrances for you. This first installment is "our trip, by the numbers."

Key: B-Budapest, E-Eisenstadt, V-Vienna/Wien, P-Prague/Praha, T-Terezin/Theresienstadt




For the record, we traveled in 2 cars, 4 planes, 3 buses, 3 trams, and 9 subways. There were no boats, rickshaws, or hot-air balloons on this trip, but there was plenty of walking. DH even went for a run three mornings (around St. Margaret Island-B, in the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace-V, and along the Vltava River-P). 

Scheduled concerts: 5 (St. Michael’s Church-B, Haydnsaal-E, St. Charles Church-V, Jutta Unkart-Seifert's apartment-V, St. Nicholas Church-P)

Impromptu “flashmobs”: 4 (St. Stephen’s Cathedral-B, Esterhazy Palace Courtyard-E, St. Vitus Cathedral-P, Terezin Ghetto-T)

Setting off from home. Photo credit NJE.

Dear Husband played 3 organs, 4 keyboards, and just 1 piano, at the apartment of former opera singer and current music-charity organizer Jutta Unkart-Seifert. All in all, the instrument situation was rather disappointing, from a grand piano locked in the wings of the Haydnsaal to a sorry excuse for an electronic organ at the concert venue in Prague. However, the two old pipe organs were fun to play. I even choreographed a liturgical dance for one piece on the concerts in St. Charles and St. Nicholas. (More on the instruments here and on my European dancing debut here.)

Countries visited: 3 (Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic)
Currencies: 3 (forints, Euros, crowns)
Cities: 5 (Budapest, Eisenstadt, Vienna, Prague, Terezin)
Rivers: 4 (Danube/Donau-B & V, Vienna/Wien-V, Vltava/Moldau-P, Eger-T)

Bridges: no idea—I lost count

Churches: 6 (in addition to the 5 already named, also St. Giles-P to hear an organ, soprano, and violin concert)

Palaces: 2 (Esterhazy-E, Schönbrunn-V)

Art museums: 2 (the Belvedere-V, the Albertina-V)

Roman ruins: 2 (at Aquincum in Obuda-B + the fake ones at Schönbrunn-V)

Theaters: 1 (Ta Fantastika black light theater-P)

Former prisons/Jewish ghettos: 1 (Terezin-T)

Medieval-themed rest stop
between Vienna and Prague.

Missing group members: 1 (showed up in time for the concert)

ER visits: 1 (after a fall, thankfully negative scans)

Marriage proposals: 1 (at Jutta’s apt)

Surprise visits by German cousins: 2 (not mine, although I did some translating)
Lost passports: 1 (recovered from the seat-back pocket)

Ice cream cones/bars: 5

Glasses of wine: 1

Beers: 0

Pálinka (Hungarian brandy): 0 officially, but my water smelled and tasted of it one night at dinner-B

Slivovitz (Czech plum brandy): ½ shot each-P

Schnitzels: 3

Polkas: 1

Photos taken: 630 between the two of us

That's So Pittsburgh: the Nationality Rooms at the Cathedral of Learning

Because I had to work Thanksgiving, Dear Husband spent the holiday with my family, and then they all drove up to Pittsburgh so we could spend part of a weekend together. On Sunday afternoon, our friend J.E. had offered to give us a tour of some of the Nationality Rooms at the University of Pittsburgh Cathedral of Learning. We met up in the entranceway to this great building. Reportedly the tenth president of the university had it constructed as a landmark 42-stories tall after he showed up in the city to take the job in 1921 and the cab driver who picked him up at the train station didn't know where the university was. Its Gothic cathedral design makes me want to study with this Gryffindor Common Room sound mixer playing in the background.

The rooms are always decorated for the winter holidays, and there's a big multi-cultural festival the first Saturday of December. J.E. took us to the Czechoslovak room, dedicated in March 1939, which combines elements reminiscent of Charles University in Prague with a Slovak farmhouse and a country church. It very much had an early twentieth-century feel to me. There are portraits of famous Czechoslovak leaders, botanical paintings on the walls and ceiling, and knickknacks.

When we went upstairs to the Austrian room, we were transported to Esterhazy Palace in the eighteenth century. (Click here to read about DH and my visit to the Haydnsaal in the twenty-first century.) In addition to the audible tour that played at the touch of a button, there were Viennese chairs around the long table, a magnificent ceiling painting (above), and--tucked in the corner--a creche. It reminded us of the large antique Krippe we saw when we visited Austria back in 2010.

Finally, here's the whole gang. The parents and grandparents were delighted with the visit, which concluded with stop on one of the highest floors, from which we peered through the windows at the wide vistas of Allegheny County. If you would like to take a tour of either of these rooms--or any of the other 28--just click on the "Nationality Rooms" link above. 

Merry Christmas! Veselé Vánoce! Fröhliche Weihnachten!

Editor's note: If you like to read about architecture and/or history, you might enjoy these other That's So Pittsburgh posts about Motor Square Garden and Homewood Cemetery.