The tallest lock of the entire trip was between Bratislava and Komarno

Our Yacht Club in Komarno

DoraMac at the end of the pontoon; the only place we could have fit.

“Komárno is the seat of the greatest producer of river boats in central Europe and its port is one of the biggest as well.” http://slovakia.travel/en/komarno

Across the way look like blocks of the “Soviet style” housing.

Walking from the Yacht Club towards the Old Town took us past some lovely homes and gardens and beautiful tall trees on one side and industrial areas on the other.

The centre of the Danubeland, the town of KOMÁRNO (population 36,800) lies on the confluence of the Váh and Dunaj. It is one of the oldest towns in Slovakia.  http://slovakia.travel/en/komarno

At noon the soldier comes out of the window and there’s music and lots of cheering.

A family making memories.

Very helpful tourist office man.  The office had brochures about the synagogue and Jewish history.  He even had very honest lunch recommendations.

When researching Komarno the only article of interest in my library’s online database was about this university.  It’s aimed at Hungarian speaking students who have a struggle in the Slovak language universities.  The majority of people living in the area seem to be Hungarian language speakers.  Still lots of issues finding teachers.  But the lack of university educated students was impacting this part of Slovakia so the university is a beginning.  They were having a summer workshop for elementary education teachers while we were there.

Better than hanging locks on a bridge, this is a wishing well where “love locks” can be hung and coins dropped in for even more luck.

The J. Selye University is the only Hungarian-language university in Slovakia. It was established in 2004.

The J. Selye University in Komárno is a modern educational and scientific institution. Education started at the academic year 2004/2005; which means that it is the youngest public university in the Slovak Republic. Each year more than 2500 students study in three levels, either full-time or part-time at three faculties. The faculties offer courses in accredited programs in the complex system of bachelor, master and doctoral studies. The credit system is compatible with the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), which allows the two-way mobility for students at the universities of EU countries.  https://www.portalvs.sk/en/vysoka-skola/univerzita-j-selyeho-v-komarne

Construction crew was dismantling the scaffolding around the monument while we drank our coffee.  We passed by later on and it was totally gone. 

This looks like many of the monuments erected to ask for help against the plague.  They were also erected for other disasters too apparently.

It was in the process of being refurbished.

These folks struck me as volunteers who cared for the monument enough to work hard to clean it.

Courtyard of Europe

“The Courtyard of Europe is the name of a unique project of the architects grouped in the studio Europa in Komárno.  It is in fact the intention, now implemented, to build historic architecture typical for the individual regions of Europe in a styled form on a new square of Komárno. The common elements of the Courtyard of Europe and the historic core are the historic gates, each of which bears the name of one Hungarian ruler.”   Source: Vydavateľstvo Dajama   http://slovakia.travel/en/komarno

Hubert Varga Restaurant and Pension on Jokai Square

“The recently updated menu offers a great variety of game dishes as the main profile of the restaurant as well as a wide selection of traditional dishes”  from the restaurant brochure.

Mary had deer which she said was quite good.  I opted for a noodle dish that wasn’t so good.  It was a  “pretend” kugel which must have been microwaved making the noodles tough.  My mother made great kugel and I even make good kugel so this was a disappointment. 

A window lady and a “Hundertwasser” style building.

The Elizabeth Bridge connects Komarno with Komarom.

Once there had been border crossing guards; now with both the Czech Republic and Slovakia as members of the EU, no border guards are needed.

The Danube separates Slovakian Komarno from Hungarian Komarom

     “From the perspective of the Slovak nation, the crucial period in their history was the 19th century when the Slovaks formulated their own political programme for the first time. The promising development of the national movement though, was mutilated by the Austrian-Hungarian Compromise signed in 1867 and the following period of Magyarisation which lasted full 50 years. Only the First World War activated the anti-Austrian-Hungarian resistance, which culminated in 1918 by the declaration on the joining of the Slovak nation with the Czech nation into a whole – the Czechoslovak Republic.

     The independent Slovak State was established in Slovakia in 1939 as an outcome of international events, however, the end of the Second World War brought about restoration of Czechoslovakia. The communist party gradually seized power in the country and the communist dictatorship was overthrown only through the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The democratic process exposed several problems, which resulted in the break-up of the common state of the Czechs and Slovaks and the establishment of the independent Slovak Republic (1 January 1993).

     Slovakia is a member of the European Union from May 2004. In December 2007, it became part of the Schengen Area and from 1/1/2009, upon the adoption of the single European currency Euro, Slovakia also became one of the countries of the European Monetary Union. “

http://slovakia..travel/en/about-slovakia/history

http://travel.spectator.sme.sk/articles/170/komarno is a good description for potential travelers.

http://company.kofola..cz/26-beverages.html

“The university side of town where we went hunting for a wifi sim card… we went stopped in for a drink.

The origins of Kofola date from the late nineteen-fifties when the top politicians in the then Czechoslovakia demanded that a non-alcoholic beverage be developed and produced as an alternative to the unavailable western brands of Coca-Cola or Pepsi.”

http://www.czech.cz/

I had mineral water but maybe I’ll find some as we travel along to taste.

House and the Mentalist though I liked Simon Baker better in The Guardian

Medical Garden

“Public park near the centre of the Old Town, behind the offices of the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Comenius University.”

Statue of a man reading was all I knew until I looked him up

    “Martin Kukučín (real name Matej Bencúr, 17 May 1860 – 21 May 1928) was a Slovak prose writer, dramatist and publicist. He was the most notable representative of Slovak literary realism, and is considered one of the founders of modern Slovak prose.”   By training he was a medical doctor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Kuku%C4%8D%C3%ADn

I’m embarrassed to say I was fooled by these sculpted pillows; I had to walk back and feel them.

Mall built during the time of Soviet control

“Soviet Troop Withdrawal from Czechoslovakia Begins

ONDREJ HEJMA, Associated Press

Feb. 26, 1990 12:06 PM ET

FRENSTAT, CZECHOSLOVAKIA FRENSTAT, Czechoslovakia (AP) _ Twenty-two Soviet tanks left this northern Moravian city today, beginning the Red Army’s withdrawal from Czechoslovakia nearly 22 years after Moscow sent troops to crush ”Prague Spring” reforms.”

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/

Slovakia: life after the velvet divorce

   “Why the former Czechoslovakian state, which gained its “Velvet Divorce” from the Czech Republic in 1993, is one of Europe’s quiet successes.”  http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/03/slovakia-life-after-velvet-divorce

EUROVEA Mall  (with a mini-Gherkin style building)

Circus performer statues

The dancing dog was my favorite

The Euro Mall was the only source for Internet SIM cards

This shop sold “creative housewares” like this knife holder Randal just loved.

Though a Golem starts as a shapeless mass, this Golem is the name of a fitness center…so you won’t be a shapeless mass.

Containers modified to become pop-uo shops

http://popupcontainers.co.uk/ is an article about a company that does container conversions. 

1923-1944 Viola Valachová partisan.

There were so many plaques with dates during WW2 or the early 50: wish they had been in English so I could have learned about the personal histories of people.

Valachová Viola (* 1928 – † 21 September 1944 ) was a Slovak Partizanka .  She lived in a house on Tobrucka street.  2 in Bratislava in Old Town . According to a plaque on the house, it was "courageous young Partizanka that during the Slovak National Uprising heroically put life in the struggle against German fascists in Turciansky Holy Ďur 21/09/1944 ".

In her honor bears her name street in Bratislava Dubravka .  http://translate.google.com/

Adolf Frankl (Czechoslovakia, 1903 – Austria, 1983)

“I distribute paint on the canvas with my fingers, brush and palette knife, without any plan

or model to follow. The ghosts crawl out of the darkness.”

http://www.artforum.judenplatz.at/EN/worte_en.html

http://www.artforum.judenplatz.at/EN/bildergalerie_en.html shows examples of his work

“Born in Bratislava. He studied in the School of Applied Arts in Bratislava. After his studies he worked in interior design. In 1944, on Yom Kippur his family was transported to the Sered camp. His wife and two children escaped from the transport. In November 1944, he was transported to Auschwitz; received prisoner number B-14395. On January 18 1945, during the death march to Gleiwitz, he escaped to a forest and to the Althammer camp where he hid. In 1945, after his liberation he moved to Krakow and from there to Bratislava, where he was reunited with his family. In 1947, he had another son. The family moved to Vienna, where he later passed away.”

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/virtues_of_memory/frankl.asp

A stroll around Old Town

The Old Town features a rather bland mix of boutiques, galleries and souvenir and folklore shops. One standout is the Twigi boutique on Klariska Street, which is notable for its offbeat women’s clothing. Several shops offer good buys in Czech and Slovak crystal and glass, and there are some interesting used book and antique shops. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/style/16iht-trbrat_ed3_.html By Ruth Ellen Gruber  Published: June 16, 2004 and the shop is still there.  I loved the artwork on the shutters.

The red signs say Bratislava City Library but I couldn’t find in when I went in thinking it seemed more like an apartment building now.  And we were on our way to catch the bus back to the marina so I didn’t spend much time looking really.

Unrestored bits of the Old Town

http://www.antikvariatsteiner.sk/

Antikvariát STEINER was founded in 1847 and after more than 140 years in 1991 restored again.  In addition, our older books antiquarian focuses on the old press, maps, graphics, and pictures pohľadice old and marginally on the sheet music.  Successor of the bookshop in Ventúrska we try to Bratislava and remind visitors of our city. http://translate.google.com/

“False identification card issued to David Steiner under the name Jan Dudas by the Jewish underground.

David Zigmund Steiner was the son of Wilhelm Zeev Steiner (b. Nov. 1, 1878, Bratislava) and Josy Jameson (b. June 25, 1884, London). He was born on June 24, 1926 in Bratislava and had one sister (Renee) Reline (b. 1922) in Bratislava. Wilhelm Steiner, originally from the small Moravian town Kojetin, had nine siblings. The family was Orthodox but had liberal tendencies. David’s father belonged to the local Free Masons; he spoke Latin with the local priests and German at home. He ran the family Antiquariat Book store which had been founded by his great grandfather Zigmund Steiner and was very well known. The family was well-off and owned several properties. They lived in the house that was connected to the bookstore and also owed a summer home bought by David’s grandparents known as the "Garden." David attended the Neolog elementary school and then began the German Gymnasium where 300 Jews studied. He also studied Jewish subjects privately and participated in the Bnei Akiva Zionist youth movement.

On April 18, 1939 the independent Slovak government issued sweeping antisemitic legislation limiting the number of Jews in certain professions, though they also granted individual exemptions. On April 25, 1940 the Aryanization law was enacted providing for the liquidation of Jewish enterprises or their transfer to non Jewish owners. Jewish students were expelled from certain educational institutions.

In 1939 at the age of 17 Reline Steiner acquired a certificate to immigrate to Palestine. She understood the gravity of the situation and hoped to leave Europe. Her father was not enthusiastic about the idea and preferred for her to go to England. Reline returned to Bratislava surrendering her certificate for Palestine. However, she never obtained a British work visa. In February and March 1942 deportations to Poland began, and all Jewish persons between 16 and 30 had to register. Reline tried to get a job as a seamstress in order to obtain a work permit from the Central Economy Bureau declaring that her work was essential. Such permits usually spared one from deportation. The request was denied. Reline managed to move to German Christian neighbors who were friends of the family. She took all of her clothes, books and belongings. However, at the end of March the registered young people were called up ostensibly for labor assignments somewhere in the Reich. Reline claimed she was not afraid of hard work, and she realized if she did not appear at the deportation site her parents might be called up. She was sent to the Patronka collection camp which was run by the Hlinka Guard and then deported to Auschwitz/Birkenau where she was murdered.

The rest of the family remained in their own apartment, andWilhelm was able to work almost until 1942. David’s three uncles also worked in the book store as well as 4-5 Jewish employees. The store was confiscated and given to Ludo Mistric Ondrejov, a well-known Slovak author. Initially he told the family that they could continue working; their work was a necessity for all concerned. The store received Aryanization papers claiming that Mistrik-Ondrejov was the official owner, and the Central Economy Bureau issued work permits for the Jewish employees. The new owner only appeared once or twice a month to collect money from the business. At some point the family lost their ownership of the "Garden;" the Slovak State split it into three parts and sold it to three separate buyers. On June 12 1942, when deportation of Slovak Jews was in full swing, Ludo Mistsrik-Ondrejoy declared that he did not need the Jews Max, Josef, David Sigmund and Wilhelm Steiner in his bookstore: .

David’s uncles managed to obtain work illegally on one of the building sites in Bratislava. One unlce who was a construction engineer helped David get work carrying concrete for a government building department. David and his mother were given protected status. In June 1942 they were called in by the authorities and told that they would be picked up in three hours. They packed their belongings and went into hiding with Christians in Bratislava for a week. David managed to continue working and moved in with another Jew until August 1942. One day, David went to visit an uncle who was a lawyer with protective papers; the concierge of the house saw him and called the police. They held him in the police station for three days and interrogated him regarding his parents’ whereabouts which he did not know. After three days he was sent to the central place for the deportation of Jews but was released due to his protection papers. He found his parents who were hiding in a bunker on the outskirts of the city together with 40 people. They remained there for about two and a half months. David returned and worked again in construction from November 1942 to 1944. In 1943 David was working in an old Jewish cemetery which was being dismantled to make way for a tramway tunnel. With the permission of the authorities the remains of the old cemetery were moved to the new Orthodox cemetery further from the city center. Though 80% of Slovak Jews had already perished, the government gave permission to relocate the old Jewish cemetery, including the grave of the famous rabbi, Chatam Sofer.

David’s father, Wilhelm Steiner found temporary work cataloging books that the Slovak State intended to sell abroad. In 1944 David and his parents returned to hiding in a cold wet and damp bunker with surrounded by rats. Conditions were abominable but they survived the war; Wilhelm was the only one of his nine siblings to survive. After the war, Wilhelm Steiner tried to reclaim the family property. He died in 1948 in Bratislava shortly after the property issues had been resolved in favor of the family. David immigrated to Israel to join some cousins who had immigrated previously. He brought with him the Torah Scroll that had belonged to his great grandfather and that now is kept in a synagogue in the Old City. In 1991 Selma Steiner was able to reopen the Steiner bookshop in Bratislava. David was director in Jerusalem of a children’s home and researched the Holocaust in Slovakia. He married a survivor from Transnistria and had four children and eight grandchildren. “

(Sources: Genya Markon interview with donor May 2010 and "Between the Old and the New: The History of the Bookseller Family Steiner in Pressburg" by Martin Trancik, 1995

http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=1173808

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Requiem-for-a-people-of-the-bookstore

http://spectator.sme..sk/articles/view/13971 tells the continuing story of the book store.

“After the renewal of democracy in Czechoslovakia, in December 1990 the Slovak Parliament and the Slovak Government issued a "Declaration on the deportation of Jews from Slovakia to concentration camps in 1942 and 1944." In the declaration, members of parliament and of the government showed their sympathy for those Jewish fellow citizens, expressed their regret for the crimes committed against them, and apologized for the acts of their predecessors.

     After the declaration, memorials and memorial plaques dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust victims began to be unveiled throughout Slovakia (more than 100 to date), including the Central Memorial to the Holocaust of Jews in Slovakia, erected in Bratislava in 1997 on the site where the Neological Synagogue originally stood.”  https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/

I write because nobody listens…..

http://www.dodohexe.szm.com/indexuk.htm

Our docking resort is located in a calm romantic bay of Danube at kilometer 1864.8. Since 1990 we have pioneered in Slovakia offering services for boat owners.

We are pleased to offer you security guarded docking facilities providing water, fuel and energy supplies. Technical assistance and services are backed by specialists from company IMIDJEX.

Our guests are not only Slovak and Austrian boat owners, bikers cicling along Danube banks but also connoisseurs of barbecue fish specialities from pike, catfish or sturgeon. Delicious home made apple-pie will definitely be a mouth-watering experience. You can enjoy unforgettable sunset tasting a glass of our carefully selected Slovak and imported wines.

We are looking forward to welcome you in our resort during the summer season to make the best of our tradition and hospitality.

Sincerely yours. Dodo

DoraMac was very happy to find a home with power and water at Dodo’s rather than just tied to a barge at the commercial dock across the way.  Ella, widow or Dodo, now runs the marina with her son Robert and other family members.  Very warm and helpful.

The marina guestbook entry of our friends Ed and Sue Kelly who were there in July 7  2012, exactly 2 years ahead of us. 

Bratislava, capital of Slovakia and just an hour by train from Vienna, is the comeback kid among European capitals. A decade ago, the city was virtually a ghost town. But today, Bratislava is downright charming, bursting with colorfully restored facades, lively outdoor cafés, swanky boutiques, in-love-with-life locals, and — on sunny days — an almost Mediterranean ambience.

World War II left Bratislava a damaged husk. Following the war, communists showed little interest in preserving the city’s heritage, razing the Jewish quarter to make way for their ultramodern New Bridge, erecting a highway that slices through the Old Town (though it will soon be diverted to a tunnel that runs beneath the Danube), and even selling the city’s medieval cobbles to cute German towns, which were rebuilding after the war and trying to restore some of their elegant Old World character.

With the fall of communism in 1989, the new government began a nearly decade-long process of sorting out building rights and returning them to their original owners. By 1998, most of these property issues had been resolved, and owners were encouraged to restore their buildings. The city also did its part, replacing all of the street cobbles, sprucing up public buildings, and making the Old Town traffic-free. Bratislava was reborn, and life returned with a vengeance.

The bustling centerpiece of Old World Bratislava is Main Square. From Easter through October, cute little kiosks, adorned with old-time cityscape engravings on their roofs, sell handicrafts and knickknacks. During the holidays, a Christmas market blankets the square. At the bottom of the square is a line of extremely atmospheric cafés, from Kaffee Mayer, an institution here since 1873, to Café Roland, housed in an old bank building with a coffee-filled vault.

The buildings that surround Main Square date from different architectural periods, including Gothic and Art Nouveau. When these buildings were restored, great pains were taken to achieve authenticity, each one matching the color most likely used when it was originally built. The impressive Old Town Hall, with its bold yellow tower, stands at the top of the square. Near the bottom of the tower, a cannonball embedded in the facade acts as a reminder of Napoleon’s impact on Bratislava. Another reminder is the cartoonish statue of a Napoleonic officer bent over one of the benches on the square. With bare feet and a hat pulled over his eyes, it’s hardly a flattering portrait.

This is just one of several whimsical statues dotting Bratislava’s Old Town. Most of these date from the late 1990s, when city leaders wanted to entice locals back into the newly prettied-up Old Town. Standing outside Kaffee Mayer, a jovial chap doffs his top hat. This is a statue of Schöner Náci, a poor carpet cleaner who, dressed in a black suit and top hat, brightened the streets of Bratislava during the communist days, offering gifts to the women he fancied. Another Bratislava fixture is the statue of ?umil “the Peeper,” popping out of a manhole with a grin plastered on his face (despite being driven over by a truck — twice).

Exploring the Old Town provides a look at where this country has been. But wandering outside the center offers a look at where it’s headed. The city is busy transforming its entire Danube riverfront area into a people-friendly park. And just downstream from the Old Town is the futuristic Eurovea, resembling a computer-generated urban dreamscape come true. This development includes a riverside park, luxury condos, a modern shopping mall, and an office park.

Despite massive progress, holdovers from the city’s communist past remain. The most prominent landmark from this time is the bizarre, flying-saucer-capped New Bridge. Locals aren’t crazy about this structure — not only for the questionable Starship Enterprise design, but also because of the oppressive regime it represents. However, capitalists have reclaimed the bridge in part, turning the space up top into a posh eatery called, appropriately enough, UFO.

With 70,000 students at six universities, Bratislava has a youthful energy and optimism. You can feel their presence, especially at night. Because there are no campuses as such, the Old Town is the place where students go to play. And much of the partying goes on in former bomb shelters, built during the tense times around the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today these make ideal venues for clubs — right in the town, but powerfully soundproof.

Bratislava was one of the big surprises of my travels this past year. What I once thought of as a drab, depressing place is now lively and joyful. Bratislava has blossomed into the quintessential post-communist Central European city, showing what can happen when a government and its people work together to rebuild a city.

https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/read/articles/booming-bratislava

Hviezdoslav´s Square is also a home of Danish author of children´s stories, Hans Christian Andersen. This sculpture by Tibor Bartfay was made in honor of his visit in 1841 and is surrounded by characters from his stories.  http://www.miceslovakia.com/en/article/curiosities-bratislava-en

Years ago I bought Andersen’s travel book, A Poet’s Bazaar : A Journey to Greece, Turkey & Up the Danube.  His entry about Pressburg, not Bratislava was written in June of 1841

It just seemed natural to hold his finger which is why it’s so shiny.

Our first and last stop of the day: iced coffee in the morning and this strawberry thing in the afternoon.  Thankfully we do a lot of walking or I’d be size x-large now.

Jozef Kroner (1924–1998)  Shop on Main Street

The 1965 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, The Shop on Main Street (Obch o Na Korze) stars Josef Kroner as Tono Briko, a slothful Slovakian carpenter. The time is World War II, and the occupying Nazis are nationalizing all Jewish-owned businesses. To please his ambitious family, Tono takes the job of "Aryan comptroller" for a rundown button shop managed by an elderly Jewish woman (Ida Kaminska). He realizes that his new job won’t bring much in the way of money; the old woman, deaf as a post, realizes nothing, not even that a war is on. The shopkeeper’s Jewish friends, knowing that the woman will be carted off for extermination if she doesn’t have an Aryan coworker, offer to pay Tono if he’ll stay on as her assistant. Kroner and the old woman form a friendship, but when the order goes out that all Jews be rounded up, he panics and prepares to turn her over to the Nazis. His last-minute change of heart unfortunately comes too late. In contrast to the tragic denouement of the film, Shop on Main Street closes on a idyllic, dreamlike sequence, showing the smiling shopkeeper and clerk walking together through the countryside, free from all danger and fear. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/44467/The-Shop-on-Main-Street/overview

Lovely boulevard with statues, small souvenir shops and tour guide hawking their tours

We picked this one and the 4 of us had our own private tour being the only ones on the tour.  Our lovely tour guide had been a travel agent and speaks about 5 languages.  She shared what to me were sounded liberal views on government and criticisms of the former Soviets. What you would expect in this urban college town.

Slovak National Uprising Square

This bronze monument honors the anti-fascist uprising. The sculptor was Ján Kulich.

http://www.commietravels.com/#!slovak-national-uprising-square/zoom/cjoe/imagesf0

SNP has statues in memory of Slovenske Narodne Povstanie (Slovak National Uprising of 1944, for which the Square is named). These statues are considered a prominent flaw in the city by some of the locals, as it was built by communists, who claimed that the Uprising (against the WWII pro-Nazi Slovak government) was all done thanks to them. http://www.bratislavaguide.com/snp-square

http://www.jankulich.sk/skulptura%20en.htm is about the artist.  I really like the heads he as done which you can link to.

The newly sworn-in Slovak President Andrej Kiska lives in the Presidential Palace.

“The Presidential Palace is the location of the annual open house (Den Otvorenych Dveri), where you can walk into the building and meet the President. However, the building is off limits to the public all other days of the year. It’s home to regular ceremonies with foreign officials, which involve periodic changing of the guards, brass bands, ceremonial changing of flags, as well as other pomp and circumstance. Gardens behind the Presidential Palace are well worth a visit when you feel like walking through a park.

     Also known Grassalkovic Palace, named for its former owner. During communist times, it was known as Ustredny dom pionierov a mladeze Klementa Gottwalda (Main house of Pioneers and Youth of Klement Gottwald).

     An urban legend about the Presidential Palace that is actually true is that when Rudolf Schuster was president, he had the building so lit up at Christmas time that, according to a Bratislavske Novinny article from 1999 a Swiss pilot flying from the High Tatras was running out of gas and mistook the Presidential Palace for landing lights at the Bratislava Airport. He landed his Cessna in the picturesque garden behind the Presidential Palace.

     The Presidential Palace is located at Hodzovo Namestie (Hodzovo Square), an important public transportation interchange in Bratislava and a convenient place to leave the bus and walk two minutes to the historical center.

http://www.bratislavaguide.com/presidential-palace

The linden tree and Slovenian statehood

“Twenty years ago, on the day the Republic of Slovenia proclaimed its independence and sovereignty, a linden tree was planted in Republic Square (Trg republike) in front of the National Assembly building. Slovenia’s independence was also marked by a number of other linden trees which were planted all over Slovenia at that time.”

http://www.slovenia.si/

Our guide, a very intellegent young woman, told us the Linden was the national tree of Slovakia but didn’t know why.   I can’t find any confirmation that it is the national tree.  The man running the tourist office in Komarno, Slovakia, our next stop,  didn’t think it was true.  But there are lots of stories about the Linden tree.

http://www.fahnenversand.de/fotw/flags/cz-mb-li.html#li)  connects the name Lipnik with the Linden (lipa) tree in the Czech Republic.  And there is a Lipnik Nature Reserve near Ruse in Bulgaria.  Lipnik is my maiden name so I need to visit the Lipnik Nature Reserve and maybe find out why it was so named.

The area in front of the castle is called Yard of Honor. It is bordered by two triumphal gates and guard houses of the imperial guard. http://www.slovakia.com/castles/bratislava-castle/

I remember our guide telling us that the decorations on top of the gate represented each army that had been repelled at the castle…but I can’t prove that either and R,R and M don’t remember quite either. 

Production of trophies

17/07/2010

Clay is used as the basic material for the production of trophies. The 1:1 trophy mock-up is first made of clay and, subsequently, individual parts are grouped in the sculptural group. Plaster casting is then used as a mould for cast stone; when the mould is removed, the cast is (after necessary corrections) installed on the Triumphal Gates and/or Guardhouses of the Bratislava Castle. A total of 14 trophies will be installed. http://www.bratislava-hrad.sk/

http://www.bratislava-hrad.sk/en History and description of the restoration project.

The Soviets, who now seemed to be blamed for much “less than lovely architecture” built this bridge but destroyed most of the old Jewish Quarter and historic buildings to do it.  The “flying saucer” on the top has a restaurant that rotates.

http://terkajeffko.blogspot.hu/2012/01/erasing-history.html is a really interesting blog about the Soviet distruction of historic buildings of Bratislava and the possible impact on tourism today. 

Slovakia –1966 footage of synagogue & destruction of Bratislava Jewish quarter

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

     Thanks to David Kraus, here is some extraordinary footage from Bratislava in 1966, showing the beginning of the destruction of parts of the Old Town, including the historic Jewish quarter, to make way for the construction of the New Bridge. There are some remarkable shots of the twin-towered, Moorish style synagogue before its demolition in the path of the construction.

http://jewish-heritage-travel.blogspot.hu/

“Between 1563 and 1830 St Martin’s served as the coronation church for Hungarian kings and their consorts, marked to this day by a 300-kg gilded replica of the Hungarian royal crown perched on the top of the cathedral’s 85-metre-tall neo-Gothic tower. At the beginning of September each year the pomp and circumstance of the coronation returns to Bratislava in a faithful reconstruction of the ceremony.”

http://visit.bratislava.sk/en/vismo/o_utvar..asp?id_org=700014&id_u=1593&p1=3295

Raoul Wallenberg Memorial which I’d read about so just managed a photo when our red train passed by.  At the end I asked our guide about it and she was surprised that I’d noticed.  I told her I was Jewish and had read up about Jewish Bratislava. 

    “Bratislava – The unveiling of a memorial to the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg took place on 11 November 2004 in the Zamocka utca, at the foot of the Castle Hill, Bratislava. The sculptor Klement Trisuliak"s monument depicts a broken wall with metal work showing a burning building and its frightened inhabitants. Raoul Wallenberg, the courageous Swedish diplomat then serving in Budapest, saved tens of thousands of Jewish men and women at the time of the country"s Nazi occupation. Many of those had been transported to Budapest from Bratislava and other places in Slovakia.

     The project has been an initiative of the Slovakian Council of Christians and Jews, whose Patron is Pavol Hrusovsky, President of Parliament, and its chairperson Stefania Salisová. Also present at the festive event were Slovakian EU Commissioner Ján Figel and the Mayor of Bratislava as well as diplomatic representatives from Sweden, Austria, Germany and Hungary. Markus Himmelbauer, General Secretary of the Austrian Coordinating Committee for Christian-Jewish Cooperation brought greetings from the International Council of Christians and Jews.

     Raoul Wallenberg came to Budapest on 9 July 1944. Since April 1944 more than 400,000 Jews from the Hungarian Provinces had been deported to Auschwitz. Only in Budapest some 200,000 Jews were still left. The situation deteriorated dramatically after the establishment of the fascist Pfeilkreuzler government in October 1944. Through the issuing of Swedish protective passports, Wallenberg saved thousands from deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau and death marches to Austria – and therefore from certain death. Other diplomats did likewise. When Budapest was liberated in February 1945 by the Russians, there were still more than 100,000 Jews in the city, thanks to these life saving activities.

     In January 1945 Raoul Wallenberg was abducted by the Russians. His fate could never be discovered. Only in 1993 Russian authorities confirmed that he had been deported by the Soviet secret service and died in 1947.

     Wallenberg was one of the first to be named by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous among the Gentiles.

http://www.jcrelations.net/

Slovak National Gallery

http://slovakia.travel/en/exhibitions-in-the-slovak-national-gallery-free-of-charge

Our guide wasn’t at all fond of the Soviet addition which in real life doesn’t look quite so interesting as this. 

“Closed books and stilled lives”

   Review: Whiteread’s concrete tribute to victims of nazism

Kate Connolly in Vienna

The Guardian, Thursday 26 October 2000 02.04 BST         

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/oct/26/kateconnolly

The statue of the man just says Lessing.  I wondered why his statue was in the Judenplatz.  First I found this article written in 1935.

Statue to Lessing is Erected on Jewish Square in Vienna

July 5, 1935     

A statue to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, famous German poet, dramatist and critic of 150 years ago, whose essays and plays stimulated the emancipation of the German Jews, has been erected in the Judenplatz (Jewish Square) here.

Jews were once burned alive in the square where the statue now stands. A tablet still remains with the inscription, “Jewish dogs were burned here.”

In spite of this, when Vice Mayor Lahr announced that the name of the square had been changed to “Lessingplatz,” there were some objections in Jewish circles.

The idea for the statue was conceived twenty years ago by a committee headed by the then Premier Ernst von Koerber and Josef Unger.

The unveiling was witnessed by leaders of Vienna intellectual circles and admirers of Lessing, including Chief Rabbi David Feutchwang, Federal Councillor Frankfurter, Prof. Gluecksmann of the German People’s Theatre and Dr. Fischer, historian.

The dedication address was made by former Minister Oswald Redlich, president of the Academy of Science. The government was represented by Vice Mayor Lahr.

Herr Lahr pointed out that Lessing had described Vienna as a city where one is allowed to write and speak in freedom, adding: “Let us hope that Vienna will soon be such a city again.”

Read more:  http://www.jta.org/

This is a contemporary story.

“An imposing statue in the center is the German playwright Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781). The original statue was created by Siegfriend Charoux and unveiled in 1935, but removed in 1939 by the National Socialists and melted down for weapons. Charoux created a second Lessing monument out of bronze, unveiled in 1968 and moved to Judenplatz in 1981 where it stands today.”

http://travelwritersmagazine.com/tag/judenplatz/

Our lunch place: A bit overpriced for what you get, but it’s a lovely place to sit and sip during the week when the area must be full of activity.

“The Viennese Beisl is more alive and well than it has been in a long time. Several recent waves of fashionable dining may however have done some harm to these basic pubs or inns of Vienna: There was nouvelle cuisine (which translated as “eating tiny specks of stuff you don’t know on a very large plate”). Then there was the post-modern dining fashion that spelled “anything goes,” and in fact all sorts of crossover restaurants did go, many of them out of business. We also witnessed the attempts of convenience food chains, theme diners, fake Irish pubs and very Middle Eastern-Italian trattorie to conquer the Austrian palates.

Through all this, the Beisl stayed. Last spring and summer, the Wien Museum paid homage to this institution that not only provides its clients with affordable food but also serves as a real-life chatroom and ersatz living room for those less literarily inclined than the Kaffeehaus patrons and favoring beer over coffee (though of course you get both in both places).” http://www.viennareview.net/services/restaurant-reviews/beisl-cuisine

To the right of the chairs is the open plaza with the memorial.

The plaque tells about the memorial

And then I had a flash that I recognized the name Rachel Whitread. 

“Rachel Whiteread unveils golden frieze at Whitechapel Gallery” which I wrote about after a visit to the gallery while in London. http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-18432744

Jewish Museum was closed on Saturday.

“A memorial plaque on the outside of Misrachi-Haus reads: Thanks and acknowledgment to the just among the people, who in the years of the Shoah risked their lives to help Jews, persecuted by the Nazi henchmen, to escape and survive.—The Austrian Jewish Community, Vienna, in the month of April 2001

in April 2001, the Jewish Community placed another memorial plaque, this one devoted to those who helped Jews during the Nazi era, on the so-called Misrachi House at Judenplatz 8.”

http://travelwritersmagazine.com/tag/judenplatz/

Half the carriage drivers I saw were women!  The sound of clip clop was very distinct on the streets.

Something Barbara Timmerman had said made me stop to look at this plaque.

“In this area in 1194 Duke Leopold V founded the first mint in Vienna to strike silver coins from the ransom of King Richard the Lion Heart” are the words engraved on the plaque.

“1194: Duke Leopold V installs Shlom as mint master. Shlom is the first Jew whose settlement in Vienna can be documented.” www.vienna.info

Anker Clock at Hoher Markt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYmYCQ6h5P8 is a video of the noon time performance.

Blink and you missed the movement from one minute indicator to the next.  At noon the people moved but we weren’t there to see that.

“This clock (built 1911 – 1914) was created by the painter and sculptor Franz von Matsch and is a typical Art Nouveau design.

It forms a bridge between the two parts of the Anker Insurance Company‘s building. In the course of 12 hours, twelve historical figures or pairs of figures move across the bridge. Every day at noon, all of the figures parade, each accompanied by music from its era. During the Advent season daily at 5 and 6 p.m. Christmas Carols.” http://www.wien.info/en/sightseeing/sights/from-a-to-f/anker-clock

A statue of Gutenberg which was appropriate as not far from his statue are many book shops.

The statue was erected on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of book printing in Vienna.

http://www.vanderkrogt.net/

I recognize Merkel and Putin but not sure who’s wearing the polka-dots

A square typical of Vienna Baroque

A walk through the vanished world of Vienna’s Jewish Quarter between the Danube and the Canal. Leopoldstadt, Vienna’s second district, was once a hub of Jewish life. Some of the town’s finest synagogues were to be found there, also a wide array of Jewish shops, clubs, theatres and coffeehouses, and the splendid Grain Exchange, focal point of Jewish commercial interests. Leopoldstadt was also a central-European stronghold of Zionism and Chassidism. Sigmund Freud spent his youth there, composers Arnold Schönberg and Oscar Strauss were born there. This Jewish world was brutally destroyed in the Shoah, but new Jewish life has come back. On this tour we also follow the "Path of Remembrance" commemorating Jewish victims of the Nazi terror. http://www.viennawalks.com/indexe.php?page=start

Regardless of its origin, ghettos were a significant part of medieval Jewish life.  But as Ravid points out, “All ghettos were Jewish quarters, but not all Jewish quarters were ghettos.” Jews sometimes voluntarily agreed to live in separate sectors, but often it was not their choice. http://www.momentmag.com/jewish-word-ghetto/  is an interesting discussion of the word ghetto which came up during our tour.  Leopoldstadt was a “Jewish quarter” rather than a ghetto.

Barbara Timmermann was warm, friendly, knowledgeable and truly interested in each of our stories.  She was helping several of the women on our tour find information about their families.  Two of the women were researching parents and grandparents who had lived in Vienna. Barbara speaks English, German, Spanish and probably others too.  People who take the time and make the effort to learn other languages are wonderful!  She seems to see Vienna as a very livable city attracting many educated Jews connected with their work; many from America.

“Just as enthusiastic and lively as her mother is Barbara, who joined VIENNAWALKS & TALKS as a junior partner in 2002. It is not surprising that her interest in other cultures, her work experience abroad and her love of both foreign languages and adventure qualify her quite naturally for a career in guiding and tourism. A graduate of a Vienna College of Tourism she is a brilliant organizer when it comes to setting up sightseeing programmes for large parties, but her knowledge, thoughtfulness, and most of all, her flexibility are also greatly appreciated by small parties or individual travellers. Among her many special themes are Jewish Vienna, the world of the Habsburgs, and post-World War II history. With her eye for the eccentric and her sense of humour she easily catches the hearts of her clients, and it is hardly surprising that she is very much in demand. When she is not guiding, she is in charge of the company’s books, indulges in diving, skippering through the Mediterranean, or improving her command of the Spanish language.” http://www.viennawalks.com/indexe.php?page=wir

Crossing the canal to the area of Leopoldstadt.

http://www.hakoah.at/en/textedetail.asp?Block=1&ID=150

In Vienna, on the night of Saturday, November 7, the Sports Club Hakoah, also known as Hakoah Vienna, held a gala ball to celebrate its 100th anniversary. The evening’s entertainment included a bare-chested acrobat whose midair gyrations, on a swath of purple cloth hung from the ceiling, suggested both the precarious nature of Jews in Vienna and the skills used to pull off this event.Fittingly, the ball was held at Hakoah’s new Karl Haber Sports & Recreation Center. The center’s completion last year, funded by the Austrian government as part of the 2001 “Washington Agreement,” figures in the ongoing reckoning between Jews and non-Jews in Austria today. Steps away from the sports center is a new secondary school, Zwi Perez Chajes Schule, which offers Hebrew and Judaic studies in addition to a standard Austrian curriculum. Also within the complex is a nearly finished building with assisted-living units for the elderly. All three organizations are open to non-Jews.

http://forward.com/

http://forward.com talks about the history of Hakoah, the Jewish Austrian Olympic athletes and how Austrian Jews feel today.

This blah looking building has apartments that sell in the millions of euros.  Location, location, location.

A kosher bakery especially popular on Sunday when “non-kosher” bakeries are closed.

A kosher grocery store

I believe there was a small synagogues in this building. 

“For the many people who were murdered whom nobody remembers.”

http://www.steinedererinnerung.net/

Remembrance Stones similar to the German Stumbling Stones.

The project began in May 2005 when Elisabeth Ben David-Hindler got a request from her Israeli uncle, who wanted to put a commemoration plaque on his parents’ house in the 9th District, where about one third of the population was Jewish before WWII. Elisabeth’s parents managed to escape to Britain, but her grandparents stayed in Vienna and were deported to the concentration camp in 1941 and 1942. And she could never understand why there was nothing in the 2nd District, where she lived, to commemorate the Jews who had lived there. So she approached city authorities, and in two months was able to place the first of 84 plaques on Volkertplatz, near the Augarten in the 2nd district. …….

    This is what the Path of Commemoration is all about, a path of stones laid by the Stones-of-Remembrance Society for those who have no relatives left to remember them and to mourn for them. Others are laid by the surviving relatives, who have come back to honor them from émigré communities all over the world.

http://www.viennareview.net/news/special-report/path-of-memory

This woman from New Jersey’s father lived in the section that Barbara’s mother-in-law lives in now.  Barbara would help her more through email.

Tachles Cafe

Barbara said many Yiddish words were found in Austrian/German and showing up more once again.

tachles – (Yiddish) Literally derived from the word “purpose”. It means, “bottom line, concrete, tangible”. Example: “That’s enough talk, tell me tachles…” When someone says “Let’s talk tachles”, you know they mean business. http://www.culturalsavvy.com/expressions_Hebrew.htm

Leopoldstadt now is a sought after address because it’s near the underground, the old town, and it’s being renovated.

I believe that through the curved entrance is a rabbinical seminary.  Hence the guard house though I don’t know if they are always staffed.

A kosher Italian restaurant with two kitchens so they can serve both dairy and meat dishes.  Wonder if the tables are separated as they were in Ashdod in Israel.

A Jewish cultural gem: the Nestroyof Jewish Theatre in Vienna

   “Now, after more than half a century of neglect, the theater has been discovered virtually intact within the Nestroyhof building. However, it remains closed, blanketed in dust and lost to public view. The theater is on the first floor of a privately owned apartment building, which is to be granted landmark status soon. The original building was designed at the beginning of the 20th century by Oskar Marmorek, a well-known Viennese Art Nouveau architect and Zionist Jew. While Austria’s current landmark-protection laws forbid the owners from destroying architectural details, it would not proscribe what the theater space could be used for or require the owners to foot the bill for restorations……..

     But Vienna’s vibrant Jewish Broadway became a distant memory as the theater troupes and their audiences fled abroad or died in the Holocaust. Many of the buildings housing the theaters were damaged during the war, including the Nestroyhof, which was restored in 1957. Others were later torn down. Of the eight Jewish theaters that existed before 1938, only the Nestroyhof remains.” http://www.jewish-theatre.com/

The Leopoldstädter Tempel was the largest synagogue of Vienna, in the district (Bezirk) of Leopoldstadt. It was also known as the Israelitische Bethaus in der Wiener Vorstadt Leopoldstadt. It was built in 1858 in a Moorish Revival style by the architect Ludwig Förster. The tripartite facade of the Leopoldstädter with its tall central section flanked by lower wings on each side became the model for numerous Moorish Revival synagogues, including the Zagreb Synagogue, the Spanish Synagogue in Prague, the Tempel Synagogue in Kraków and Templul Coral in Bucharest. It was destroyed during the Reichskristallnacht on November 10, 1938. A memorial plaque on the site reads in German (and Hebrew): "Hier befand sich der Leopoldstädter Tempel, der im Jahre 1858 nach Plänen von Architekt Leopold Förster im maurischen Stil errichtet und am 10. November 1938 in der sogenannten "Reichskristallnacht" von den nationalsozialistischen Barbaren bis auf die Grundmauern zerstört wurde. -Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien" (Here stood the Leopoldstädter Tempel, built in 1858 in the moorish style according the plans of architect Leopold Förster, all but the foundation of which was completely destroyed by National Socialist barbarians on the so-called "Night of Broken Glass", on 10 November 1938).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopoldst%C3%A4dter_Tempel

The part of the building to the left in the photo is all that remains.

A photo of the synagogue

The pillars were erected by the Viennese government to illustrate the size of the original structure.

Further along Templestrasse is this colorful mosaic of the synagogue’s façade.

I noticed this Mezuzah on a doorway

For some reason green windows indicate part of the building is used as a synagogue.

Since 1951, a memorial stone on the site of the former Gestapo headquarters commemorates those who were imprisoned here. In 1985, the City of Vienna set up an official monument here, this time dedicated to all victims of National Socialist tyranny.

The Federation of Concentration Camp Survivors held a meeting on 11 April 1951 where they erected and unveiled a memorial stone for the Gestapo victims that had been designed by the Federation. The memorial stone was erected without official authorization and was later taken care of by the City of Vienna. A new memorial for the victims of the Nazi tyranny was unveiled by the "Austrian federations of concentration camp survivors and resistance fighters" instead of the memorial stone. A bronze sculpture and a block of granite from Mauthausen now symbolise the fate of the victims.

https://www.wien.gv.at/

Painted buildings

Interesting buildings

A façade painted to look like the church being renovated

City Center

While we werThere was a WC sign so I went to visit the WC.  You had to pay .50 Euro and they locked the door behind you.  You then let yourself out.  It was also the WC of a wine bar and if you had a drink you probably didn’t have to pay.

The Danube Canal

Very narrow here but it other sections they do canal tours on small cruise ships.

The Donaukanal ("Danube Canal") is a former arm of the river Danube, now regulated as a water channel (since 1598), within the city of Vienna, Austria .  It is 17.3 km (10.7 mi) long and, unlike the Danube itself, it borders Vienna’s city centre, Innere Stadt, where the Wien River (Wienfluss) flows into it. [1]

   The Donaukanal bifurcates from the main river at the Nußdorf weir and lock complex, in Döbling, and joins it again just upstream of the "Praterspitz", at the Prater park in Simmering. The island thus formed between the Donaukanal and the Danube holds 2 of the 23 districts of Vienna: Brigittenau (20th District) and Leopoldstadt (2nd District). The canal is crossed by 15 road bridges and 5 train bridges.[1]

     Because in German, the name Kanal, which has been used since about 1700, evokes associations of an open sewer, attempts at renaming the Donaukanal have been made (one suggestion was Kleine Donau—Little Danube) but have not met with success.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donaukanal

Lots and lots of graffiti along the canal

I call this photo “Legs.”

These two fellows were photographing some of the graffiti under one of the bridges

But even graffiti has rules ……

"Puber"’s drawings started to show up around Vienna during the last summer, but police failed to catch him despite trying several times. The sprayer, who left his mark mostly around the 7th district, was hated by every resident of Vienna. Even the other sprayers wanted to do nothing with him, because he was aggressive, unpredictable and almost always tried to pick up a fight with them. He never even followed the rules of "graffiti-art", especially the one that says not to spray over the work of other sprayers.”

http://www.austriantimes.at/

and…..

“Austrian police say they have caught an internationally active graffiti artist from the UK together with three pals who now face up to 5 years in jail and a bill for thousands for the clean up work.

According to Austrian police Jack M was also wanted in Prague and Bratislava for similar graffiti vandalism attacks. When he was arrested they recovered numerous specialist spray canisters as well as a high-tech array of equipment including expensive digital cameras used to record the images and smart phones for the transmission.

     The digital images recovered from the electronic equipment included numerous selfies of the group ready for online publication. There were also canisters of pepper spray.

     A police spokesman said: "It was an extremely professional organisation, they even had pass keys arranged that allowed them access to the underground network. This was a professional organisation well equipped for criminal activity."

http://www.austriantimes.at/

“Real Art”…..

We first thought they were just white blobs on the Stubenbrucke bridge

Stubenbrucke  “bridge” over the Danube Canal

Then I happened to turn around to look at them…..

Lemur Heads by Franz West

http://podpoddesign.at/ shows them lit up at night.

Franz West

I grew up in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, and it could only be described as a time of darkness. Many of the houses and buildings were bombed out, and as children we played in ruins or dirt rather than on the grass. It was more than dirty – filthy. But it was a time of really essential living. A real contrast to the 1960s, when I was in my twenties, and probably more so to the 70s, with children glued to the television in their rooms. We wondered how they would grow up, perhaps what kind of artists they might become: certainly cleaner than my generation.

http://artreview.com/  is a really interesting interview with West from 2007.  West died in July 2012 at the age of 65.

http://www.newyorker.com/  sadly is West’s obituary.

The Hundertwasser Haus

The Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser started out as a painter. Since the early 1950s, however, he increasingly became focused on architecture, writing manifestos and essays and undertaking demonstrations, in which for instance in 1958, he read out loud his ‘Mouldiness Manifesto.’

In 1972, he had his first architectural models made for the Eurovision ‘Wünsch dir was’ show, which he used to visualize his ideas on forested roofs, tree tenants and window rights. In these models he developed new architectural shapes, such as the eye-slit house, the terrace house and the high-rise meadow house.

The WINDOW RIGHT means the freedom for the resident to recreate the prefabricated space of the apartment he is to live in.

This is especially true of the outside wall of his flat. “A person must be allowed to lean out of his window and to paint everything in arm’s reach pink, so people can see from far away, from the street, that there lives a MAN.”

He must also be permitted to let creeping plants grow on the outside walls.

Whether the resident makes use of this window right or not is up to him.

It is then not the government’s, the authorities’ fault if the facades remain rigid in lethally sterile uniformity, and they can wash their hands of it.

http://www.hundertwasser-haus.info/en/

No straight lines outside or within

Each renter has “window rights.”

Shops, cafes and restaurants ring the complex so you can buy Hundertwasser  tchotchkes.  One café sent out a local to round up folks for an explanatory video.  You weren’t obligated to buy a drink, but we did.  The video was actually quite well done and gave you a chance to see the apartment interiors and hear from Hundertwasser.

Dog on the underground train.  Very sweet and came over for me to pat for a bit.  Dogs go just about everywhere but they are all well behaved.

We saw this fellow surfing in the wake of a speed boat on the Danube

DoraMac at the Vienna Marina… the most expensive place to visit with the boat.

“… This is the start of one of the Danube’s most romantic sections.  For 24km, it flows through the Nibelung region, scene of the song saga that inspired Wagner’s operas.”  JMP Guide  The Danube

http://www.pbs.org/

The artist Egon Schiele was born in Tulln. 

We came across this info plaque with only a short bit in English.  But it was intriguing. We were only out for a late afternoon stroll and dinner so couldn’t visit the museum dedicated to Schiele. 

“here you find out where people strolled in the fin de siècle Tulln and were Egon’s father drove the family: why people secretly whispered about them and why the station master was a town dignitary.”

When Egon Schiele was 15 years old, his father died from syphilis, and he became a ward of his maternal uncle, Leopold Czihaczec, who became distressed by Schiele’s lack of interest in academic studies, yet recognized his passion and talent for art.

http://www.egon-schiele.net/biography.html

“The year is 189.  A lanky boy is sitting at a window in the Tulln train station painting locomotives and trains.  A few years later he will have become the star of Vienna Modernism….Tulln’s most famous native son.”  Tulln tourist booklet

Kneeling Female in Orange-Red Dress by Egon Schiele, mixed media drawing, 1910.

Most of his works are more risqué than I can post here, but I like this one with the simplicity and color.

Statue of Mercury ;  we’ve seen many buildings in Germany and Austria painted this yellow

   “The locally available building materials endowed each city with a predominant color palette still recognizable today. Bologna was known as “The Red City” not merely for its political bias, but for the deep earthen red tones of almost every building in the city. Oxford and nearby Cotswold towns have a pale golden tone from the limestone used in construction.

     When the structure was felt to lack visual appeal, colored plaster or stucco was applied. The whole Hapsburg Empire was once recognizable through the predominance of its golden yellow buildings, the color favored by Empress Maria Theresa. The selection of this color may have helped to unify the diverse nationalities: Austrian, Hungarian, German, Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Slovenian. According to the color psychologist, Charles A. Riley II, golden yellow is almost universally people’s favorite color and is thought to express “the apex of spirituality, and intuition[1]”. http://www.livablecities.org/

Giant rings outside a jewelry store

These yucca made me homesick; my Bunker Hill St. house in Roanoke had a huge yucca and daylilies.

The Nibelung Saga…

The German Nibelungen — with the corresponding Old Norse form Niflung — is the name in Germanic and Norse mythology of the royal family or lineage of the Burgundians who settled in the early 5th century at Worms. Wikipedia 

The statue depicts Atilla (King Etzel in the poem)  receiving his bride Kriemhild, who’s come by boat from Passau.

Monument to the Nibelungs which I pretty much know nothing about even after reading the brochure..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGU1P6lBW6Q  is Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries which is part two of the Nibelung saga.  I danced around the house to it when I was a kid. The Stop & Shop grocery store sold 78s of famous classical music which my mother would buy and play for us.  And more recently,  The sci-fi/western Adventures of Brisco County Jr. which was a short lived but really good show had some characters based on the Valkyries.  I really liked that show!

Not sure why the rat and neither is anyone else whose writing I found on the Internet ….

“The group of figures to the left compromises two train-bearing princes, Margrave Rudiger, and Kriemhild; the one to the right consists of King Etzel, his brother Bleda and the kings Dietrich von Bern and Gibich.  The child is a reference to the progeny of Etzel and Kriemhild.

The interlacing water jets in the fountain are meant to symbolize the connection between East and West.  The opened book refers to the fact that this epic is handed down in written form.  The right-hand page is empty – the future is still an unwritten page.  The bronze figures were produced using a hollow casting technique.  They are the work of the sculptor Michail Nogin; the fountain was designed by Hans Muhr.  The monument was unveiled in the summer of 2005.”

“ The poets decision to have Kriemhild and Etzel meet in Tulln shows the significance of the town around 1200.  Another factor in the poet’s mind may have been that the border between the East (Hungary) and the West (the German lands) had run through the town 250 years earlier.  (The work was written around 1200.”

     Monument to the Nibelungs brochure   

Prevailing scholarly theories strongly suggest that the written Nibelungenlied is the work of an anonymous poet from the area of the Danube between Passau and Vienna, dating from about 1180 to 1210, possibly at the court of Wolfger von Erla, the bishop of Passau (in office 1191–1204). Most scholars consider it likely that the author was a man of literary and ecclesiastical education at the bishop’s court, and that the poem’s recipients were the clerics and noblemen at the same court.

The "Nibelung’s lament" (Diu Klage), a sort of appendix to the poem proper, mentions a "Meister Konrad" who was charged by a bishop "Pilgrim" of Passau with the copying of the text. This is taken as a reference to Saint Pilgrim, bishop of Passau from 971–991.

“The search for the author of the Nibelungenlied in German studies has a long and intense history. Among the names suggested were Konrad von Fußesbrunnen, Bligger von Steinach and Walther von der Vogelweide. None of these hypotheses has wide acceptance, and mainstream scholarship today accepts that the author’s name cannot be established.  In 2009, the three main manuscripts of the Nibelungenlied were inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in recognition of their historical significance ” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied

http://www.unesco.org/

Beautiful dried roses.  The best gardens are those that have flowers which are beautiful when they’re alive but also when they die.

Where there are bike paths people ride bikes!

We ate in a pizza joint just across from the Information Office both of which were really good!  I had a smallish cheese and spinach pizza with really thin crust. (The last few pieces were great the next morning for a snack with coffee.)   The owner asked if we all liked garlic in our food and we said yes.  But so far, no restaurant or recipe cooked here on the boat has reached our level of garlic tolerance.  Never too much garlic.  There were sombreros on the wall for decoration. 

While waiting in our final lock before Vienna we were serenaded by this boat or musicians.  The lock was better than a music hall and it was so fun to hear them.  The man in green is the horn player.

The castle overlooks the town and DoraMac

Looking down at DoraMac from the castle

Buying our tickets; no over 60 or 65 concession prices.  Bicycle Parking with rings for chain locks.

Walking through the Gate Tower into the Arcaded Court

Every arechway had stags horns… with painted stag faces.

“ The “Diamond Vault” dates back to the original building period in the late Middle Ages.  It is the only example of a vault of this kind in Austria.”  Castle Greinberg brochure

Great Hall of the Knights

The decoration over the door is painted, not carved wood

Castle Chapel created during the Counter-Reformation.

“In the chapel stands an exceptionally fine baroque altar.  It is decorated with various scenes from the Nativity, with the Adoration of the Shepherds as the central motif.  The structural reinforcement of the altar from behind is also remarkable.” Castle Greinburg brochure

Not marble, but faux finish

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Artificial Grotton

“The Sala Terrena is known as the ‘Stone Theatre’ because of its unusual form of decoration.  A Danube-pebble mosaic covering the entire surface of the walls and ceiling depicts the imaginary continuation of the arcades and a garden pavilion looking out onto and open landscape.”  Castle Greinburg brochure

Beautiful blue and purple hydrangeas in the Castle garden

Will one day garden statues be holding Kindles….

A found a shop with lovely crafts and cards made and run (with some help) by adults with special needs. 

These are the two lovely cards I bought.

I saw this photo in a window down the street and recognized the young man behind the cash register who is second from the left in this photo.  There was a woman weaving on a large floor loom, but she didn’t want her photo taken so I didn’t. 

A statue to the men who, once upon a time, poled the boats down the river.

This drawing was in the castle.

After our walk around town we stopped along  the river for a snack.  A cruise ship pulled in and we watched them having a time getting a second line to shore (they should have taken the really easy way but were trying the show-off way instead.)  The top deck was full of bicycles and it occurred to me that the top deck was an odd place for bikes.  You had to get them up and down.  We wondered how that was done and soon found out.

For Jane and Peter, the real lock was at the Castle

And for Martha whose home becomes Pension Martha when Randal and I visit.