Vienna is situated on the western edge of the Vienna Basin, on the gentle slopes of the Vienna Woods, a branch of the fothills of the Alps. This "Green Lung" is part of the legally protected green belt. In 2005, the Vienna Woods were also designated a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO - a designation for an area with a special cultural and natural landscape. A world city partially situated in a Biosphere Reserve is not only something special, but also unique anywhere in the world.

The Vienna Woods Biosphere Reserve covers an impressive 74,000 acres. The Woods contain a network of marked walking and hiking trails. There are 39 bike routes and 12 hiking trails.

We decided to forgo the biking and hiking and ride a bus. Our tour guilde was Sylvia. She filled us in on some of the history of Vienna and the protected reserve while on our way to Mayerling, an Abbey, and a gypsum mine.

Our trip took us through the city of Baden a lovely spa town Two thousand years ago the Romans liked the hot water from the hot sulphur springs. Later nobility and even Austrian Emperors enjoyed the healing bath in the hot sulphur water. This area was a favoite of Mozart nad other famous composers and musicians.

Many plaques announce that "Beethoven Slept Here". One Rathausgasse building, No 10, sports a plaque claiming that the composer lived there in 1821,1822, and 1823, working on his Nineth Symphony. It is said there are many such plaques because Beethoven was thrown out of more domicles than one could count. How many landlords would be fond of housing a petulant musician who had to play loudly enough to fell the music, since he scarcely could hear it?

Part of the aqueduct.

Karmel Mayerling is the place where Crown Prince Rudolph was found dead, under circumstances which even today remain unclear.

Visitors to Karmel Mayerling are at a historical site: where today the beautiful chapel of the Carmelite sisters stands which was the bedroom exactly where the tragedy occurred. Wall charts depict the story of January 30, 1889.

With Crown Prince Rudolph his mistress Mary Vetsera also died; she was taken in the dead of night to nearby Heiligenkreuz and buried. The grave of the unfortunate 17-year-old is still visited by many today...

With Crown Prince Rudolph the Habsburg Empire was effectively buried. The circumstances of the tragedy are - despite much speculation - still today unresolved and will probably never be ... (More of the sory at the end of this section of the blog)

The place where the tradgedy took place- the former bedrooom, now chapel.

Those who tour the carmelitine monastery visit this holy place at the historical site. The side chapel is also impressive, containing a statue of the sorrowful Mother of God that was donated by Empress Elisabeth. It shows the Madonna with her heart pierced by a dagger of anguish. The donor Empress Elisabeth could not know that she would die just such a death when she was stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist who selected her because he had missed his chance to assassinate Prince Phillippe, Duke of Orleans, and wanted to kill the next member of royalty that he saw.

As an aside. After the death of her only son Elizabeth never recovered. She withdrew from court duties and travelled widely. She was obsessively concerned with maintaining her youthful figure and beauty, this obsession taking the form of, among other things, a requirement that she be sewn into her leather corsets and spending two of three hours a day on her coiffure.

Portrait of Empress Elizabeth.

Portrait of Emperor Franz Josef.

A macabre attraction of Karmel Mayerling is the original sarcophagus of Mary Vetsera, on display since 2007, in which the unfortunate Baroness was buried in the Heiligenkreuz Cemetery from 1889 until 1945.

This sarcophagus was viciously broken into by grave robbers at the end of World War II, evidence of which is still clearly visible. Beside the sarcophagus are several of the wooden planks of the first makeshift coffin in which Baroness Vetsera was buried for the first couple of months...

The macabre pieces on display memorialize the tragic fate of two people. For their souls - and the needs and sufferings of all people - the Carmelite sisters who live in the former hunting lodge pray.

What remains of the former Mayerling hunting lodge?

Here's the story if you're interesed.

"1889 Hapsburg Tragedy at Mayerling : 'Love Deaths' Remain Fascinating

March 19, 1989|WILLIAM TUOHY | Times Staff Writer

- — For 100 years, the mysterious "love deaths" at Mayerling, a village just southwest of here, have gripped the imagination of Central Europeans and provided the raw material for many a play and film

On Jan. 30, 1889, Crown Prince Rudolf, archduke of Austria-Hungary and heir to the Hapsburg crown, was found dead in the imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling, in the Vienna Woods, about 15 miles from the capital. Beside the body of the 30-year-old prince lay that of his mistress, the Baroness Marie Vetsera, 17. Both had been shot.

At the time, the Roman Catholic Hapsburgs were at the zenith of their power, ruling much of Central Europe. Rudolf's father, the Emperor Franz Josef, ordered an immediate cover-up, and this brought on much of the mystery that has shrouded the deaths.

No Mention of Suicide

A finding of murder was out of the question; Rudolf, after all, was heir to the throne. At first there was even no mention of suicide, out of fear that the church would not permit a proper burial. Rudolf's death was attributed to poison at the hands of his enemies, or to natural causes.

Because Rudolf was unhappily married to Princess Stephanie of Belgium, no public mention was made of the teen-age baroness. Her body was spirited away and secretly buried.

Finally, the emperor informed the Pope that Rudolf had committed suicide in a "deranged state of mind," thus allowing a Catholic burial in the imperial vault in Vienna.

The mystery gave rise to much speculation about the circumstances surrounding the deaths, much of it emphasizing the romantic aspects of Mayerling. Not until years later, on the death of Franz Josef in 1916 and the crumbling of the Hapsburg Empire, did the details became widely known.

But because the incident had been so shrouded in secrecy and deceit, conflicting versions endured.

Died in Brawl, Author Claims

This year, for instance, Clemens M. Gruber, an author and opera archivist, published an account called "The Fateful Days of Mayerling." In it he argues that Rudolf died in a brawl following a bout of drinking. In Gruber's view, Marie's relatives forced their way into the lodge and Rudolf drew a revolver, accidentally shooting the baroness. He is then said to have been killed by one of her enraged relatives.

Attempts to exhume the body of the baroness from a nearby cemetery have been blocked by members of her family.

Another writer, Gerd Holler, who is also a physician, says in his book, "Mayerling--New Documents on the Tragedy 100 Years Afterward," that Rudolf had arranged an abortion for Marie, who was reputedly three months pregnant. Holler contends that she died in the process and that Rudolf committed suicide.

Empress Zita, who died last week at the age of 96 in a Swiss convent, argued that Rudolf was murdered by French political enemies of his father. She was the consort of Karl I, the last emperor, and grand nephew of Franz Joseph.

Most scholars now prefer the version offered by historian Brigitte Hamann in her book, "Rudolf, Crown Prince and Rebel." Hamann, who took part in a recent international conference on the incident at Mayerling, said in an interview:

"He was a poetic young man and brooded a lot. He was ill with syphilis and felt guilty that he had infected his wife. They had no children. The reason for all the confusion was the cover-up by the Imperial Court. . . . The fact is that Rudolf was a very nervous, sensitive man who flirted with suicide more than once."

Courtesan's Refusal

She said that recently discovered documents show that Rudolf proposed the idea of a love murder-suicide to another woman, a prominent courtesan, Mizzi Kaspar, but that she refused.

According to Hamann, the Baroness Vetsera, who was in love with the increasingly despondent Rudolf, was more susceptible to the love-death idea.

"There is no question," she said. "Rudolf shot the girl and then himself."

After the deaths, the emperor ordered the hunting lodge at Mayerling razed and a Catholic convent built in its place. It still stands, and the Carmelite nuns there still pray for the souls of Rudolf and Marie.

One aspect of the incident continues to trouble Hamann, however.

"The nuns . . . recently observed a centennial mass for Crown Prince Rudolf," she said. "All the prayers were for the prince. Astonishingly, there was no mention at all of Marie."

Our next stop was at the Heiligenkreuz Abbey - "The Abbey of the Holy Cross". Founded in 1133, the monastery which has been inhabited ever since by monks, seems surprisingly young at heart. Of the 83 monks who live here, most are well under 50 years old. More than a few of them found their way to the monastery via the internet. The brothers use social media to reach as many people as possible and introduce them to their heritage and their philosophy, which is to appreciate the qualities of the age and yet live unchanged according to the Abbey's traditional religious principles and monastic rules. The monks of Heiligenkreuz achieved world fame with their beautiful holy voices on releasing their CD,Chant- Music for paradise. This haunting yet measured meditation music tansports the listener to an inner spiritual place, full of strength, harmony and peace.

The CD reached the Top Ten in the UK's pop charts. It topped the classical music charts for months in a dozen countries and the pop charts in many of them. The album went seven times platinum in Austria, platinum in Germany and England, gold in Holland, Poland and several other countries. It also topped the Billboard chart in the USA. The CD has to date sold over 1 million copies and is available in all good music shops.

This inscription commemorates a visit from Pope Benedict XVI in 2007.

The monastery was founded by St. Leopold III of the house of Babenberg. Leopold's son, Otto, had been sent to Paris for an international education. Otto came to know Cistercian monks and soon decided to enter a Cistercian monastery there. When Otto visited his father in Austria he asked him to build a similar monastary for Lower Austria.

The trinity column which depicts the Assumption of Mary, who makes it the celebration, it seems, of a quartet.

A first communion was being held in the chapel.

Sylvia explaining that the wall markers are for religious persons but also for benefactors to the monastery.

Down the passageway and around the corner one encounters two large wooden duo statues.

This one depicts Peter protesting Christ's washing of the desciple's feet and the other one depicts Mary Magdelan anointing Jesus' feet with her precious perfume.

The Chapter House is graced with frescoes and a circular, stained glass window recent enough to paint the floor before it with soft, colored light. It holds the graves of thirteen Babengergers - the counts and dukes of Byzantine origin who ruled Austria before the famous Habsburgs.

The meeting place for the monks.

The cover of a wine cask in the monastery.

Somehow Sharon and I got separated so I had to resort to my "selfie stick" to take a picture.

A place of quiet where one could meditate.

After leaving the Abbey we headed to the Gypsum mine - Seegrotte Hinterbruhl. The mine was worked from 1848 through part of 1912. In 1912 they expanded where they shouldn't have and water flowed into the mine, slowly, not killing anyone but the flooded mine became unworkable.

In 1932 a brillant mind thought it could become a tourist attraction. That worked. Now there are about 20,000 visitors every year.

The stable where the horses were kept that did the hard labor of pulling things out of the minne. The horses lived their whole lives below ground and most went blind from living in the mines.

The cage was used in the movie the Three Musketeers.

In 1862 the miners built a chapel underground to their protecing saint, Saint Barbara. The Saint Barbara galley has been home to occasional concerts and masses.

This plaque memorializes the slave laborers from the nearby Hinterbruho prison/concentration camp who were used as the labor force in this mine during the last two years of the Second World War.

In 1944, until the war ended, the site was appropriated by the Nazi to house a facility for the Heinkel AG Airplane manufacturer and it was staffed with slave labor from the nearby prison camp. Fuselages were assembled here for the world's first jet fighter, the HE 162, a Nazi 'secret weapon'.

Bombing in 1944 did not destroy the underground plant but the German army destroyed the works in 1945 rather than have it fall into Allied hands.

Another prop for the "Musketeers" movie.

Eighty steps down to the largest underground lake in Europe.

Time for a selfie or two before getting on the boat for a little tour of the lake. The water was crystal clear.

Being in the mine left us a little thirsty so we bought a little water and coffee for the road.

A nice castle which our bus driver was nice enough to drive us by.

A view of Vienna.

Well, we still had a half day left to further explore the city of Vienna but we needed a little nourishment and what better than a sausage with mustard, ketchup and fresh horseradish from a little stand. Of course a local beer is a must.

One couldn't "do" Vienna without going to the Schonbrunn Palace, the former imperial summer residence of the Habsburg rulers. The castle was built to rival the French Versailles in Baroque beauty and importance but House Habsburg lacked funds to outdo its rival nation, France.

We went on a tour of the palace but unfortunatey pictures were not allowed. We are actually very happy when pictures aren't allowed because then we don't have to blog abut it. We are getting a wee bit tired of blogging. Have you noticed - pictures are fewer. dialog less and longer periods between the blogs getting published. It's called burn out, I think.

The interior is "an orgy of frescoed ceilings, crystal chandeliers, huge mirrors and gilded ornaments". Forty rooms are open to the public - that is less than 3 percent of the residence's 1441 rooms. It was quite enough. Yup, I think we need a break from palaces, churches, and maybe even gardens!