September 14, 2010
Eisendstadt
Today started with us meeting an Aussie couple from Perth. They called in for a coffee at the place we had stayed and made us feel a bit guilty as they had camped. Their trip was from near Munich to Budapest following the Danube all the way.
The rest of the day has been a day of musical nostalgia, grapes and some relief to have a roof over our heads for the night. Our first port of call was Rohrau which was the birthplace of both Michael and Joseph Haydn. It is a small village proud of its association with the Haydns with streets named after them and the actual house of their birth well labeled but shut.
We called in at Bruck and there we were lucky enough to get an extensive map of the cycle routes around the Neusiedler See so once we were over the hill we could use them all the way to Eisenstadt. You don't actually see the massive lake but are on the huge plain surrounding it. This is a mass of grapes largely Gruner Veltliner (white) and Blaufranuisch (red). It is the first time in Europe that we had seen so much attention paid to bird control. There were some nets though not very many, these were all side nets and usually black, there were sonic bird scarers, bangers, a myriad of flapping things and even some fireworks. I must say I didn't see many birds and didn't see any bird damage on the berries. They were just starting the harvest and a group of pickers that Ken stopped to talk to gave him a bunch of beautifully ripe Gruner Veltliner. Further on as we were coming out of grapes sunflowers were being harvested. Suddenly everything seemed like summer and for once we were hot rather than chilly.
Now came Eisenstadt. Unbeknown to us it is the annual Haydn Festival here and ALL the accommodation is booked out. After much persistence the young man in information found us a room in the Eva Marie Wagner Guesthouse. The place is lovingly cared for and continues the musical theme. Eisenstadt is where the Esthazys had their summer palace and this is where Haydn came as court composer and composed many of his works. Ken has been like a terrier finding everything he wanted to see and Haydn has replaced the Smetna that he has been humming all the way since joining the Moldau in the Czech Republic. Ken also tells me that Franz Lizt was born in this part of Burgerland when the Hungarian border was in a rather different place than it is now.
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Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 2,059 km (1,279 miles)
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