11/10/2017
Day 33 - Our last full day in Austria before heading home tomorrow. It's been a wonderful tad cooler the past few days with abit more wind, you can feel the snow is on its way.
Max picked us up and we journeyed out to Lower Austria; Wildungsmauer where we had visited earlier in our trip to see Ingrid & Gunter and their family. Today they took us for a site seeing journey around the area by car.
There is a lot of Roman ruins in the area. One significant one is in the township of Carnuntum. This was a Roman Legionary Fortress or castrum legionarium and also headquarters of the Pannonian fleet from 50 AD. After the 1st century it was capital of the Pannonia Superior province. It also became a large city of 50,000 inhabitants. They have now even uncovered an Roman water pipeline from this area to Vienna city!!
We went and had a look at an original gateway ruin which was just in amongst the corn fields and came across a hunting group.
We then went and had a stroll in the grounds at a few of the local castles all predominantly used as hunting lodges in their times.
First stop was Castle Niederweiden. The once imposing medieval castle of Grafenweiden, several hundred yards away from today’s chateau, was then already a ruin and the abandoned village overgrown with rampant underbrush.
Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg commissioned Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach in 1693 to design a small hunting lodge close to the derelict village of Niederweiden. The architect planned an airy “pleasure-garden building” by taking three basic geometrical forms (oval, rectangle, square) combined in varied relationships with one another. West of the chateau he added two small service buildings, the game kitchen and confectionary bakery.
where we had a look in the original hunting kitchen which is now used for functions.
In 1685 Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg purchased the domain of Engelhartstetten with the village Niederweiden. The once imposing medieval castle of Grafenweiden, several hundred yards away from today’s chateau, was then already a ruin and the abandoned village overgrown with rampant underbrush.
Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg commissioned Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach in 1693 to design a small hunting lodge close to the derelict village of Niederweiden. The architect planned an airy “pleasure-garden building” by taking three basic geometrical forms (oval, rectangle, square) combined in varied relationships with one another. The leitmotif in Fischer’s language of forms is clearly recognisable in the three-dimensional façade structure with its protruding and concave sections and the raised oval central hall with attic storey crowned with sculptures. West of the chateau he added two small service buildings, the game kitchen and confectionary bakery.
Maria Theresa purchased this property and Castle Hof in 1755 for 400,000 guilders and made a gift of them to her spouse. Only ten more years together were granted to the imperial couple to use these properties, also for hunting.
After the death of Francis I Stephen of Lorraine in 1765, Maria Theresa commissioned the head architect to the Court, Nikolaus von Picassi, to remodel the chateau. The flat roof with the attic zone was replaced by a mansard roof. A side staircase now led to the chambers on the first floor where four apartments were accoutred with Chinese wallpaper and numerous copper engravings. The oval hall with a new domed roof was adorned with illusionist wall paintings by Jean-Baptiste Pillement, showing exotic flora and birds and oriental musicians. In 1770 Maria Theresa requested the Schönbrunn court gardener Louis Flechier to plan out an avenue between the residences of Schloss Hof and Schloss Niederweiden.
The death of Maria Theresa marked the beginning of Niederweiden’s slow decline. Pieces of furniture were successively moved either to Schloss Hof or Vienna. The garden ran completely wild. When Emperor Franz Joseph transferred Schloss Hof to the army administration, all objects related to art and cultural history were removed from Schloss Niederweiden, too, and transported away. What remained was the empty, unused shell of the hunting lodge.
During the First World War the ground floor was even used as a stable for horses. After the end of the Monarchy, Schloss Niederweiden, like Schloss Hof, went into State ownership. In the following years the ceilings collapsed in some rooms, windows and doors had long been replaced by nailed wooden boards. The building substance deteriorated even more when the domed roof of the hall collapsed in the Second World War. Renovations began in 1956, but these were interrupted by a fire that destroyed practically the entire roof, and the staircase roof fell in. On the occasion of the 1986 Land Exhibition – “Prince Eugene and Baroque Austria” – Schloss Niederweiden also underwent radical reconstruction work, which rescued it from final dereliction. The “Marchfelder Schlösserverein” – the Marchfeld Schloss Assocation – founded in 1987 organised several exhibitions in the subsequent years, including in Schloss Niederweiden. Since the founding of the Marchfeldschlösser Revitalisierungs-und Betriebsges.m.b.H. in 2002, Schloss Niederweiden was mainly leased out for events. The integration into the Schloss Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H. in 2015 has meant that Schloss Niederweiden is once more being used on a permanent basis as an exhibition venue.
Second stop was the Castle Hof. Schloss Hof is a palace located in Austria near the border of Slovakia. It once belonged to Prince Eugene of Savoy who purchased it late in his life in 1726, He had it enlarged in the Baroque style by the architect Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt in 1729, and used it as an elaborate hunting lodge. He left it to a niece in his will, and it was later purchased by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and became part of the imperial estates. The gardens and grounds here are massive. There was also a lot of military on display here.
Whilst we were there the air raid sirens were sounding. Apparently once a year all is the air raid sirens in Austria are tested to ensure they still work in the event they are ever required again in the future 😳
They also have a few animals here including some rare white donkeys of which there are only a few hundred left in the world.
Then we went to this little cafe restaurant which is a bakery and meat shop which is very popular and very yummy.
Then our last castle for the day was Castle Eckadtsau. If walls could talk, the Imperial hunting lodge of Eckartsau would tell many gripping stories about the final days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nestled in the Danube wetlands and surrounded on all sides by the expansive Schlosspark gardens, Eckartsau was the final Austrian residence of Emperor Charles I and his wife Zita from 1918 to 1919.
Under the Eckartsau dominion, extensive land and territories were acquired both to the east and west, as were castles, market towns and rights. In the 16th and 17th centuries the inhabitants of Eckartsau came and went with regularity. The magnificent appearance of the palace today can be attributed in large part to Count Franz Ferdinand von Kinsky, who purchased the property, including the Eckartsau manor, in 1720. He subsequently converted the medieval fortification to a baroque hunting lodge. Top-notch artists such as Fischer von Erlach, Daniel Gran and Lorenzo Mattielli were closely involved in the extensive redevelopment.
Imperial from 1760 onwards
In 1760, Francis Stephan von Lothringen (Francis I), husband of Maria Theresa, acquired the castle. Over the years, its most prominent residents included Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne, as well as Austria’s last imperial couple Charles I and Zita, who spent their final days in Austria at Eckartsau before going into exile. After 1945, the Austrian National Forests (ÖBf) became the administrators of Schloss Eckartsau and in the past decades have worked extensively to restore the castle – parts of which had been in absolute desolate condition – to its former glory.
Charles I (Karl Franz Joseph Ludwig Hubert Georg Otto Maria; 17 August 1887 – 1 April 1922) was the last ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was the last Emperor of Austria, the last King of Hungary (as Charles IV) and the last monarch belonging to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. After his uncle Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914, Charles became the designated successor of the Emperor Franz Josef. Charles I reigned from 1916 until 1918, when he "renounced participation" in state affairs, but did not abdicate. He spent the remaining years of his life attempting to restore the monarchy until his death in 1922. Beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2004, he is known to the Catholic Church as Blessed Karl of Austria.
This was also where he fled Vienna when the revolution of Austria occurred and he ended up in exile on the island of Madeira and subsequently executed!
This was a small intimate tour and so interesting and in a way brought together and rounded out all the imperial history I'd heard read and learnt about over the past 5wks.
I am so amazed at how much of their treasures have been kept, well preserved and maintained and on display for generations to see. Obviously Europe is rich with history and Austria played such a huge roll in shaping the whole of Europe. In its day it was a vast empire! I've loved every minute of it and just love reading about it all. I am hoping to be able to continue my journey when I get home in learning more about it.
We made a quick visit to Andrea's (Ingrids daughter in law- Christians wife) doctors surgery which she is currently in partnership with and very proud of.
Then we went to dinner at an Austrian version of a winery. This place is only open for 6mths of a year after harvest is finished and people come from everywhere. They serve wine, of course and food, but nothing hot! It's all cold meats, cheeses, spreads & bread!! Abit different but was very nice.
Ingrid & Gunter had organised an old childhood friend of Dads to home along so he got a lovely surprise and enjoyed chatting away to them. Ingrids daughter in law Andrea helped me to read the menu by translating in pigeon English with my pigeon German. It was good. I've really been impressed with h how well I've managed understanding and speaking German and managing to communicate. I would really love to continue using it at home if dad will do it! 👍
