Our Last Few Days...Can We Just Stay Here?

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Our last two days in Austria have flown by! Yesterday we started by visiting Esterhazy Castle in Eisenstadt. The castle's origins are from the 13th century, but it was expanded over time. In 1622 the Esterhazy family took possession of the palace and it has been held by the family ever since! Haydn was the palace musician here, and as such there is a Haydn museum inside. I couldn't take pictures, but trust me when I say the museum's design choices were questionable...wallpaper full of Haydn's face is not exactly what I would have chosen.


We then moved on to the Vienna Central Cemetery, which is one of the largest cemeteries in the world and completely amazing. It contains 3.5 million people's remains, and was shelled with 500 bombs in WWII because Vienna was the seat of the Gestapo at one point. It contains big Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant sections, and more recently has added sections for Muslim, Orthodox, Buddhist, and Mormon folks. We specifically saw the graves of Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, and Brahms. The church on the Cemetery grounds was incredible too; it's Roman Catholic and built in art nouveau style in the early 1900s.





This is my favorite dome decoration!!


After this we sang our last concert and had a night out to relax :)

Capuchin Church where we performed

Dexter took a night off...old Vienna is safe for now.

A portion of the original city wall
Then today we visited Melk Abbey and took a Danube River cruise! Melk was incredibly gorgeous, a Benedictine Abbey stationed on a rock overlooking the Danube in the Wachau region, famous for its wine. The Abbey was founded in 1089, but today's building was built in the early 1700s. It has living quarters, an impressive library, a private school for nearly 900 pupils, and a lovely church (in which we sang a quick song, of course). The ceiling frescoes in some rooms are painted on the normal curved ceiling, but others are painted to make the room's flat ceiling look like it's curved. It was a really neat illusion to follow as you walked around the room.

Melk Abbey church

Melk from above!

Abbey courtyard #1

We saw a lot of old castles and castle ruins on our Danube cruise


All we knew was to get off the boat at 3pm at a town that starts with D with a blue church...it was blue, alright!


super. cute.

Inside the lovely blue church!
After a brief respite, we had dinner at a great little place with an accordion player and a lot of singing! It was a great end to our trip, though none of us want to leave. This has been a beautiful trip with beautiful people, and I'm so glad I got to know them. Here's to next time! <3

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