Where in the World is Sharon Daugherty2: Vienna, Day two

Today we took a tour to the Vienna Woods, Mayerling and Monestery

We drove through Baden, which is a spa town in the Austrian state of Lower Austria and the capital of the Baden district.

Baden is situated at the mouth of the romantic Helenental, part of the Schwechat river valley within the Wienerwald mountain range, and used to be the principal summer resort of the wealthy inhabitants of Vienna, the neighbouring Austrian capital. It possesses a Kurhaus, fifteen bathing-establishments, a parish church in late Gothic style, and a town-hall, which contains archives. The warm baths, which gave name to the town, are thirteen in number, with a temperature of from 22 to 36 °C (72 to 97 °F), and contain, as chief ingredient, sulphate of lime.

beautiful buildings

spring blooms

In World War I Baden temporarily was the seat of the high command of the Austro-Hungarian Army. The opening of the casino in 1934 finally made the town the most important spa resort of Austria. After World War II Baden served as the headquarters of the Soviet forces within Allied-administered Austria until 1955.

Not far from Baden, the valley is crossed by a widespread aqueduct of the Vienna waterworks, built in

and on through the Vienna Woods

About 4 miles up the valley is Mayerling, a hunting-lodge, where Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and Baroness Mary Vetsera were found dead in 1889.

For reasons that have never been entirely understood, sometime during the night of January 29, 1889 crown prince Rudolf of Austria shot and killed his lover and then took his own life, thereby setting off a chain of events that changed the fate of Europe. The murder-suicide became known as the Mayerling Affair, after the hunting lodge where it took place.

Rudolf was the son and heir to the Hapsburg Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria and the famously beautiful and infamously melancholy Empress Elisabeth. Young Rudolf seemed to be a very different type than his cold and calculating father, developing an early passion for the natural sciences, liberal politics, and a somewhat more delicate sensibility in general.

By the time Rudolf was wed to Princess Stephanie of Belgium in 1881, he had already established the other habit that would appear to be his undoing: a certain weakness for the ladies - in fact, he allegedly brought a lover with him to his wedding.

Within a few short years, the marriage devolved into a relationship of mutual tolerance. Rudolf's womanizing, drinking, and more recently acquired drug habit took over his life, apparently leading him in a downward spiral.

Mary Vetsara on the other hand, appeared to be a young woman very much smitten with the prince. The 17 year old baroness, however, was not Rudolf's first choice for his suicide pact. He actually attempted to convince another woman, a prostitute named Mitzi Caspar, to die with him, but she declined his offer.

Mary and Rudolf left Vienna for the hunting lodge in Mayerling on January 29th, 1889, the prince claiming he wanted to do a bit of hunting the following morning. Sometime in the night, Rudolf shot and killed Mary, and then turned the gun on himself. When the staff came to the door in the morning, the bodies were discovered.

A massive cover-up operation followed, with the royal family attempting to pass off Rudolf's death as one of natural causes, and to hide Mary's body entirely.

Today, Rudolf is buried in the Hapsburg family crypt in Vienna, and Mary's body lies in a modest grave in Heiligenkreuz, Austria.

Rudolf's death left Franz Josef I without an heir, leading to the succession of Franz Ferdinand whose assassination in 1914 kicked off the hostilities of WWI, and effectively led to the end of the Hapsburg dynasty.

The former hunting lodge

After the deaths, the lodge was transformed into a Carmelite church, where services are still said in memory of Rudolf. A small museum houses artifacts related to the deaths. The altar is supposedly erected over the former bedroom of the Prince

Farther up is Alland, where a road leads to the old and well-preserved Heiligenkreuz Abbey. It possesses a church, in Romanesque style, dating from the 11th century, with fine cloisters and the tombs of several members of the Babenberg family.

"Stift Heiligenkreuz", which means the "Abbey of Heiligenkreuz", is a beautiful and living Cistercian monastery. Stift Heiligenkreuz is the second-oldest Cistercian monastery in the world and the oldest continuously active and inhabited one, now full of young vocations.

Stift Heiligenkreuz, peacefully situated in the middle of the "Wienerwald", the Vienna woods, is one of the most beautiful medieval monasteries in the world. It was founded in 1133 by St. Leopold III of the House of Babenberg. Leopold’s son, Otto, had been sent to Paris for an international education. Otto came in contact with Cistercian monks and soon decided to enter a Cistercian monastery. When Otto visited his father in Austria he asked him to build a similar monastery for Lower Austria. This was the reason St. Leopold built Heiligenkreuz as well as Klosterneuburg to the northwest of Vienna.

In September 2007 it was blessed by an official visit by Pope Benedict XVI.

Entrance to the abbey is through a large inner court in the centre of which stands a Baroque Holy Trinity Column, designed by Giovanni Giuliani and completed in 1739.

Presently, over 80 monks belong to the monastic community, the focus of which is the liturgy and Gregorian chant in Latin. Some of the monks also have pastoral duties in the 17 parishes for which the abbey is responsible or serve as professors at the Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule. Others serve in caring for the upkeep of the historic abbey.

Cloister: The cloister was constructed between 1220 and 1240: this was a time of stylistic transition from Romanesque to Gothic. Therefore, you can find a combination of the two styles here in the cloister. Compare, for instance, the arches which connect the small red marble columns. Originally, the cloister was built as a connection between the church and the sacristy. The monks also used it for prayer and study. The tombstones on the wall belong to members of noble families who gave endowments to the abbey. The oldest ones are from the 14th Century.

The windows consist of glass and lead. The first Cistercians did not use any colours in their stained glass, because they wanted the windows to represent the simple life.

I still think these are beautful windows

Two statues in the cloister are works by the famous Giovanni Giuliani. One depicts Jesus washing the feet of St. Peter. Made of linden wood, they were finished in 1705.

Saint Anne's Chapel

Chapterhouse: The election of the abbot and the investiture of novices take place in this room. All the paintings are Baroque; those on the ceiling are by Michael Rottmayer, those on the wall were made by a lay brother called Mathias Gusner. He painted the members of the House of Babenberg who are buried here. The Romanesque, sculptured tombstone in the middle of the room is the grave of the last Babenberg Duke, Frederick the Quarrelsome; he died in 1246. The windows were made in the 19th Century in Kramsach in Tyrol. The rosette-window was at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889, where it won the first prize for its colours and their composition.

Fraterie: Originally, this was the monks’ workroom, used for making shoes and boots. The dark, grey spots on the walls and on the ceiling are remnants from 13th-century paintings. They were discovered recently during a restoration project. These paintings are, like the windows in the cloister, very straightforward: the monks only used two colours (red and white) and they painted single bricks in order to reflect their ideal of simplicity.

Beautifully decorated wine cask

Fountain House: This room served as a washing room till the middle of the 16th Century. The fountain was made in Rome in 1556 and consists of five lead basins. Because of the high mineral content of the water, the fountain has been “decorated” by mineral deposits. Most of the windows are modern replacements, but the one on the left that portrays human figures originates from 1295. On the upper left side you can see the abbeys of Heiligenkreuz (left), and Klosterneuburg (right). Then, underneath the two abbeys, you have pictures of the man who founded both monasteries, St. Leopold III (left), and his wife Agnes (right). Under the couple you can see six of their children. The man in the white robe is Blessed Otto of Freising, the son who was sent to Paris for college and returned to Lower Austria with Cistercian monks.

The Baroness Mary Vetsera, victim of an unsolved murder in nearby Mayerling in which Crown Prince Rudolf von Habsburg died also, is buried in the village cemetery near Heiligenkreuz.

Heiligenkreuz is the mystical heart of the Vienna Woods, a harmony of nature and culture, a union of the medieval and the baroque, a symphony of history and spirituality

On our way now to the Gypsum mine

One enters the mine through a 230-meter brick-lined passageway that is cold, narrow and looking every bit of its 164 years.

The guide warned us to watch our heads and our steps, as sometimes the walk is a bit slippery, but eventually the passage opened into a small cavern, or room. The guide lectured in both German and English about gypsum mining (it’s used in fertilizer), and we learned that there were three levels to the mine. In 1912 miners broke through some rock on the lower level and suddenly 20 million liters of water from local springs flooded in, creating the lake. The mine was closed shortly thereafter.

In various places in the mine are signs with a symbol that consists of a crossed hammer and pick, with the letters “G” and “A”. The letters stand for “Glück Auf,” or “Good Luck.” Mining in the 1800s was so dangerous “Gluck Auf” became the miner’s motto.

In 1862 the miners built a chapel underground to their protecting saint, Saint Barbara.

Near the Saint Barbara shrine is a plaque memorializing the slave laborers from the nearby Hinterbrühl 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 Nazis to house a facility for the Heinkel AG airplane manufacturer, and it was staffed with slave laborers from the very 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.

Old mining equipment and samples of gypsum

Stairs leadig down to the underground lake *80 steps down and 80 steps up)

An old dragon boat once used in a movie

the dreaded selfie stick was brought out

The ride on the lake was pretty dark, but very quiet.

No waves down here

Glad to be back above ground. Don't think I want to be a miner of any kind.

A we headed back to Vienna with castles to view and pretty landscape

We had our first "Vienna Sausage" and a beer at a standup stand on the street. It was pretty yummy.

On to Schonbrunn Palace - The baroque total work of art consisting of palace and gardens was for centuries the property of the Habsburgs and is today largely in its original condition.

It was late when we got here. We were unable to take pictures inside and the gardens were closed by the time we finished seeing the state rooms and apartments