Trip - Day 2

Tuesday, May 31

George picked me up in his efficient Smart Car for Two and, after breakfast with the ever smiling and playful Brigitte, we returned to our mission. This day we visited Josef’s “Zuflucht,” a large sandstone piece that lies in the courtyard of a kindergarten. I had located this piece 14 years ago when I visited Vienna with my mother, but had no decent photos. In fact, all my photos from that trip were useless due to a camera malfunction. On this trip I’m taking triple measures – retaining photos on digital SD cards, loading them to my computer then creating back-ups to an external hard drive…and possibly, if time allows, up into Picasa.

We picked up a sandwich for lunch, but enjoyed some ice cream first. Vienna's ice cream is more like Italian gelato..and delcious. Hey, life’s too short – eat desert first!

We then went through several cemeteries, searching for both graves of family members and for grave markers created by either Josef or Florian. We had limited luck. In Vienna, when a grave has been left unattended and fees not paid, the grave is eventually turned over. This was the apparently the sad fate of several on our list, including that of Moritz Kohn my great-grandfather. His grave featured a statue by his son-in-law, Josef. We found the grave of Fritz Lach but the bust sculpted by Josef was missing. Communication with the cemetery by email confirmed the bust was stolen in the late 1990’s. I sent them a photo of the original grave stone for their records.

While there, we also visited two very large, beautiful churches; Leopold's Church and the other outside a hospital complex. George takes photos using a 3D digital camera, sometimes with a fish-eye lens, creating very unique and intriguing photos. I use my DSLR to document as much as I can.

We searched for a large piece by Josef outside a hospital in Lainz, but here we had no luck. It was a piece marking the efforts of care for a World War I hospital – one of many – and most likely had been removed when the hospital was taken down. However, we did have some luck in locating a statue of Jesus/Sacred Heart in a Chapel of the Lainz Hospital. We also visited the Mozart memorial in St. Marx Cemetery, which was restored by Florian in 1950.

Later that evening we attended a wonderful concert by Yusuf Islam, once better known as Cat Stevens. A packed house rose for three standing ovations. Though his voice has shown some signs of age, he was very effective and entertaining, and his music is a powerful and relative as it was years ago. It was on the way to the concert hall where we found a large relief by Florian on the side of a building - and we notd the location to return later to photograph it in the daytime.

Afterward we went for a light supper and beer. Here there is a blend of beer - a mix of a dark beer and a pilsner - called a "schnitz"....something I hope to have again during this trip.  While one would think Austrians love good beer – and they do – they also love good wine, and there are many wonderful vineyards in surrounding areas.