Europe 2013: Visiting Weitra

September 3, 2013

For today's adventure, we drove out to Weitra, where Reinhart and Marta have another house. I also got the full story (which is far more interesting than "summer house" as I said yesterday).

Weitra is north and a bit west of Vienna, near the border to the Czech Republic. It has a castle, and a walled inner section, although it's much smaller than the other walled cities I've visited previously. It's a beautiful town, and their house is on the central square, where the Rathaus is, as well as the majority of businesses.

This house, number 15 Rathaus Platz, has a long history. The first known inhabitants were identified as living there in 1499. It's been in the Neunteufel family for the last 200 years, and was separated from its neighboring house in a marriage event which is described in terms of relatively recent scandal: just in the 1850s or so (you know, around the time Seattle was busily declaring itself a city and not just a hut in the wilderness). Scandal is probably the wrong word, but it was a noteworthy event.

The Rathaus (or town hall) is an appropriately gothic building, dominating the open space. There are a couple of buildings on either side painted with medieval cartoons depicting the eras of man (assuming I got that correctly). There's a hotel, a bakery, and a couple of restaurants, as well as a variety of the normal businesses you'd expect in a small town: a couple hairdressers, a store selling electronic devices, etc.

All the buildings look like they were constructed hundreds of years ago, because, really, they were. There's a communal cistern (no longer used, but preserved for historical value), and a series of tunnels which were described to me. Outside the wall, there's an area of garden plots, one of which belongs to the Neunteufels. We took a nice wander around the area.

The house at number 15 includes a couple of small barn areas, an outbuilding that used to be used for washing, and indeed, when you open up the barn door and look across the narrow street, there's the castle wall. It's not quite literally in the back yard, but it's really not a stretch to describe it as being so. The castle was closed today, so we couldn't go in, but I've seen some pictures, and it looks pretty cool.

I took a bunch of pictures, because the whole house situation is really quite beautiful, and feels like something from another era. It is, in many ways, from another era. I was very impressed, and could easily see how a house like that (with two-foot-thick solid stone walls, no less) might pass down through the generations pretty easily.

I was also bizarrely tired today, and the drive to and from Weitra (which you pronounce as "VEY-tra") found me dozing off, particularly the drive back. The countryside is quite lovely, although it was either heavily overcast or actively raining pretty much all day, and so not terribly photogenic.

We also visited the lake and the golf course, which are just outside of town. Despite a crowd of cars, the lake was deserted, and we didn't see anyone chasing small white balls around. The weather wasn't particularly encouraging of outdoor activities, I guess.

Tomorrow is my day to wander Vienna like a tourist, and I should probably put together some kind of plan for the day. I was only half-kidding about ogling cellos -- I've been thinking about replacing the one I have, and shipping considerations aside, it would be awesome (and comparatively cheap, if I understand correctly) to buy one in Vienna. Shipping considerations are pretty hefty, though, and I don't think that the few hours I could devote to the search would really make for a good result. I also have no idea what import regulations might be like, and they might make the import of a cello from Vienna much more expensive than I think.

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I take it all back. It was quite easy to find the import fees (3.2% or free, it's not obvious which will apply), and after a quick call to the neighbor's daughter upstairs, who recently started playing cello, I now have a list of five different violin shops to check out in the music district. Tomorrow's plan is to go look at cellos.

As I have told everyone who's gotten wind of this crazy plan, I recognize that this is a crazy plan. I don't expect to leave Vienna with a new cello. But wouldn't it be a cool souvenir?

I set up a Skype call with my mom, who is a much more experienced cellist than I, to see if she had any advice. Her best advice was to keep my eye out for old cellos from unknown makers: they're worth much less because they don't have a pedigree, but I don't care. I just want a cello that sounds nice, and unlike my current cello, is repairable. My current cello sounds fine, but it was made with the wrong kind of glue, and the first crack or problem will mean that it's basically so much pretty garbage. I've been thinking about replacing it for a few years now, so why not take a look as long as I'm in such a musical city? We'll see what happens.

As long as we had the Skype connection going, Cori and Jens and Reinhart and the baby all got some time on-screen as well, which made for a very convivial evening conversation, between Vienna and Oregon. Cori was our exchange student in about 1993, and we all became fast friends, with multiple visits in each direction (and the tradition continues: I'm here). I've also been to two Neunteufel weddings, one in Hamburg, and one in Montreal.

So, now I'm all excited to see what tomorrow brings. I had been planning on leaving for Switzerland on Thursday morning, but maybe there will be exciting developments of a cello-shaped variety that keep me in Vienna for another day...

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Created by Ian Johnston. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.