Today was another big day of being a tourist. It is also the 199th anniversary of Franz Joseph Haydn's death.

Appropriately, we tracked him down while jumping around the outskirts of Vienna.

First we went to Rohrau, which, i hate to say it, was kind of boring. We saw the place where he was born, but here is the thing: there were no real artifacts from when he lived there. Even the house was new because the original burnt down in a fire. Not to mention, it was small and the tour was self guided and took about 10 minutes :( We traveled to the church and palace in Rohrau and they were okay...It was kinda primitive after being in Vienna's Schonbrunn the day before, but not everyone can be a Hapsburg!

Next stop was Esterhazy, where Haydn lived, worked and was buried. First stop was the pizza shop where I ate almost an entire pizza. It was really good to have American tasting food, and I am starving from not knowing how to cook for myself, ha. The next place was the Eisenstadt church, where we saw Haydn's (rather tiny) coffin in its own mausoleum. His head was not interred with the rest of his body until about 100 years after his death...? We dont know what that is all about. anyway, we went behind the altar to the 20 stations of the cross. Made to look like roman catacombs, there were different life size scenes of wood at 19 locations that took you around a stone structure that, on the outside, looked like a normal church. Its really hard to explain, again, but it was very fun to follow around the back of this church and come out on the roof to the final station at the top where he was on the cross. It was meant to be a journey, and i believe they were successful in getting their point across: It was meant to be a teaching tool for the illiterate citizens of the village 300 years ago.

Next was haydn's home and esterhazy palace which i am too tired to write about. More tomorrow.