Visit the Composers

Brahms

Schubert

The Greatest Composer Ever - AKA Mozart

That other guy...

You know what I love about Vienna? The Viennese worship their composers like Americans worship Hollywood stars.

That being said, you can actually visit the composers... or what's left of them. Which isn't much, I'm guessing. Ok, all humor aside, you can actually take a trip out to the Zentralfriedhof (Central GraCemetary) and visit the gravestones of some of the greatest composers of all time.

If you love music and happen to be in Vienna: Say hi to Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, and Schubert. Last Sunday, Erik, Skyler and I made a visit out to the Zentralfriedhof to see the gravestones of the composers. The cemetary is pretty far out of the center of the city. You have to take the U3 line to the end (Simmering) and then take a Strassenbahn a few stops down.

Once you get there, the cemetary is huge. In fact, it has multiple gates. We got off at Tur 2 (Gate 2), and just walked around. Somehow, we walked off the main road, and ended up walking a few miles looking for the graves of the composers. We ended up reaching Gate 1.

But, this was ok. Getting lost in the Viennese Zentralfriedhof is really interesting. We crossed through a Jewish section and a WWII Russian Memorial section. There are also several old graves and you can see the names of important Viennese families throughout the cemetary.

Anyway, we eventually went back to Gate 2 and walked down the main road. Right on the left is a small semi-circle where the graves of Strauss, Brahms, and Beethoven all sit. In the middle is a memorial to Mozart (his real bones are thrown somewhere under a street in an unmarked mass grave... poor Wolfe). It's pretty cool to see where these men are all burried, especially since they all have a remarkable, lasting impression on this city.