Burgenland short trip

April 04, 2025

Hello lovelies,

it is custom to travel at my and my partners' birthdays. But if we can't make it on that day, we try to make it up soon after. And that was the reason why we travelled to Burgenland for a short trip.

We had already stayed at Burg Bernstein back in 2021 which is also located in Burgenland. This time, we stayed at the Castle Hotel Schlaining, which was directly next to the castle Schlaining. Sadly, not a single window was on the side of the castle.

To get there, we had to get a sixt rental car as we had sold our car in November. And that rental fee for two days was higher than the hotel price for two nights. ouch.

After work on Friday, we travelled in about 2,5hours from Vienna to the hotel and we only had a short part with a winding road but I got a bit sick nevertheless.

We arrived around 6pm at the hotel and then went to the castle and and tried to get a small dinner at the restaurant "Kranich" which was the castle restaurant but they had zero vegan options. Nevertheless, the kitchen was so kind and whipped up a vegetable and tofu dish for my partner and I ate a toast, which was...not good? Probably because I didn't like the bread they used - tasted like rye toast or whole wheat toast. At least our Uhudler Frizzante was okay!

The next day we got breakfast in the hotel and then visited Castle Schlaining. Here are some pictures of the exterior.

Inside they had it remodelled extensively and I didn't like it at all. Only the cellar looked and felt like a castle. In the upper floors they had one room which was more Biedermeier/Victorian but the rest of the rooms felt so modern. There was almost no trace of it being a castle anymore as they probably hollowed out the rooms at the renovation and built in new ones? Plus, they only had a few old items left like this crossbow.

The crossbow is a reconstruction and belonged to the founder of the castle Andreas Baumkircher. The original one can be found in Vienna.

They had three exhibitions, one about Burgenland, one about the perpetrators and victims during the NS era and one about peace and the uno.

Here are the two pictures of the peace exhibition in the castle. These are 1000 cranes, made after the story of Sadako and a Japanese legend about anyone with the patience of folding 100 paper cranes would get a wish.

The room which is a bit warped so I could fit a lot more into the pictures.

Some items from the exhibition - of course I only took pictures of clothes or other handmade items.

That small door which has not even access to stairs is something I love about old castles.

Random brassiere and chemise.

This room is supposed to symbolize the sun and all of Burgenlands villages are the rays. One picture of each villages was engraved into the disk.

The castle had these kind of tendril pattern all over. Some were quite visible like this one, other's were so faded that they were barely visible. Nobody knows what these patterns or tendrils symbolize and who drew them as they can be found all over the castle.

I took pictures of my outfit in the Biedermeier looking room. It fit my outfit better than any other room.

After finishing all the exhibitions we went to Kranich again and I treated myself with strawberry cake.

We left for castle Güssing around 2pm. It was only an hour drive but google maps gave us weird directions and we arrived by 3pm.. We only had two hours left as the castle would be closing at 5pm but that was no problem. There was a lift taking us up directly which was 2€ per person. We barely scraped together the money as we both don't really have cash on hand. How we would get down was the question but the man at the cash register told us that we could walk down. Perfect!

Now that castle felt like a true castle - cold big rooms, old masonry, and random pictures and items. I took a lot of pictures of everything textile or portraits.

That weird bag was a huge water skin. It's made out of leather.

These religious vestments had interesting embroidery details. The second one even had a cross-stitch pattern?

Here is the close up of the cross stitch. It's so unique - I had seen goldwork embroidery, whitework embroidery, lace etc but I have never seen cross-stitch!

A half drawn or overdrawn picture of Aurora Katharina Countess Batthyány, née Formentini on her deathbed in 1653, drawn in the 17th century. What caught my eye was the lace. It must have cost a fortune.

And here is an Austro-Hungarian nobleman's red silk brocade gala dress jacket from the late 19th century. Isn't it amazing?

There was a room with stuffed animals and chandeliers with deer heads. So weird - I loved it.

We even climbed the bell tower and it was super scary. I felt the tower swaying beneath my feet as it was very windy. Plus, I hurt my thigh muscle from climbing up the stairs and was limping all the way down. And it was a narrow, claustrophobic inducing tight stairway. But not worse than the one I visited in Belgium - that was even tighter.

All of the Habsburger portraits that were in the castle felt eerily similar until we found out that all of them were drawn in the 19th centuries. No wonder all of them looked alike and wore something similar.

We drove back and stopped at Aloisa's cafe because I enjoyed their cookies before and I wanted to buy a pack. The cake (Cardinalschnitte) was also good, a bit too creamy though in the middle.

Back in Schlaining we went to the cafe Mamsell Lieu and I had a huge pizza. My partner was able to get a vegan pizza which looked a bit sad as it had no cheese.

Afterwards we went to a wine tasting which was included in our hotel but I didn't enjoy any of the wines, I just don't like wine.... It often leaves a burning or weird taste at the back of my tongue.

As the day was finally coming to an end, we went to the hotel room, watched the new mummy movie with Tom cruise. It's not a good movie.

In the morning after breakfast we drove to Castle Esterhazy which was actually on the way home. It had amazing pictures and exhibition, especially the Haydn one was queer.