It was time to move apartments today. Since the weather wasn’t great, I didn’t fancy navigating public transport. I ordered a Bolt, which is like Uber but more popular in this part of the world.
The new apartment was also an Airbnb. It was more expensive but nicer than my previous one. It’s also further from the centre but I didn’t have many affordable options. Fortunately, there’s a train station and tram/bus stops less than 10 minutes away.
The weather had begun to turn. It wasn’t 30°C everyday. Today was grey and it was raining on and off.
Perhaps because it looked relatively miserable, I went to the Central Cemetery! It took about an hour to get there.
The cemetery was put on the outer skirts of Vienna because the planners expected the city to grow. They, therefore, needed ample space. There are now over 3Â million people buried in the cemetery,
I got off a stop early by accident but this allowed me to walk through the less famous part of the cemetery — where normal folks are buried.
A map at the entrance helpfully tells you where the famous people are buried. You can also see on the map sections for other religions, such as Buddhists, Jews, Muslims and Russian Orthodox.
The cemetery is a who’s who of composters. Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, a few of the Strauss clan, and Schoenberg are buried there. Mozart has a memorial in the cemetery but is buried elsewhere.
The only non-composer I recognised was the physicist/mathematician Boltzmann.
I find graves fascinating. They sometimes tell you something about the person. For example, the most famous people don’t always have the grandest graves.
Proust, buried in Paris, has a relatively modest, even nondescript, grave despite his literary masterpiece.
