A concert in Esterhazy Park with five woodpecker species in the background. Photo: Bryan Bland
This twelve-day extravaganza, with its many options in a full yet relaxed program, is ideal for both the ardent birder and the music-lover, and for anyone with a more casual attitude to leisure activity. The holiday begins with two days devoted to birding to ensure the basis for a good list. Thereafter we’ll be caught up in the Eisenstadt International Haydn Festival: “tranquil, uncrowded, the sensible music-lover’s alternative to Salzburg, a gracious place to hear music without the snobbery or the inflated prices.” Our birding excursions to Seewinkel and its shorebird pools, phragmites-fringed Lake Neusiedl (Europe’s largest alkaline lake and the westernmost example of the Eurasian steppe lakes), the limestone cliffs and coniferous forests of the Hohe Wand, the 6,000-foot Schneeberg (“King of the Northern Alps”), and above all the bird-rich gardens of the Esterhazy Palace itself will be interspersed in the varied program of magnificent concerts and associated musical events. Our good friend the musicologist Richard Wigmore (of BBC Radio 3, Gramophone, and BBC Music Magazine) will enrich our experience with some pre-concert talks.
Eisenstadt (population 8,000) is less than an hour by road from Vienna, yet it still gives the impression of existing in another world in another age. It grew up in the shadow of the Esterhazy Palace, and until 1921 was part of Hungary. From 1761 to 1790 this was Haydn’s base, and his hectic life as court composer was spent commuting between the palace at Eisenstadt and its summer counterpart at Esterhazy (now Fertod) on the other side of Lake Neusiedl (and still in Hungary).
Over the years, our birdwatching activities have become a well-known feature of the festival, and we are now recognized and welcomed as old friends, not merely by the musicians and festival organizers, but also, it seems, by the entire population of Eisenstadt, from waiters and museum curators to Prince Anton and Princess Ursula Esterhazy themselves. Such is the intimacy and friendliness of this place. Haydn himself wrote, “Eisenstadt … where I wish to live and to die”! Without going quite that far, we can understand why our groups enjoy every moment of their stay and yearn to return for more.
Day 1: The tour begins with a flight from London to Vienna, from where we’ll drive to Eisenstadt. This and the next 10 nights in Eisenstadt.
Days 2-3: We’ll spend the first few days exploring the countryside surrounding Eisenstadt for birds. We’ll visit the Parndorfer Plain for Red-backed Shrike, Gray Partridge, and above all various raptors, hopefully to include Hobby, Saker and Red-footed Falcons, and maybe even Imperial Eagle.
A pre-breakfast visit to Jois or Brietenbrunn Marina could produce Spotted Crake, Bluethroat, Bearded and Penduline Tits, and Moustached or Great Reed Warbler, and we’ll spend a good part of one day exploring the Seewinkel pools for Spoonbill, Garganey, Little Stint, Wood and Curlew Sandpipers, and Kentish Plover, and searching the Hansag Plain for Great Bustard. Another day will take us to Marchegg Forest or Hohenau near the Czech and Slovakian borders, where we should find Black Stork, Collared Flycatcher, and a host of woodland birds. We’ll return to Eisenstad during one afternoon in good time to relax and readjust for our first concert in the magnificent Haydnsaal, which claims to have the best acoustics in Central Europe.
Day 4: Eisenstadt is a very special place, the perfect setting for a festival. And, of course, the actual venues—the very palaces, churches, chapels, and salons for which Haydn wrote his music—could not be bettered. Similarly, our birding locations are scenically impressive and varied. The concerts are of course fixed (notwithstanding any last-minute changes), but where we go each day will depend on the weather. Even so, September days in the Burgenland are usually sunny and calm. So there is a good chance that we will be able to spend this day up the Hohe Wand, looking for Nutcracker, Goshawk, Crested Tit, Rock Bunting, Firecrest, and a selection of other passerines in the higher-altitude pine forests. After a hearty lunch and some more birding, we’ll return to our hotel in good time to shower, relax, perhaps have a swim and a sauna, and attend the evening concert. Light supper at our hotel.
Day 5: After a pre-breakfast option on the orangery terrace (where we usually see six species of woodpecker), our day will continue with a thrilling performance of a Mass in full liturgical setting in the Bergkirche, the church where Haydn is buried. We will then spend more time in the palace park, a masterpiece of English landscape gardening, interrupting our birding activities to attend the relaxed windband recital by Da Blechhaufn at the Leopoldinen Temple. There’ll also be plenty of free time for resting, swimming, and personal exploration. If we have had only a picnic lunch, we’ll have dinner early.
Day 6: After more optional pre-breakfast birding in the palace park (targeting Short-toed Treecreeper, Hawfinch, and Long-tailed Tit), we’ll spend the morning at the amazing Forchtenstein castle and add more birds—maybe Mistle Thrush, Spotted Flycatcher, and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker—to our list around the Rosalia chapel in the wooded hills above. An excellent restaurant there will provide us with a filling lunch. Then there’ll be an opportunity for more birding (or free time in Eisenstadt) in the afternoon. Light supper at our hotel.
Day 7: Today we’ll devote to Hungary, visiting Prince Esterhazy’s summer palace at Fertod, the Hungarian Versailles (and maybe attending a private concert in the very room where Haydn first performed his Farewell Symphony), as well as the bird reserves at Fertöújlak, Hidlmajor, and Nyirkai-Kishás, where last year we saw Crested Lark, Kingfisher, Purple Heron, Curlew Sandpiper, Little Stint, Black-winged Stilt, Black-necked Grebe, and—most unexpectedly—Little Bittern and Steppe Eagle. We’ll also be able to sample Hungarian cuisine.
Day 8: Pre-breakfast birding could take us to Mörbisch marina pools (which last year produced Water Rail, Spotted Redshank, and Purple Heron, as well as splendid views of Bearded and Penduline Tits), and a relaxed day around Eisenstadt could include visits to Haydn’s house (and maybe the palace and the Jewish museum) as well as lunch in Rust (where in recent years one or two White Storks have lingered on their roof-top nests) and more birding around the lake or across the Hungarian border again at Fertörákos. Light supper at the hotel.
Day 9: Today we’ll explore more of the Seewinkel pools (looking for various waders, Spoonbill, Ferruginous Duck, Red-crested Pochard, and White-tailed Eagle), enjoy a wine-tasting and a fine lunch at Illmitz, another chance for the Great Bustards at Tadten or raptor-searching on the Parndorfer plain, and the oppportunity to spend more time along the moving Road of Remembrance leading to the Bridge at Andau (see the book by James Michener). Or we might return to Eisenstadt in time to patronize one of its fine restaurants not visited so far.
Day 10: Weather permitting, after a 7am breakfast we’ll depart early for Puchberg and take the rack-and-pinion railway to the summit of Schneeberg for some alpine birding at over 6,000 feet. Hopefully we should see Alpine Chough, Water Pipit, Dunnock (which like the other accentors is truly a mountain species here), Redpoll, and Raven—but above all it is the views and the feeling of being on top of the world that should take our breath away. The mountain air should give us a healthy appetite, so we’ll have lunch at the Berghaus Hochschneeberg with a lively gypsy cymbalon and violin accompaniment, then return to Eisenstadt in time to rest, shop, shower, or continue birding around the Gloriette and the woods above the park. Light supper at the hotel.
Day 11: Where we spend our last full day will depend on our priorities and any species missed so far. The vote in some years has been for Molz and more wooded hillsides (at 4,800 feet) with the chance of Black Grouse, Nutcracker, Crossbill, Meadow and Tree Pipits, Crested and Willow Tits, Firecrest and Goldcrest, and Gray Wagtail. As usual we’ll return to Eisenstadt to allow for the usual options before our evening in the Haydnsaal. Assuming we enjoyed a substantial lunch, we’ll end the day with a light supper at the hotel.
Day 12: Another Sunday, another joyous mass in full liturgical setting, this time the cathedral. Then a short walk (no doubt processing with Prince Anton and Princess Ursula and the Esterhazy Guard) to the palace for our final concert: Adam Fischer and the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, with the last movement of the Farewell as the now-traditional encore bringing this happiest and most inspiring of festivals to a close. If we don’t linger too long over our final lunch, we’ll have time to visit Haydn’s birthplace at Rohrau and continue via the Roman amphitheaters at Carnuntum (though the lions are now very small) to Vienna airport and our flight back to London, where the tour concludes.
Updated: 15 March 2008
Prices
- 2008 price about $5,920
- Single Occupancy Supplement $370
- 2009 price not yet available.
Notes
This tour is limited to 16 participants with two leaders.
Participants who prefer to meet the group in Vienna should contact the WINGS office. Cost includes good tickets for all concerts.
This tour is organized by our British company, Sunbird.