Wednesday, June 8, 2005

Day Off in Eisenstadt, Austria


Esterhazy Palace
Originally uploaded by bd58.
Finally, a real day off. Not a day spent driving a thousand miles, but some quality time to do as you please.

The bus arrives at the hotel just past 9am. I jump off and get everyone checked in. Wake up everybody on my bus so they can get into their rooms.

Today we're staying in Eisenstadt, Austria. Eisenstadt means Iron City in German, which is the native language here. Tomorrow's show is in Nickelsdorf, Austria, about 35 miles from here. This is supposedly as close a hotel as we could get to the festival site for a group our size. The band's staying in Vienna today because there are better rooms there and more things for them to do.

I've got a great room with a nice view of this part of the town.

Off to breakfast with a few of the guys, and then I head out for a walk. Mick Ridley, our British merch dude comes along, and soon we're sticking our heads into a few shops. He buys a few CD's. I'm just window shopping. New Levi's 501 jeans on sale for 60 Euros ($77 usd), regularly 80 Euros ($102 usd). Wow! Local clothing is much more reasonably priced. Mick wants to spend too much time shopping and I want to walk. When he decides to stop and get his hair cut, I keep going and wind up at the Esterhazy Palace, near the Zentrum (city center). That's it in the photo above. I learned that the palace provided composer Joseph Haydn with over 40 years of inspiration for his extraordinary music. Inside the palace is Haydn Hall, one of the most beautiful and acoustically superb concert halls in the world. Un-be-liev-a-ble would do for a description.

I wind up spending most of the day walking around, just vegging. The high temperature never reaches 60, and the wind is strong all day. When the clouds obscure the sun, it gets downright nippy. If we could have weather like this every day for the rest of the tour, I'd be happy.

The buses are leaving the hotel at 5pm to go load in at 6pm for our show tomorrow. The crew won't get back to the hotel until 1am, and I have no reason to go to the festival site tonight, so I stay here and continue my adventures on foot. Mick, the swaggie, also stays behind and we make plans for drinks and dinner later.

I found 3 cool restaurants and about 6 bars that looked interesting while I was out, so we'll go hopping in a bit…

Be sure to click on the Bobzilla's Photos link at the top right of the page to check out some of the photos I shot today.

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