Sunday, June 11 – Vienna

We left the hotel at 8 for a short Budapest tour. It was the nicest day we had seen in quite a while, so we stopped at a grocery store for picnic lunch items and finished there about 9. We then began our tour, highlighted by a stop at the Citadel overlooking the city. At 10 we hit the road to catch the cemeteries we missed in the Schildegebirge.

Our first stop was at Csakvar, where Frank’s family had been for a while. We stopped at the church for a few pictures just as the service was ending. Helmut asked a man if he spoke German. He said no, but this other fellow does. What a stroke of luck! We thus met Istvan Beck, whose ancestors were Donauschwaben and who had a bit of a history and genealogy interest himself. We asked him if he could direct us to the cemetery. He said that he lived close to it and would come along and show us. It turned out that the old part of the cemetery that we were looking for (mid 1700s) was mostly overgrown, but that several old German graves were still maintained by descendants of the deceased.

Istvan then offered to take us to his mother’s house to show us some books that he had. He had the newest edition of the Kozma book, but also a German language history. We asked him to send us a copy, gave him some money for the job, and photographed it with a digital camera just to be on the safe side. Next thing we knew, he presented us with a Coke bottle (about 600 ml) of home brew.

From Csakvar, we drove about 6 km to Gant, another town that Frank’s family passed through. The cemetery was well maintained, but there weren’t many really old stones. Several of them had been placed to the side so the graves could be reused. We broke out our picnic lunch, the home brew, and a bottle of wine and toasted our ancestors.

Next stop, Boglar. I had high hopes for this town because I had a list of about a dozen Zichydorf families that had been here. First we stopped at the church for a few pictures. The next step was to find the cemetery. Mary Ann flagged down an older man on a motorcycle who had a young teenager on the back. He offered to lead us to the cemetery. Next thing we knew, Baz was motioning that he wanted to ride the bike, so they booted the young fellow off the bike and onto our bus. He was quite bemused by the situation, but, obviously, a little uncomfortable. The cemetery was only a couple of hundred metres away and we were soon in business.

It had turned into a beautiful day – the best that we have had so far. Even in shorts, it was quite warm walking the cemetery in the sun. Unfortunately, we didn’t find much. Again, the cemetery was pretty well maintained and many of the very old stones were accessible, but several on the edges were overgrown.

We then moved on to Szar (Saar) where Betty had high hopes. As usual, we first went to the church, where we found the Hasenfratz name (Betty’s maiden name) posted in some of the current announcements. We got directions to the cemetery and promptly found oodles of Hasenfratz tombstones, old and new. I got about two dozen Hasenfratz pictures for her and several others with other names in which she was interested. Meanwhile Frank had struck up interesting discussion in German with an old woman who couldn’t believe that we had come all that way to find our ancestors. Every time she suggested another place we should look, Frank said we had already been there. She just couldn’t believe it.

We finally hit the road for Vienna about 4. At the Hungary/Austria border I fished for my passport to be prepared and couldn’t find it. Then I remembered! The hotel had wanted to hold my passport, as the group leader, but had not given it back at checkout. I know that I have to take responsibility for my own passport, but the girl behind the desk was such a ditz. They do this several times every day and you would think she would know the drill. Other members of the group had numerous other complaints about her attitude, competence, and speed. I don’t think this joint will be on our list of places to come back to.

Anyway, neither the Hungarian nor Austrian immigration asked to see our passports and we crossed the border without any difficulty. I later arranged to have the passport sent ahead where I can pick it up later.

Entering Austria, we again encountered a forest of about 200 wind turbines in groups of 10 to 15 at a time over a few kilometers. It is quite amazing to see so many of them working at one time.

We were settled into our rooms before 7:30 and went out to eat at 8, returning after 10.