Kirchstetten Poets' Path

Popis

“Land, just as I love it: nourishing, simple, quiet farmland” with these words the Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden described his final resting place. His Austrian poet colleague Josef Weinheber, who had already discovered the beauty, tranquility, and inspiring power of the picturesque village on the Westbahn line twenty years earlier, repeatedly featured Kirchstetten in his works: “A church tower, a few farms away, and again nothing but solitude, a strip of corn, a strip of clover, potato furrows here and there, and fields here and fields there, and on and on forever.” “There the church, the cemetery, the inn: as life and death require, all close at hand and in the village; a few village lanes, gables and houses, and it already runs out into the open fields, upward along the slope the forest draws its border.” Beside a maple tree next to the church, the first poet's traces can be found: a memorial stone commemorates Weinheber “our great lyric poet.” The Hinterholz and Auden streets finally lead us to the house at the forest edge near the West Motorway, where Auden spent his summers. The municipality has set up here a study and a documentation room for visiting. A few hundred meters further is the Weinheber estate. Some of his private rooms can be visited by appointment. In the garden of the house is also his final resting place. The further path leads through undeveloped farmland and untouched nature, past the natural monument of a 600-year-old oak. Here the lines of Auden and Weinheber become tangible again.

Výchozí bod trasy

Kirchstetten, Friedhofstraße, parking lot

Popis trasy Kirchstetten Poets' Path

The route starts in the town center of Kirchstetten, at the parking lot near the cemetery. You set off heading north on the Lothar Bürger Trail. On the left is the village church. At the next intersection, follow the marking No. 5 “Poets' Trail” to the left and then go along Ringstraße. You reach Weinheber Square, cross it, and continue into Hinterholzstraße. Next, cross the Sichelbach stream and go under the motorway A1. Now you are in the district of Hinterholz. Here, after a few meters, turn right and then left onto Audenstraße. After a short uphill section, you come to house number 6, where the world-famous American poet Wystan Hugh Auden spent his last years. Continue straight through a small woodland to Weinheberstraße. At the crossroads on the edge of the forest stands the Weinheber house with the grave of the writer. Visits are only possible by prior arrangement. Turn right and cross the motorway A1 again. After about 200m you come to the natural monument “600-year-old oak.” Here turn left and then follow the WIR circular trail marking. Via field paths, you reach the village of Sichelbach. Here turn right, heading north onto the road and continue until Wiener Straße. Cross it and then the tracks of the Westbahn railway. Afterward, walk along the tracks for about 400m and then turn left. This leads you to the Totzenbach stream, along whose bank you walk eastward for about half a kilometer. At the next crossroads, cross the bridge and then turn right toward the railway crossing. Walk again along the railway tracks to the station. Cross it and return to Sommerhofstraße. You reach a junction with the Weinheber poplar in the middle. Here turn left and return to the town center.