23 April 2023

What can go wrong with a trip to a castle in Lower Austria? Fashion.at visited the revitalized Schloss Marchegg with a glimpse into Lower Austria's fashion history

Yesterday's Saturday afternoon tour by Fashion.at to the revitalized Schloss Marchegg in eastern Lower Austria near the Slovakian border is an example of how a trip shouldn't be planned and made. The biggest mistake is to read the information on a website superficially. Three themes attracted Fashion.at: the 'Storchenhaus', the exhibition '750 years of eventful castle history' and an e-bike tour through the 'WWF Auenreservat' nature reserve.

Let's start with the stork house (Storchenhaus). Fashion.at arrived at the palace and started looking for the stork house, thinking of the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna, where the term 'house' is commonly used for a building which houses selected species. In Austria, storks are not usually kept in large cages. It is more common for Austrians to travel to specific areas favored by the birds for the breeding season, such as Rust in Burgenland. Marchegg is one such area. Storks nest on the roof of the castle and in the old trees of the park. The clatter of their beaks can be heard from afar. The Stork House is the information center of Marchfeld Nature Tourism, where you can book tours around the castle, the lower Marchauen and the surrounding Marchfeld. The Storchenhaus is also a shop where tickets, books and other goods are available. It's the main attraction at Schloss Marchegg, as Fashion.at learned that day.

The exhibition about 750 years of eventful history of the castle as announced on the website (checked again today) wasn't open. The exhibition space on the second floor of the newly revitalized castle was - according to the information given yesterday - used for last year's Lower Austria State Exhibition (insight into the section about Roman engineering on the Danube Limes and the nature deity Danuvius) and will be used in the future by the administration of Marchegg. The employees of the municipality will move from the town house to the castle. A person from the local museum 'Heimatmuseum' reported the news from the municipality of Marchegg and asked jokingly, "Do you want to buy the town hall? It's for sale".

The Heimatmuseum was the most interesting part of the trip. It's located in buildings near the castle, in the old toll house, the old granary and a section called 'Wagenburg', which refers to the horse-drawn carriages that were once stored in the stables. The museum's navigation through the history of Marchegg is clear and supported by informative texts, as in the case of Josef Deimel, a tailor of riding breeches for the court riding school and the training institutes. The craftsman was according to the museum Imperial and Royal Warrant Holder (k.u.k. Hoflieferant) and delivered his goods also abroad and to Russia.
This is for the country's fashion historians a real gem as the name Josef Deimel can't be found easily in the accessible online lists of Imperial and Royal Warrant Holders (k.u.k. Hoflieferanten). When asking for example ChatGPT on Bing, there can't be found any information about Josef Deimel who counted as k.u.k Hoflieferant to the highest decorated tailors of the monarchy. On a billboard, the exhibition text is on view with a photo from around 1900 showing Josef Deimel and his family in front of his workshop in Marchegg, with the remark that today the address would be Hauptplatz 38. Fashion.at did not ask for accreditation to take photos inside the exhibition for editorial publication, so the photo made as a note to remember what was seen during the visit cannot be published here on this page. The billboard also displays the sources - the tax register and the records of the Austrian historian Franz Xaver Joseph Schweickhardt - of the information about tailors in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the castle was mainly used as a hunting lodge with guests such as Emperor Joseph II and Empress Maria Theresa. Its long history as a hunting lodge for the aristocracy has left its mark on the more recent history of the castle, which housed the Hunting Museum from the late 1950s until 2000.

The third mistake Fashion.at made that day was arriving too late to rent a bike. The plan was to cycle through the nature reserve for about an hour. A classic case of inaccurate research! The e-bikes can be rented in exactly defined time periods. Not anytime between 1:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon for just one relaxed hour of riding in nature. The bike has to be picked up at 14:00 and returned at 17:00 for a three-hour tour - such as it is published on the e-bike rent page on schlossmarchegg.at! Even on a future visit too long for Fashion.at.

Nevertheless, it was a nice trip with a relaxing time in the castle park with views at the storks' nests and the sighting of a bird of prey, a red kite (German 'Rotmilan'), circling majestically.

Images: The pictures show Fashion.at publisher Karin Sawetz in the park of Schloss Marchegg in Lower Austria on 22 April 2023. Karin Sawetz changed her sitting position several times in order to observe the numerous stork nests on the roof of the castle and the trees in the park.