ALL SAINTS' DAY IN SOPRON


At noon, five bells ring out from different locations all over Sopron, (Ödenburg, formerly Scarbantia), a town on the Austrian border. After a particularly good night’s sleep, we had spent the morning beating the cobbled streets looking for breakfast, mulled wine & an internet café (not that we’re living out lives online, of course!)

The lozenge-shaped heart of the town is a disorientating labyrinth because you can only see a short distance in front of you; it’s the best preserved Medieval centre I’ve seen this year (Kosice, Eger, Krakow being the others). Rounding one corner, we chanced upon the postcard image of the Fire Tower, its pillared loggia and onion dome bathed in misty sunlight reminiscent of high summer, even though it was hat-and-scarf weather.

On the streets we passed elaborate lamp-posts whose blackened wrought iron was fashioned into flowers and leaves. The houses are never regular, perhaps because the gothic and baroque facades have been built over wattle and daub or stone walls. In one alleyway, brick arches propped up two converging buildings, which might otherwise have collapsed. We saw top floors jutting out over the street and a blind window with an intact stone cruciform frame and signs of much older buildings in the marzipan-toned walls. One boasted a somnolent-looking weather-beaten lion’s face and others had arrow-slit windows.

The best bit about roaming is that there are a lot of side alleys to dart down. This is because every second or third house has a large arch to admit coaches, and some have the lower barrel-vaulting of cloisters. The doors were often open; you could stray into courtyards where flowers cascaded over tiny balconies. Inside one of them, it looked like a witch’s cottage overlooking a walled garden. We also ventured into one with nothing but a solitary tree at its centre. My friend said she felt that it was the kind of place where someone’s life might have been irrevocably changed by a piece of music. When we left, a plaque told us that Liszt Ferenc had in fact given a recital there once.

In one of the baroque churches, almost completely deserted, a solitary organist was playing Barber's Adagio for Strings. The contrast couldn't have been greater between the unbearably delicate melody and the unwieldy baroque decoration dripping from the walls.

Behind the buildings, you could discover a whole geometry of little pathways, wooden bridges and ramps running parallel to the city walls built on Roman foundations. The chilly mist and the autumnal light merged magically. This was when the first bell of midday clanged its way into our thoughts, soon to be joined by a chorus of others.