Haunted by Sissi

We both seemed to have felt the urge to surf the net for info. The Fox disappeared into the world of ancient matchlock muskets, as a consequence of our visit to the pub last week.

I meanwhile felt the urge to check something about the Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We first came across the beautiful Sissi on our visit to the Vienna last year. One wing of the Hofburg Palace is devoted to the sad story of Sissi. We also visited her much preferred country retreat of Bad Ischl & the recently opened garden in honour of her & her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph.

 

Kaiservilla, Bad Ischl

Garden designed in Sissi's honour in the grounds of  the Kaiservilla

Board cutouts of the Emperor  & his wife in the new gardens in Bad Ischl

My interest was re-aroused by reading that she was a frequent visitor to Aix Les Bains, a possible place to visit on our trip to the French Alps. Indeed it’s made it to my shortlist of highlights to try to get to. While reading Sissi loved this spa town, I remembered she was assassinated while she was abroad, but I couldn’t remember where. My researches shows it was Geneva.

Sissi seems to be returning to my consciousness whether I want it or not. Today I’ve just started a new novel, a detective story set in London in the late Victorian era. One of the first things I read was a reference to Sissi’s murder in 1898 by the Nihilists. I’m clearly destined to find her around every corner at the moment.