Großhöflein–July 22, 2026

I was going to visit a small town near Eisenstadt named Hornstein, because that happens to be the last name of a co-worker, and I wanted to send them pictures. I could not hear the loudspeaker on the bus clearly, so I got off at what I thought was the right stop, but turned out to be in a completely different town, Großhöflein (site in German). The next bus wouldn’t come for an hour, and it would have taken two hours to walk to Hornstein, so I decided to walk around and get some photos. It turns out that this town was much better for photo ops than Hornstein.

Decorative awning over a painting. Holding up the awning, two statues. Under the awning area, a street lamp projects from the wall.
Brown and white church with white steeple
Barrel on its side. It has an opening with planter material and LED lighting (?)
Base of column engraved with date 1743.
Column with virgin mary at top
Heraldic shield with gryphon holding a grape vine
Old rickety shutters wih peeling white paint and gray wood beneath.
Demonic face with tongue sticking out. Date appears to be 1714.

The date on this is 1714. Why they leave out the first digit, I don’t know.

Roof with mostly red tongue-shaped shingles. There are green ones that make a pattern of four horizontal stripes and two vertical zigzygs at right.
Blue paint on concrete: PVC 150

At first, I thought this was “Picasso”, but I think it’s instructions about PVC for road work crews.

View from hill. At right, the church. In background, farm fields

Hornstein

I may as well show you the photos from there as well. The area I walked around was pretty much residential.

White brick church
statue of man in clerical garb. he has a beard.
Sign on fire station: Feuerwehr Hornstein
Wooden sign with text aus’gsteckt is’ in Hornstein (last two words in Fraktur)
Flowers in planters shaped like a hedgehog and a snail. Behind them, a metal swan
Abandoned barn
Sculpture of bird made of metal frame
At left, metal crane (bird=. At right, a boy in tracht holding a wire basket
Logo for company named Hargassner The logo is a capital H, with the left vertical being a triangle point down, and the right vertical being a triangle point up

I thought this logo was very creative.

Drawing on wall of an apothecary. Depicts a man with a staff. On his shoulder, baby Jesus with a halo framing his head.
Sign with shield at left. text: Marktgemeinde Hornstein 750 Jahre 1271-2021 Herzlich willkommen und gute Fahrt! In the first part of the text, letters in red spell out MEIN HORNSTEIN