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Mayerling is a small village (pop: 200) situated on the Schwechat River, in the Wienerwald (Vienna woods), at 24km southwest of Vienna. In 1886 Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, only son of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria and Empress Elisabeth of Bavaria and heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, acquired the manor and transformed it into a hunting lodge. It was in this hunting lodge that, on January 30, 1889, he was found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera, apparently as a result of suicide. Exactly what happened is clouded in mystery. After the deaths of the two, the Emperor Franz Joseph turned the building into a convent which was settled by nuns of the Discalced Carmelite Order. Today the lodge is a museum.
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