The story
As you stand here at the corner of Fleischmarkt and Griechengasse, take a moment to look at the ivy-draped, mustard-yellow walls of the Griechenbeisl. You are looking at one of the oldest inns in Vienna, a place where the city’s history is literally baked into the stones. Founded in 1447, this building has survived sieges, fires, and empires.
Its name, the Greek Tavern, is a nod to the Levantine merchants who once filled these narrow streets, trading silks and spices in the shadow of the nearby Greek Orthodox church. But look down toward the entrance. Behind a small iron grate at your feet, you will see a figure of a man with a bagpipe.
This is Marx Augustin, better known to every Austrian child as "Lieber Augustin," or Dear Augustin. To understand why he is immortalized here, we have to travel back to the year 1679, when Vienna was a city of shadows, gripped by the horrors of the Great Plague. Augustin was a popular street performer, a man who lived on wine, wit, and the few coins he earned playing his bagpipes in the city’s taverns—most notably, right here at the Griechenbeisl.
One night, while the Black Death was at its peak, Augustin did what he did best: he drank far too much Gumpoldskirchner wine. Staggering home through the dark, deserted streets, he collapsed into a drunken stupor in a gutter. In those days, the city’s "Black Death" collectors patrolled at night, piling the victims of the plague onto carts.
Seeing Augustin motionless and smelling of decay—or perhaps just very cheap wine—they assumed he was another casualty. They hoisted him up and tossed him into a massive open plague pit outside the city walls. Augustin slept peacefully atop a pile of corpses until the morning sun hit his face.
Imagine his horror as he woke up, smelling the stench of death, realizing he was trapped in a pit of the departed. Most men would have succumbed to terror, but Augustin reached for his bagpipes. He began to play a jaunty, defiant tune, his music echoing out of the pit and across the fields.
Passing workers heard the melody, followed the sound, and pulled the hungover musician from the pile of bodies. Miraculously, Augustin didn’t just survive the pit; he never even caught the plague. The Viennese credited his survival to the high alcohol content in his blood, which they joked had "disinfected" him from the inside out.
He became a symbol of the city’s resilience—the idea that even in the face of total catastrophe, the Viennese spirit, and perhaps a good glass of wine, will prevail. Before you move on, take a peek inside the tavern. If you look for the Mark Twain room, you’ll find signatures on the walls from the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, and Wagner.
But it is the humble bagpiper outside who remains the soul of the Griechenbeisl, reminding us that even when we fall into the deepest pits of life, we should never stop singing.