Travel: Viennese fancies

AFTER reading my Location Hunters Harry Lime feature (Independent Traveller, 20 November), John Hopkins of Halesowen wonders whether Beethoven might have been the Third Man. I said that Ludwig has a grave at the Central Cemetery (he certainly has a tombstone); Mr Hopkins points out that Beethoven has another grave, in Bonn. 'Does Harry Lime rest in Ludwig's Vienna plot?' asks Mr Hopkins: 'Did Beethoven himself write the deung-de- deung-de-deung theme?'

Lisbeth Owens of Winchester takes me to task for suggesting that Vienna's Central Cemetery is sinister. Mrs Owens often visited the cemetery as a child with her grandmother. 'When I think of it, I remember fresh spring days: blue skies, birds singing, snowdrops and primulas starting to flower and the horse chestnut trees just showing their first sticky buds. I can see myself playing and watching my grandmother tidying up the family grave, washing the marble stone, putting a fresh candle in the little containers on either side.'

As a result of these youthful experiences, Mrs Owens says that to this day she enjoys visiting cemeteries, 'whether small village churchyards in England or Pere Lachaise in Paris - they all remind me of my childhood and evoke happy memories.'