A little bit in love with Vienna

Having spent a restful evening and night in Hainburg, we moved on to Vienna, refreshed and curious.

And we were not to be disappointed!

After depositing me at a railway station in Kritzendorf, some 15km outside the city, my human took the next train and 20 minutes later was at the Schwedenplatz, bang in the middle of Vienna.

The Opera

Hotel Sacher

Karlˋs Church

Just a library

Heroesˋ square

City Hall

Construction site looking for sympathy

From here, her walking tour with Mario started, leading through the heart of the city.

Vienna is currently holding the title for the worldˋs most liveable city, and has been named as such four times in the last five years.

As Mario explained, one part is due to the free education, another is the variety and sheer amount of cultural events on offer. The quality of public transport plays a role, as well as affordable housing.

And this is very interesting. The city is the biggest player in the real estate market and there are currently 220.000 city-owned apartments for rent.
Everyone over 17, not just Austrians, who has lived in Vienna for more than two years and who earns less than 50.000 Euros a year can apply for one of these.
A 35 square meter apartment for example will only cost you around 350-400 Euros a month!

It doesnˋt matter which way you turn, there are grand buildings and marvels of architecture on every corner.

The musical clock; although swiss made it is not perfectly on time

Of course, gothic Stephanˋs Cathedral has to be named first and foremost. What a beautiful and impressive building it is!

The first church that stood in itˋs place was finished in 1147. Today the church holds about 5000 people. The prominent South tower measures 136 meters and can be climbed to roughly half itˋs height.

From here the Graben, the Ditch, which is the most expensive street when it comes to real estate value, leads to the Kohlmarkt, the Cole Market, the second most expensive street in the city. Gucci, Prada, Rolex and so on, knock yourselves out!

Also, the Demel bakery and Café can be found here, which is where the first ever Sacher Torte (fancy cake) was produced.
The story goes that the Royal family needed a cake to impress their guests on very short notice. The head pastry chef was sick that day and so the apprentice had to create a sweet delicacy double quick.

Chocolate was extremely expensive in those days but with no one there to stop him, he used it quite liberally for the filling and then, for good measure, he dipped the whole cake into liquid chocolate to finish it off.

No surprise, the concoction was received graciously at the court, and the former apprentice became famous overnight. And so did his cake and still is to this day.

Talking about sweet delicacies, the Naschmarkt is a must-visit, similar to the Viktualienmarket in Munich, but different.
It could be translated as nibble market and one regrets not being a cow. Seven stomachs would really help to properly appreciate this place.

Vienna born jack of all trades Fiedensreich Hundertwasser contributed some prominent buildings to the city as well. One of them being a long-distance heaing plant, of all things.

The Hunderwasser House, a social housing project

Kind of a mission statement

Mozart, although born in Salzburg, is well represented and loved in Vienna. He first visited when he was only six years old, playing for the Royal family with his sister.

He would cause many upsets later on, being kicked out of various lodgings due to outrageous parties he used to throw.
But the first offence he commited was to jump into the queens lap after his concert, giving her a kiss. This in times when it was forbidden to even touch a Royal.

This is where Mozart lived; there are many of these plaques around the city because he had to move so many times due to evictions

A number of green spaces stretches around the inner city in a semicircle, starting at the banks of the Danube with the City Park, followed by Resselpark, Burggarten, Volksgarten, Rathauspark, Sigmund-Freud-Park and Liechtensteinpark back to the Danube.

And talking about parks, one can not forget to mention the Prater, a vast green space, 6 million square kilometers, to be exact, with a permanent amusement park at one end. A 4.4 km long promenade runs through the heart of the park.

After a day of walking through the city, the next day my human went on a long bike ride.

From Kritzendorf, where we are parked, along the Danube, down the whole 21 km of the Danube Island, home to the largest free music festival in the world with some three million visitors in three days every year.
From here through the Prater to Castles Belvedere and Schönbrunn.

Castle Belvedere

Upper Belvedere

Lower Belvedere

Castle Schönbrunn

Neptune fountain

Gloriette, a great view point

When she got back in the late afternoon, she got talking to our neighbor, Tom from Ireland. The two of them had much to talk about and did so until eleven oˋclock.

Tom drives a bigger version of me, spacious enough for a shower, which he graciously offered my human the use of.
Accepted with many thanks!

On the way to Spitz an der Donau, we stopped in St. Pölten for a couple of hours and had a look around this small city with itˋs lively center and brand-new government district.

St. Pölten

Fancy governmental buildings

From Spitz, my human went for a gorgeous hike through the vineyards. Although it was raining half the time, she was happy as a pig in shit, grinning from one ear to the other, she was just in a great mood.

A grape vine snail in a vineyard, hilarious!

In theory I had a lot planned for today. Now I have a lot planned for tomorrow.

Next stop was Linz, the third-largest city in the country after Salzburg and Wien.

Here stands the largest church in Austria, the Mariendom, which has space for 20.000 people. Standing space, that is, there are only seats for around 500 or so.

Fancy bridge

A fountain with the constitutional law; when was the last time you read it?

Mariendom

The city is nicely located along the Danube, the center on one side, the 539m high Pöstlingberg with itˋs pilgrimage basilica prominently on the other.

Since 1898 a single track railway has been running up the hill, holding the title of the steepest adhesion railway in the world for over 100 years.

Good views from the Pöstlingberg; the weather is still autumn like

Mauthausen concentration camp, one of the largest complexes in the whole Nazi destruction machinery, is located only 20km from Linz.

Most prisoners here had to work in the granite quarries until they dropped dead or were otherwise killed. At least 90.000 people lost their lives here.

It really shouldnˋt be necessary in our day and age to have to visit a camp like this and get the uneasy feeling that history has a tendency to repeat itself. "Never again" is a nice slogan, but current events and tendencies give plenty of reasons to doubt the finality of it.

In the weeks before liberation, bodies were stored here. Today 81.000 names of prisoners who died in Mauthausen and are known by name are remembered here.

But I donˋt want to leave you gloomy and the best way to get rid of this feeling, at least for my human, is to go out into the woods and hike. And thatˋs exactly what she did.