Vienna
Vienna is the glorious legacy of the Habsburg dynasty, which controlled
much of Europe for over 600 years. Although it's full of architectural
gems and has an impressive musical ancestry, a few years ago the
city seemed to be the exclusive preserve of genteel old ladies
whiling away their autumn years sipping coffee in Konditorei.
Thankfully, in recent years, Vienna has regained its panache and
verve, and has a spanking new role as Austria's ambassador in
the united club of Europe. Tradition, culture and vitality now
make a heady combination that even listening to the Blue Danube
thirty or forty times a day can't seem to ruin.
The city's golden years as the cultural centre of Europe were
in the 18th and 19th centuries. Most of the majestic architecture
you see today is due to the efforts of Emperor Franz Joseph I,
who had deep enough pockets to match his ambitious plans for a
city that would reflect the power of the Habsburgs. Franz tore
down a few redundant fortifications and exercise grounds surrounding
the Innere Stadt and laid out the Ringstrasse between 1858 and
1865. In the decade that followed most of the impressive edifices
which line this circuit began to be constructed.
The Hofburg (Imperial Palace) nearby was the
home of the Habsburgs and is a monumental repository of Austria's
cultural heritage. It includes the 14th-century Augustinian Church,
the opulent Imperial Apartments, the Royal Chapel (where the Vienna
Boy's Choir sings at Sunday mass), the Imperial Treasury (including
religious relics such as one of the nails from the Crucifixion
and one of the thorns from Christ's crown), the National Library,
the Baroque Prunksaal hall and the fascinating Collection of Old
Musical Instruments.
If you still haven't quenched your cultural thirst, the Museum
of Fine Arts shows off the artwork funnelled back to
Vienna by the Habsburgs. The museum is a delightful no-expense-spared
work of art itself, and includes unrivalled collections of paintings
by Rubens and Peter Brueghel the Elder. Don't even think about
checking out everything in a single visit and try not to get neck
strain staring at the superbly decorated ceilings. The Sigmund
Freud Museum in the apartments where Siggi worked and
lived contains his furniture, possessions, documents and photographs.
Quite what the great man wanted with that terracotta male genitalia
(exhibit 24) is a bit of a worry though.
Outside the city centre is the splendid Baroque Belvedere
Palace built for Prince Eugene of Savoy. The upper palace
is now home to the Austrian Gallery, which has among its exhibits
Gustav Klimt's famous painting The Kiss. The city's other famous
Baroque palace is the Schönbrunn Palace, once home to Maria
Theresa, and later to Napoleon. It has an interior kitted out
with Rococo excesses and contains the Mirror Room where Mozart
played his first royal concert and the Napoleon Room, which strangely
contains a stuffed crested lark.
Accommodation can be a nightmare for low budget travellers - especially
at Easter, Christmas and between June and September - so make
reservations as far ahead as possible. Staying within the Innere
Stadt is convenient for sightseeing but there are no hostels in
this elegant area so it ain't cheap. Hotels and pensions between
the Ring and the Gürtel are better value. The area north-west
of the city centre, near the university, has numerous inexpensive
restaurants. The best area for a night on the town is around Ruprechtsplatz,
Seitenstettengasse, Rabensteig and Salzgries in the central zone
near the Danube Canal. This area has been dubbed the 'Bermuda
Triangle' because drinkers disappear into its numerous pubs and
clubs and become lost to the outside world.
Salzburg
Austria's home town of Baroque, and the birthplace of that talented
tunesmith Mr Mozart, is picturesquely sheltered by surrounding
mountains and straddles the Salzach River near the border with
Germany. The Salzburg that everyone knows and loves was largely
built by three bishop-princes in the late-16th and early-17th
century, which is what gives the city its Italian flavour and
its skyline punctuated by countless medieval spires, domes, belfries
and turrets. The old town, on the south bank of the river, is
a Baroque masterpiece of churches, plazas, courtyards and fountains,
oozing so much charm that it's enough to make you forgive young
Wolfgang for being so precocious and omniscient. Museums, houses,
squares, chocolate bars, liqueurs - you name it and it's got a
Mozart tag stuck on it.
The high point of a visit to Salzburg (literally and metaphorically)
is a tour of the 11th-century Hohensalzburg Castle,
which stands on a rock outcrop about 120m above the city. It's
almost a separate village in its own right, with all the usual
self-sufficient accoutrements of a tiny settlement like torture
chambers, state rooms, a tower and two museums. On the east side
of the old town, the stunning Museum of Natural History
has the standard flora and fauna displays, good hands-on physics
exhibits and some stomach-churning deformed human embryos. To
round off the grisly experience, there are tours of the catacombs
in the graveyard of the 9th-century St Peter's Abbey.
If you're on a musical pilgrimage, you can visit Mozart's birthplace,
his home, the grave of his father and widow, and the house of
a person who once knew someone who knew someone whose great-great
grandfather once played second bassoon in a Mozart opera.
The Summer International Festival held in Salzburg in July-August
naturally gives his tunes a good workout. If you're looking for
kitsch, try The Sound of Music tour: ten bucks to the best rendition
of Julie Andrews singing 'The Hills are Alive with the Sound of
Music'. Four km south of Salzburg's old town is the Baroque Hellbrunn
Palace, built in the 17th-century by bishop Marcus Sitticus.
The grounds contain ingenious trick fountains and water-powered
figures thanks to the bishop's strange fascination with soaking
unsuspecting visitors. Expect the tour guides to continue the
bishop's perverse tradition.
St Anton
The Arlberg region comprises several linked resorts and is considered
to have some of the best skiing in Austria. St Anton is the largest
and least elitist of these resorts, but even here budget travellers
can kiss their savings goodbye amid the easy-going atmosphere
and vigorous nightlife. St Anton has good, medium-to-advanced
runs as well as nursery slopes on Gampen and Kapall. The resort
went down in skiing history as the place where Hannes Schneider
pioneered the 'Arlberg method' in the early 20th century. This
basically involved skiing with your legs glued together and fortunately
is no longer used by the footloose crowds on the slopes today.
St Anton is on the main railway route from Bregenz to Innsbruck.
Eisriesenwelt Caves
Set at an elevation of 1640m, the Eisriesenwelt Caves are the
largest accessible ice caves in the world. They comprise more
than 40km of explored passageways and 30,000 cubic m of ice. Entry
to the caves is regulated and a 75-minute tour takes in several
immense caverns containing elaborate ice formations and frozen
waterfalls. The caves were first entered in 1879, but it was one
Alexander von Mork who pioneered the most extensive exploration:
when he signed off, his ashes were placed in an urn in the 'cathedral'
cave. Be sure to wear warm clothes because the passageways are
as close as you'll ever come to feeling you've been trapped in
your Westinghouse icebox. The caves are open between May and early
October and are located near Werfen.
Grossglockner
Road
For a fantastic 50km mountain tour, load up the car and head for
the Grossglockner Road, Austria's No1 panorama drama. The road
was built between 1930 and 1935, but the course it follows has
been an important trading route between Germany and Italy since
the Middle Ages. Most of the juicy bits are in the Hohe Tauern
National Park where there are dramatic views of numerous unpronounceable
peaks, including the mighty Grossglockner which looms across the
vast tongue of the Pasterze Glacier and looks every centimetre
of its 3797m. The Grossglockner Road requires a toll and is open
to traffic between May and November. Start the journey in Zell
am See and end in Heiligenblut. |
