A mild November Sunday and I took a walk with friends to the highest point in Vienna, the Habsburgwarte in the 19th district. Altitude: 542 m. I’d been to the Warte before but never when it was open. This time, I was able to climb the tower and admire the view from the top. What an amazing city! ❤️
My translation of the plaque at Steinhof: At the beginning of December 1981, a Vienna-wide referendum initiated by the non-partisan citizen group Steinhofgründe rejected the construction that had already been approved for this site.
In accordance with the will of the people, the Steinhof area, in its untouched state, was opened to the public as a recreational space on December 23rd, 1981.
(Nice Christmas present! ;-))
How is it that I have now lived over 36 years in Vienna and only last Sunday discovered this part of Steinhof? I have an excuse for 11 of those years as dogs are not allowed in the area. This does however leave 25 years for which I cannot account. And how did I come to discover it now?
An answer to the first question first. All that time, whenever I heard the name Steinhof I thought of the hospital complex designed by Otto Wagner and Carlo von Boog and devoted largely to the treatment of the (wealthy!) mentally ill. (In Viennese, the area was also referred to as Baumgartner Höhe and had become a kind of shorthand for the psychiatric clinic, much the way “McLean’s” is used in Boston.) I had even taken a tour of the hospital complex once. I’m sorry to say that the only thing that sticks in my mind, other than the beauty of the Jugendstil buildings, is that the church, designed by Otto Wagner, was lined with tiles to quite a height. Taller than me, as I remember, and the reason given was that patients were more or less required to attend services but could not always control their bodily functions. The tiles made it possible to hose down the building after the services.
How did I come to discover it last Sunday? I wanted to go to Wilhelminenberg in the 16th district for a walk and on the bus up from the Ottakring S-Bahn station decided to get off at the Feuerwache am Steinhof stop, rather than the Savoyenstraße one, and then walk towards Dehnepark in the 14th. I was planning to walk around the outside of the grounds, as I had often done with Maylo, and enjoy the beautiful houses out that way. When I got off the bus, though, with an astonishing number of people, I realized I didn’t have to walk around the outside. I could go in. And I’m very glad I did. It is one more beautiful place to walk more or less in the Vienna Woods and will, I think, make a really nice place for picnics when the weather is warmer.
By the way, this being Vienna, I actually ran into someone I know on my walk. (“Wien ist ein Dorf” we often say. Vienna is a village.)
Here are a few more photos.
Walking time from Feuerwache am Steinhof to Hütteldorferstraße this time around (I got a little lost) was probably about an hour and a half. Below you can see the map.
No turtle doves, but Vienna is showing itself from its best side. Weeks of grayness are very common in November, December, and January, so we rejoice over every hour of sunshine. At the same time, today, the temperatures are hovering around freezing, making it feel like Christmas. And, of course, who could do without the walk in the Vienna Woods (in the picture, you see the Pötzleinsdorfer Schlosspark in the 18th district) after the celebrations yesterday — and, in my case, this evening again?
Lots of people were out.
Actually, I already took quite a hike last weekend (Sophienalpe) but didn’t have time to upload photos so you are getting a couple of photos from yesterday’s hike on Wilhelminenberg. As I am fond of saying, “And it’s all within the city limits!” (A friend of mine from London, having heard this multiple times over a couple of hikes, commented, “That seems to be quite important to you.” Yes, it is!)
The big difference between last week’s hike and this was that yesterday, suddenly, the woods smelled autumnal. They had that special sent of fallen and just-starting-to-rot leaves as well as mushrooms.
Whatever time of year, it is all very beautiful, even when the sun isn’t shining.
Yesterday I was looking for a route I hadn’t walked before and came up with a path to Nussberg that starts in Grinzing. I found this: https://www.weinwandern.at/grinzing-nussdorf/
Nussberg is a favorite of mine and it’s even nicer if you can circumvent Beethovenweg, which tends to be excruciatingly overcrowded on a sunny weekend afternoon. That’s what this route does. It brings you out at the Döblinger cemetery and takes you up Nussberg from that side. It was wonderful.
Vacation? Nope, just an ordinary Sunday afternoon walk in the 17th district of Vienna. 🙂
Yes, you read that right. I did the Rundumadum stretch from Hütteldorf to the Lainzer Tor again. This time I was able to walk through the Tiergarten (the Lainz Game Reserve) and get the stamp I need for the “Wandernadel” (the pin you can earn by hiking enough designated paths in the Vienna Woods).
It was a pleasure–and something of a homecoming–to walk through this park I used to go to regularly but hadn’t been through in over seven years. (Dogs aren’t allowed which means that as long as I have had Maylo I have walked elsewhere.) Much was the same–the paths, the picnic tables, and many of the signs–but a lot of lumbering has gone on, as in other parts of the Vienna Woods, and so there were a number of rather forlorn patches I didn’t remember.
I entered through the Nikolaitor (St. Nicholas Gate), remembering my first time when I opened the gate to go in, saw a wild boar standing just meters away, and tried to close the gate again. I couldn’t get it shut because there were people on the other side trying to get out. I let them out, closed the gate, and wondered what to do. Since I knew that people walked in the Tiergarten, I decided to take another look and noticed that there were lots of people, including small children, standing around admiring the boar. Ah, a more or less tame one (photo below). I went in.
Wild boar, 1989
No boar at the Nikolai Gate on Sunday. Probably the one I saw has long since gone to his heavenly reward. I was unimpeded. I turned right and went along the route I used to know so well. I greeted the first few fellow hikers going by with a friendly “Grüß Gott” only to then remind myself: We’re still in the city. People don’t greet each other here as they do in the mountains. After that, I smiled but said nothing. It was wonderful–much as I love him–to be walking for once without my dog, to go at my own pace (not needing to stop to allow him an intense sniff at something) and to think my own thoughts. I usually try to walk mindfully, but this time I let myself just walk and not try to do or be anything in particular. It was deeply enjoyable.
Because spring came so early and fast this year there wasn’t much to see in the way of blossoms, unlike my first walk in the Lainzer Tiergarten. That was 30 years ago probably pretty much to the day when I took the photo below and showed it to friends at home, amazed and proud of the fact that this was within the city limits.
Nonetheless, this time I did see a fox skirting around the people excitedly watching it (never seen a fox in the Tiergarten before) and these beautiful purple flowers.
Before I knew it, I was at the Rohrhaus–the rustic eatery where you can get your card stamped. I briefly considered having coffee and a Milchrahmstrudel (a piece of Topfenstrudel served warm in a sea of warm vanilla sauce), but they were–not surprisingly given the weather–full, and I suspected there would be quite a long wait. Instead I just asked for the stamp and carried on, thinking I might have better luck at Empress Elisabeth’s retreat, the Hermes Villa.
Even on the way to the Hermes Villa I didn’t see any wild boar, not even a squirrel. But I did see this sign (below), which makes me think perhaps all the animals were resting (“ruhen”) peacefully away from us humans. (The sign makes more sense if you know that in this context “Wild” in German means game, as in, boar, deer, pheasant, and so on.)
More quickly than I remembered I arrived at the Hermes Villa and saw that outside on the terrace there was a self-service café so I got a delicious cheesecake (actually, more precisely, a “Topfentorte”), and then I carried on to the Lainzer Tor remembering outings with friends and their children to pick “Bärlauch” (wild garlic) and dandelion greens and to read all the informative signs about the trees and bushes along the path.
I arrived at the Lainzer Tor a few minutes before the bus was due to leave to take me back to the bus that would take me to the underground (do you get the sense that this is truly on the edge of the city?) and took the opportunity to check where we go from there. It looks as if Maylo will be allowed on the next stretch and, much as I enjoyed walking without him for once, I’ll be happy to have my hiking companion with me for the next bit.
Distance: 7.6 km
Time: about two hours, even with the coffee break
P.S. My initial reaction to the boar was apparently not out of place. The British Ambassador had an encounter with a boar in the Lainzer Tiergarten in which he hurt his hand (story here).
Of course, this includes the Vienna Woods.
What was perhaps rather unusual was to find this horse with his handler very competently dragging the recently lumbered logs to the path, where they will, presumably, be picked up later.
Actually, I did this stretch last Sunday with a friend (which explains, perhaps, why I didn’t take as many photos as usual–we were too busy talking) and am only just getting around to writing about it. It’s been a very busy week!
Whether it was the fact that we were talking or really that there were some signs missing, we lost the trail a couple of times. We even had some trouble finding the starting point! Ah, well. At least my friend wasn’t troubled by this. 😉
It was a somewhat quiet walk. As the weather gets colder and grayer, fewer people seem to be motivated to go out. As before, one of the aspects that surprised me was that I have walked in that area several times but discovered new corners this time. There are roads back there that look like country roads–paved, but only wide enough for one car at a time. And there are lucky people who there in modest, one-family houses! Vienna the way it was for many decades before property developers got greedy here, too.
I was also surprised by this small lake (Silbersee) in the 14th district, serene in the middle of the woods, a bit of a hike up from Dehnepark. I wonder if one can swim here in summer.
We both were struck almost speechless by this gem below, which seems to be a culture center with concerts and other events. We were not alone in being struck with it. I had to wait my turn to get this photo!
Not far from this, we were reunited with the Rundumadum trail and found our way on to Hütteldorf. There we were quite taken aback to see hordes of police with what looked like riot gear standing along the road to the new Rapid football (soccer) stadium. I like watching soccer but perhaps not when it requires a full squad of police in full gear.
We made it into the station at Hütteldorf and thankfully made our way home unscathed.
Distance: Officially only 3 km, but we put in quite a bit of extra, partly through starting at Schloss Wilhelminenberg rather than at the Feuerwache, and partly through getting lost.
Time: 1.5(?) hrs of walking
It wasn’t clear if we were going to continue our hike around Vienna today, but after I took a look this morning at how much I have to do this coming week and the week after (way too much), I decided this was the best way to make the most of our Sunday.
This is a route we know well. We have walked it often in the other direction, where it is disguised as Stadtwanderweg 3 (City Hiking Path 3). Again, it was strange taking the bus up the Höhenstraße. It almost feels like cheating and, on top of that, I realized today how much I actually enjoy the exertion of walking uphill. Ah, well. Another time. 😉
Here is finally a photo of the Häuserl am Roan (our starting point today) and the view from their front garden:
(The photos are gray because the weather is gray today.)
The bus was quite full, but there appeared to be very few people out. I thought with some relief that perhaps the density has died down as last week was a holiday weekend. Nope.
Empty as the Höhenstraße looks …
… there were plenty of people out and about.
First of all, we were almost run over by a large group of runners coming at us along the trail. Then there was the ongoing threat of the mountain bikers and Nordic walkers. And on the stretch from Hameau to Marswiese we encountered a group of at least 70 people all hiking together. That’s a big group!
Finally, we made it to Schwarzenbergallee, where at least one expects to dodge people constantly. And from there we made our way home. All in all, it was shorter and quicker than I expected.
Distance: 4.8 km
Time (without a break): 1 hr 15 mins
ecbinvienna 