Tag Archives: vienna woods

A winter walk in the Vienna Woods (where else? ;-))

12 Jan

 

 

 

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There was quite a bit of activity this afternoon in the Woods. People of all ages, moving at all speeds, with dogs, without dogs, with Nordic walking poles, without Nordic walking poles … but I only saw one person on a bike. Could be because the conditions were pretty hazardous. After at least a week of rain everything froze quite quickly and then came the dusting of snow that you can see, so you didn’t notice the ice underneath until it was too late!

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There are a few houses in that part of the Woods, but only few. This one always makes me think of my home country, New England.

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When the snow stopped, the light was gorgeous.

As you can see, more or less just a typical winter’s walk in the Vienna Woods.

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The Viennese ‘House Mountains’

29 Dec

Today the weather was gorgeous (after a number of days of gray skies and rain) and Mylo and I went off to do something very Viennese–we left town and headed out to one of the ‘mountains’ in the Vienna Woods, the Anningerberg in Gumpoldskirchen. There we had a long walk under beautifully blue skies followed by lunch with a glass of the local (famous) wine for me. This gives you an idea of what it looked like:

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A good way to spend a day, don’t you think? 😉

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Winter wonderland?

24 Dec

The Vienna Woods this Christmas Eve …

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Photos from the Vienna Woods

16 Dec

From a walk today from Cobenzl to Kahlenberg …

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The vineyards

15 Aug

For those of you who don’t know, Vienna has quite a number of vineyards within the city limits. There are historic reasons for this, dating back to the days of Maria Teresia, if I remember correctly. This means there is not only a good supply of local wine 😉 (and wine taverns–Heuriger–to sit out at in good weather) but also that there are very picturesque walks. This photo of Vienna was taken from the vineyards in Neustift am Walde in the 19th district.Image

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24 years in Vienna

1 Aug

I do want to commemorate my arrival 24 years ago almost to the hour, even though I’m not up to a long post.

On August 1, 1988 my mother and I flew over from London on the last Austrian Air flight of the day into a hot and steamy Vienna, were awed by the spotless, shiny marble floors in the airport (now gone, apparently, lost to the latest expansion effort), and were delighted to be met completely unexpectedly by a school friend of hers. (In those days, before Vienna with the fall of the Iron Curtain once again became the hub of central Europe,  the airport busses stopped running at 10 p.m. or so.) The school friend, who with her husband over the course of my first few years became my Viennese parents, hurried us out to the parking lot and drove with great elan into the city to get us to the student residence where we were staying before they locked the doors. I remember with incredible clarity the moment she pointed out the floodlit Staatsoper on the great Ringstrasse. Spectacular.

I have just come back from a long walk in the Vienna Woods in summery temperatures followed by dinner with a few “G’spritze” (white wine spritzers) in Neuwaldegg with a friend so am off to bed. But what better way to celebrate?

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After the storm

28 Aug

As forecast we had heavy rains last night and some impressive displays of thunder and lightning. Also as forecast, we woke up this morning to cloudless blue skies and much cooler temperatures (15°C in the shade at 8 a.m.)–perfect weather, in other words, for a long walk in the Vienna Woods. This turned out to be a bit disorienting because after the heatwave of the last week or so there were distinct signs of autumn out along Schwarzenbergallee and on Schafberg, some of which I captured with my new (at least to me) digital camera.

This time I finally remembered to take the manual with me and managed to figure out how to take close-ups like this one of  Herbstzeitlosen or autumn crocuses.

And it occurred to me that when I was listing the booty that people bring home from a hike in the Vienna Woods (“Another Reason I Live in Vienna,” 13 June 2011) I forgot to mention apples, as shown below. (Fully organic more because of neglect than intent, I believe.)

For some reason, though, I take comfort in the fact that they aren’t quite ripe yet!

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Another reason I live in Vienna

13 Jun

Perhaps even more than the music (which one can find in other livable cities, although rarely in the quantity and quality one has here) I love the Vienna Woods. It is possible, even easy, to get on a tram or bus, ride out to the last stop, and take a three- to four-hour walk through woods and meadows, rambling up and down hills as you go. The photo above was taken this afternoon along the Stadtwanderweg Number 2, as an illustration of what you can see even within the city limits. A “Stadwanderweg” is a “city hiking path”–or perhaps “municipal hiking path” as they are almost certainly maintained by the city of Vienna–and there are over ten of them, depending on how you count them (link to official site below).

What was I doing in the Vienna Woods on a Monday? Enjoying the perfect hiking weather and the Pentecost Monday holiday, along with the Viennese who didn’t skip town on Friday afternoon. (Austria, as most will know, is a Catholic country which means many lovely holidays in May and June.)

I had never done the whole Stadtwanderweg 2 before, although I’ve done bits in connection with other hikes. It starts and ends in Sievering, one of the most beautiful outer districts of Vienna. Like Neustift am Walde and the even better-known Grinzing, Sievering is an old vineyard and Heuriger or wine tavern neighborhood. Unlike Neustift and, above all, Grinzing, Sievering has retained most of its old charm. Perhaps the streets are too narrow for tourist busses? Or perhaps property prices are too high for riff-raff. The hiking path itself is 10 km, well sign-posted for the most part, gentle in incline, and lined with beautiful views. It also has more than its fair share of Gasthäuser, all with impossibly Viennese names like the Grüß Di Gott Wirtshaus (loose translation: the May God Greet You Tavern).

I didn’t find anything to pick this time of year, but from experience I know that come late summer and early fall there will be mushroom seekers and walnut and berry pickers. This will not be my last post on the Vienna Woods so I’ll leave this here for now and return to the topic another day.

(http://www.wien.gv.at/umwelt/wald/freizeit/wandern/wege.html)

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