Austria – Vienna, Lower and Upper Austria (Linz, St. Pölten, Krems, Steyr) September 23-24, 26, 2019
Myra Falls. Muggendorf. This is a series of small cascades on a small stream that falls though a boulder field. It is not in a canyon but rather open forest. Climb up a constructed boardwalk of stairways and bridges crossing the stream. €5
Heiligenkreuz Abbey. This Cistercian monastery is a tentative WHS (01/08/1994). Stift Heiligenkreuz is the second oldest Cistercian monastery in the world and the oldest continuously active and inhabited one, now full of young vocations. In the Vienna Woods, it was founded in 1133 by St Leopold III of the House of Babenberg. His son Otto entered the monastery in Paris and his father then built this monastery at his request. Currently it has 77 members, 18 affiliated parishes and a Pontifical Theological Academy founded in 1802 with about 180 students. Theoretically entry is only by guided tour but this was not necessary.
The Romanesque nave of the church (consecrated in 1187) has a preserved façade, 13th century crossept with the earliest ribbed vault with large intersections. The choir dated from 1295 is a masterpiece of Austrian Gothic and the choir stalls are from 1707. The chapter house has the tombs of 4 dukes of the Babenbergs (Leopold IV was the kidnapper of Richard the Lionheart).
I arrived after dark at 8pm and just by chance decided to see if anything was open. This is a big business with a hotel. A band was waiting outside the church to enter after prayers. The church was dark and there were about 30 people in the pews. The prayers had just ended and the monks soon filed out from the choir and everyone left. Prayers had held five times a day with the first at 5:15 and the last at 8pm.
The inside of the 3 nave church is quite spare – except for the choir, possibly the nicest I have ever seen. The 13 “stalls” on each side are all ornately carved wood with tan bas-reliefs above each. Free
Liechtenstein Castle, Maria Enzersdorf. Some of the lower walls are very damaged but the main building is a huge creation. Built in 1130, it served as the residence of the family for nearly 200 years. The present castle was built in the 19th century by the restored House of Liechenstein. Seen only by guided tour: furniture, weapons, beamed ceilings, reliefs and the chapel, the family history of the family. Has great views of Vienna.
VIENNA
Wotruba Church. In the NM “Bizzarium” series, this church in west Vienna sits on top of the highest ground around and surrounded by trees. Built between 1964-66 with the sculptor Fritz Wotruba design, it has unusual construction of abstract 152 asymmetrically arranged concrete blocks of .82m3 to 64m3 and weighing from 1.8-141 tons. The highest block measures 13.1m. The church is 30m long, 22m wide and 15.5m high. It was closed but one gets great views into the church from the multiple high, narrow windows and doors. Completely unadorned, the pulpit is surrounded on 3 sides by chairs. 
SCS Shopping Mall (Shopping City Sud, Vosendorf). This large modern mall in south Vienna has a plant-filled atrium, fountain area and the usual shops and restaurants. Probably the most complete mall in Vienna.
Cemetery of the Nameless. Located nearby the junction of the Danube Canal and the Danube itself, the Friedhof Der Namenlosen is hidden behind gigantic grain warehouses and equally enormous silos. The cemetery used to be little visited, especially since all of the 104 bodies were buried there before 1940. (After 1940 the victims of the river were buried in the Central Cemetery).
Most of the corpses are unidentified victims of drowning which the river’s current brought ashore. However the inclusion of the romantic and sad setting in the popular film “Before Sunrise” has meant that fans of the film often make a trip out to this spot.
The dead people were buried in wooden coffins, which were donated by a carpenter’s workshop. Forty-two of them were eventually identified by family members but the final resting places of most consist only of a bundle of mournful flowers and a simple black steel cross, adorned with the inscription “namenlos” (“unknown” or “nameless”).
River improvements have meant that there are no more eddies to bring the dead bodies ashore near the cemetery, but still every year on All Saint’s Day (November 1) the nameless are remembered. Some fishermen from the Albern area keep an old tradition alive by building a raft decorated with flowers and bearing a commemorative inscription for the victims of the Danube.
In the NM “Dark Side” series this is in remote SE Vienna in an industrial area of cement plants and grain silos. It is a small square cemetery with about 102 graves, most marked with a black wrought iron cross with a silver crucifix and candle lantern, but also 7 stone markers. 55 have no names with the inscription “Namenlos” or “Unbedkannt” but several have names. Many are planted with irises. The dates 1900 and 1935 are on the stone wall. A small round chapel fronts the cemetery.
Gasometer. These are four former gas tanks, each with 90,000m3 storage capacity, 70m tall and 60m in diameter, built as apart of the Vienna municipal gas works in 1896-99, at the time, the largest in Europe. Coal gas was dry-distilled, stored and distributed originally only for street lights but then for cooking and heating in private homes. They were used from 1899-1984 but after the changeover from town gas to natural gas between 1969-78, they were no longer used and shut down. Only the brick exterior walls were preserved and since 2001 have commercial and residential use. Apartments are in the top, offices in the middle floors ad shopping malls in the ground floors with a music hall, movie theatre, 70 student dormitory rooms and 800 apartments.
They are quite attractive brown brick with cream stripes
Donauinsel. This is a long narrow island between the Danube River and the parallel excavated channel Neue Donau. It is 21.ikms long but only 70-210m wide. It is a recreational area with bars, restaurants, nightclubs, rollerblading, cycling, swimming and canoeing. There is one beach with several nude beaches in the southern sections. Its main purpose is as part of Vienna’s sophisticated flood protection system. The island was created by digging out the canal from 1972-88.
The Donauinselfest is an internationally well-known open air festival, Europe’s largest with over 3 million attending. It is at the end of June lasting Friday to Sunday
Donau Centrum. This modern shopping mall in east Vienna is in 2 buildings connected by a tunnel and easily accessible by the metro. It has a cinema and is very big so easy to get lost with the usual stores. It is very popular but unusually it closes at 7pm. Best visited in the morning to avoid all the crowds.
Vienna Islamic Centre. Opened in 1972, this has a 32m minaret (with a very thin spike of a roof) and a 16m high dome. Inside is quite plain with no decoration n the dome, a lovely tile “wainscoting”, and white geometric tiles on the walls. The windows have lime green inside the arches. The old looking wood mitzvah is the most unique piece in the center. Unusually there are brown leather reclining chairs lining the back wall.
Danube Tower (Danau Tower). The tallest structure in Austria at 252m to the top of the antennae, it opened in 1964 in Danau Park. The viewing platform and restaurant is at 150m – €11. The spire carries cellular phone networks, private VHF radio but not TV.
Danube Park Papal Cross (Papstkreuz). On the edge of a large area of grass with trees on 3 sides and near Danube Tower, is this unusual cross. The cross is 5 steel girders supported by a network of steel girders and 4 large guy wires sitting on a long, narrow concrete base.
DC Towers (Donau City Towers) will be a pair of towers – Tower 1 is complete and the first tenants moved in in 2013. It is 220m tall to the top of the antennae with 60 floors, 18m higher than Millennium Tower. Most is offices with the upper floors sky lofts and the first 15 floors has a 4-star hotel. Tower 2 is under construction, will have 44 floors and be 168m tall. It is a nice black glass with multiple facets.
Millennium Tower. Built from 1997-99, this is the highest office building in Austria at 171m and 202m including the roof construction and 50 stories. Most is office space with 120 tenants and has a shopping center, restaurants and multiplex cinema on the 2nd floor.
Augarten Flaktowers. These were 8 complexes of large, above-ground, anti-aircraft gun blockhouses constructed by Nazi Germany used by the Luftwaffe to defend allied bombing runs in Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna some demolished after the war but most empty due to the difficulty of demolition. Each has a retractable radar dish, walls up to 3.5m thick and could sustain a rate of fire of 8000 rounds per minute with a range of up to 14kms in a 360° field of fire. Each was designed as civilian shelters with room for 10,000 and a hospital.
In Vienna, Flakturn VII in Augarten: G and L-towers are empty.
Flakturm V in Stiftskaserne is now: G-Tower used by the Austrian army, L-Tower is home to the Haus des Meeres, an aquarium since 1956 (the outside is repurposed as a climbing wall).
I then had a big walk about through the Old Town of Vienna
Greek Church to the Holy Trinity. Greek Orthodox churches have existed near here since 1787 with the current building dating from 1858. The exterior has two-tone brickwork and gilded arches. Enter a multi-columned portal – the inside is Baroque with many frescoes on the ceilings and large gilt framed ones on the walls. The iconoclast is rich in gilt saints and gilt capitaled columns.
Stadttempel (Synagogue). Except for some rosettes and the date 1826 on the façade this is a 5-story building that looks like an apartment block.
Gestapo Memorial. Where the State Headquarters Vienna, the back entrance of which many victims of Nazis were brought in for interrogation or in concentration camps spent, it is about six unequal sized granite blocks (decorated with the drill holes from quarrying) enclosing a bronze bare-footed man with a clenched fist.
St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Vienna’s main landmark, this is a big 3-naved cathedral with all the columns decorated with gothic towers and small altars also covered in cherubs and marble columned paintings. The right front ⅔ is screened off. At the end of the left aisle is a magnificent 3-part gilt retable. Free
Catacombs, St. Stephen’s Cathedral. In the NM “the Dark Side” series, Seen only by guided tour, visiting times are by time so often a wait is necessary. In the Ducal Crypt, see the tombs of bishops and royals, the oldest part of the Vienna’s three burial places for Austria’s rulers and other high-ranking nobility beginning with Archduke Rudolf IV (1365). The old sarcophagi are in a semi-circle a the head of the room located directly under the cathedral’s main altar. Behind are a few children’s caskets.
Later the Imperial Crypt took over as the main mausoleum of the empire but the Ducal Crypt as still used for parts of the Hapsburgs, namely their internal organs stored in urns separate from the bodies and the hearts were put in a special “little hearts crypt” in the St Augustin church in the Holberg Palace.
The second part is the cemetery actually under the square next to the cathedral is a proper ossuary with the bones of 11,000 people taken from previous cemeteries at the site after the outbreak of the bubonic plague. They were used until 1783 when burials within the city were outlawed. When the caverns were full of bodies, prisoners were removed the bones and stacked them neatly into the two level underground caverns.
Most people are disappointed as it is not as spooky as they expected. €6
Peterskirche. The nave of this RC church is a small oval under the frescoed dome with three chapels per side. It is Baroque with lots of gilt statues, capitals and balconies and marble columns. The small marble bas-relief Ways of the Cross are lovely. Free
St. Michael’s Church. A less imposing white church with a single tower, the oldest parts date to the 13th century with additions until 1792. Catacombs used until 1783 are under the church. With 3 naves and large side chapels (many with wonderful ceilings and decoration), the highlight is the chancel with a riot of white stucco statues and bodies under the gilt rays of the sun. Free
The following 4 monuments are all in the park fronting the parliament building. Don’t miss this park as it is an ornamental flower garden full of fountains, hedges and great flowers even at this time of the year.
Memorial for the Victims of Nazi Military Justice. Inaugurated in 2014, the inscription atop the 3-step sculpture features the poem by Scottish poet Ian Finlay consisting of just 2 words all alone. Of the Germans and Austrians who deserted the Wehrmacht, 15,000 were executed in contrast to only 18 Germans who deserted WW I were executed. About 10% were Austrians. The central idea was “Desertion is not reprehensible, war is”.
This is a 3 step concrete monument all an outsized X that can only be appreciated from the top. Climb up to see the “all alone” with several “all” on each of the arms and “alone” in the center in metal letters.
Monument to the Republic. Commemorates the establishment of the Republic of Austria on November 12, 1918. It has 3 busts of important Social Democrats each on a pedestal with rectangular granite blocks behind them. This is hard to find.
Mozart Statue Burggarten. A white marble statue adorned with churubs and some bronze instruments dated 1756-1791 in Roman numerals.
Emperor Franz Monument. Dedicated in 1846, he was the last of the Holy Roman Emperors. He stands on an octagonal pillar in an antique robe. (the following is nothing like the monument I saw, a relatively small Franz Joseph in a park). On the sides of the pillar are bronze reliefs depicting activities of the people and is flanked by 4 collossal statues symbolizing faith, strength, peace and justice.
Near is a wonderful large Goethe Monument of the man sitting.
Palmenhaus. This upscale restaurant and the greenhouses on either side are wonderful green steel girder cylinders. The food is expensive.
Soviet War Memorial. In Schwarzenbergplatz, the 1945 semi-circular white marble colonnade partially encloses a 12m figure of a Red Army soldier on a high four-sided concave sided pillar. The soldier has a gold helmet and large gold shield. It is one of the larger monuments (of many) in Vienna. It is fronted by a very nice fountain with many geysers coming out of yellow rough rocks.
It was built to commemorate the 17,000 Soviet soldiers killed in action during the Vienna Offensive in WW II. It has been desecrated with paint 4 times: 2012 (red paint), 2014 (the colours of the Ukrainian flag during the Russian military intervention in Ukraine), 2015 (black paint over an order for the monument from Joseph Stalin in 1945, 2017 (red paint across the inscription).
Johann Strauss Monument. A gold Strauss on a small pedestal stands playing a violin. It is framed by an arch of nude women.
Austrian Postal Savings Bank. In the NM “Modern Architecture Buildings” series, this 6-story building has a slightly concave front with 4 turn style doors with a canopy supported by aluminum round columns. The unusual thing is the façade cover is bolted onto the front – the curved grey stone on the first 2 floors and the white marble on the next four stories. Enter and climb the stairs to the banking hall, a large space with a wonderful glass canopy roof.
This was the last site in my walk about.
Hundertwasserhaus. A typical Hundertwasser building – this is a 5 story apartment building with all different size windows, , the brown stone façade plastered and painted in all different shapes with floors divided by a line of tiles, some jutting out parts, odd tiles “spotting” the façade, a few small round balconies. The center has a passageway supported on columns with odd tile decoration. A tree grows out of one “window”. The cobble street outside has odd long bumps. A ramp leads up to the corner supported on his typical “vase” columns.
Steiner House. Considered one of the major works of architect Adolf Loos, it was built in1910 as an example of rationalist architecture. The interior is arranged in a volumetric puzzle of sorts. The tripartite façade was a recess between the two wings of the house that continues straight to the roof. The living room is connected to a terrace that has access to the garden. The Steiner house has a stucco façade to form a protective skin over the bricks to create a smooth, unornamented, and white surface. It has only one floor above the street level created by a one quarter round roof that is facing the street. This roof flattens out the apex and makes the two additional floors that look out onto the garden impossible to see from the street.
In SW Vienna, this is a rather normal appearing 3-story, single dwelling normal residence except for the roof line that curves back with a central flat section??
Lugner City Bridge. This is the world’s only fully glazed suspended bridge. It leads from the Otto Wagner metro station at street level up an escalator to a horizontal platform above the busy Gurtel boulevard leading to a the entertainment and shopping center Lugner City. It is supported by 2 cables and the main support is steel girders. The glass envelope is folded so that it coats all sides of the bridge. As most of the sides are not parallel, an alive geometry with a complete glass facade is produced.
On September 29-30thI returned to the far NE of Austria on the east side of Lake Neusiedlersee. I was in 4 countries in 24 hours. I left Liechenstein Castle in south central Czech Republic in the late afternoon, overnighted and saw all the sights in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, made a short circuit through the northwest corner of Austria to see a windmill and Neusiedlersse National Park, a joint park in both Austria and Hungary. I then entered the Transdanubia part of Hungary where I saw the Esterhazy Palace and continued on my way to see this small corner of NW Hungary north of Budapest. Podersdorf am See windmill (Retz windmill, Austria). This is a wonderfully well-kept mill. A Dutch cap type, it has a conical plastered bottom and all its vanes. The sign was in German but this is what I think it said: it was built in 1853, renovated in 1956-7, closed in 1977 and became a restaurant in 2003. The gate was locked but one is only a few feet from the windmill.
Neusiedler See National Park. Is on the east and south shores of the lake, the park extends over an area of 97 square kilometres and protects parts of the westernmost lake of the Eurasian Steppe.
The area of the national park is a meeting point for different plant and animal species. These include alpine, pannonian, asian, mediterranean and northern European species. This results in a mosaic of environments, including wetlands, herding meadows, meadows, sand steppes and salt areas. In the west the area is bordered by the Leitha Mountains, the Parndorf Plain in the north and the Hanság in the east. The mire of Hanság was for centuries a part of Lake Neusiedl. Lake Neusiedl itself is situated at the lowest point of the Little Hungarian Plain at an altitude of around 115m above sea level.
The ownership structure of the national park Neusiedler See-Seewinkel is different from that of other national parks in Austria. Neusiedlersee-Seewinkel is not owned by any government but rather by around 1,200 different owners. Most of them are local farmers that receive a yearly compensation for leaving these plots unused.
WACHAU CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
The Wachau is a 32km-long stretch of the Danube between Melk and Krems with preserved architecture (monasteries, castles, ruins), urban design (towns and villages) and agriculture (chiefly vineyards and apricots) from medieval times with little change. Water, natural areas, wine terraces and towns are linked by the Danube. Many government agencies are involved in preserving the landscape.
The area has evolved since prehistoric times. Forest was cleared since the Neolithic times, but was not radicle until about 800AD when the Bavarian and Salzburg monasteries began to cultivate the slopes by creating vine terraces. Viticulture was finally abandoned in the 19th century in the upper stretches of the Wachau, related to lack of demand for the product.
The town layouts date from the 11th and 12th centuries with houses on irregular lots and street patterns. In the 15th century, stone started to replace the wooden peasant and burgher houses.
The winegrowers farmsteads are usually oblong, U-shaped, L-shaped or two parallel buildings, most dating to the 16th-17th centuries. Most have lateral gate walls or vaulted passages and service buildings. Street fronts are accentuated by oriels on sturdy brackets, statues in niches, wall paintings, remnants of paintings or rich Baroque facades. The steeply pitched, towering hipped roof is characteristic.
18th century taverns or inns, stations for changing horses, boat operators, toll houses, mills, smithies and salt storehouses still serve trade and craft purposes. Castles and religious buildings dominate towns.
There are no bridges across the Danube in the area and ferries are the only way to cross the river. Besides the many small towns with their churches, the main site are all the vineyards in terraces with their stone walls. Many of the hills are so steep, there is often only only one row of vines per terrace.
Abbey of Gottweig. Consecrated in 1083, this presents an imposing site on approach at the top of the hill and visible from a long way off. The church is a lovely pink and white outside and a Baroque masterpiece inside with the usual decoration of marble, stucco and gilt. A single nave church with elaborate side chapels full of gilt statues and paintings, the highlight is the grand gilt altar framing the Last Judgment and the organ covered in gilt. Stucco adorns all the arches and elaborate capitals. The pews and choir have elaborate wood carving.
In the crypt is the jewel encrusted silver reliquary of St Altman, the bishop here who died in 1091.
An elaborate inlaid scene of Fatima in Portugal is near the entrance.
It was open at 07:15 and I had the place all to myself.
Durnstein (pop 936). 9kms upstream of Krems, established in 1019, it has town walls and protection against floods. Notable buildings: Chorherrenstift (originally a 1410 monastery, it was rebuilt in the 18th century), 1231 St Kunigunde church, town hall, 13th and 14th century towers and gates.
Richard the Lionheart was held captive here from Dec 1192-March 1193 in Kuenringerburg Castle (now a ruins) for insulting the Babenbeg Duke, Leopold V by throwing a Austrian flag into a drain. He was travelling from the Holy Lands in disguise (grew a beard) but was identified in an inn in Erdberg, now a suburb of Vienna. He was finally released after paying a kingly ransom of 35,000kg of silver (used to build Wiener Neustadt).
Spitz. 17kms from Krems, it has cobbled streets and the fortress of Hinterbus in the south.
Aggstein Castle, Aggsbach Dorf. On the south side of the Danube (requiring a ferry to cross the Danube from Spitz),, it sits on a rocky promontory high above the river.
MELK (pop 5300)
Originally a Roman border post, the Namare Fort was built by the Babenbergs. The most prominent streets are the main street (Hauptstrasse) and the oldest street (Sterngasse). Notable buildings are the 1657 Lebzelterhaus (now a pharmacy), 1575 Rathaus (entrance door made of wood and copper), 400 year old bakery with a shingle roof, 1792 old post office (now a convention center), Birago Barracks (built in 1910-13).
Walk the “Red Thread”, a 1.5km tour of the town that passes all the sights.
Abbey of Melk. A Benedictine Abbey founded in 1089 and rebuilt in 1702, it forms the western boundary of the Wachau on a 61m high cliff. It has a baroque gateway. The library has 100,000 books with 750 printed before 1500. It has 7 courtyards. The interior of the church is Baroque gone mad with endless angels and gold twirls. It has a 64m high dome, 1888 windows and several frescoes. A 190m long gallery gives access to 88 rooms, now part of the museum. The museum has monastic treasures, the entire history of Austria, the Melk Cross studded with gems, an altar caved in walrus horn and a reliquary made of the lower jaw and tooth of St Koloman. Because of its prominence, it escaped dissolution like many others in Austria between 1780-90 and survived the Napoleonic Wars and WW II.
This is the major tourist attraction of the Wachau. The tour buses arrive at 9 (there were 6 in the parking lot) and the huge parking lot was half full. €12.50
KREMS. Now includes the town of Stein, an old town with many historical buildings. Since medieval times, it has had a popular wine trade due to its terraced vineyards.
Notable buildings include: Minorite Church (was the Parish church, now holds art exhibitions), Pfarrkirche St Nikolaus Church (paintings on the altar and ceiling).
Frontiers of the Roman Empire. Tentative WHS (09/02/2015)
Fortifications of the Limes were built on the Danubes southern banks at Castrum (now Mautern en der Donau).
Small watchtower-like fortresses can be seen in Bacharnsdorf, just downstream from Aggstein Castle. Roman rule ended when King Odoaker ordered the evacuation of the Latin speaking population in 488
IRON TRAIL with ERZGERG and the OLD TOWN OF STEYR. Tentative WHS (23/01/2002)
Old Town of Steyr and the moat quarters are well-preserved medieval houses and the adjacent industrial settlement. On the confluence of the Enns and Steyr Rivers, the castle and city dating from 990, controlled the river crossings. The rivers provided water power for the iron industry as there was a rich ore deposit nearby. In the 20th century, the area declined helping to preserve the moat quarter in its entirety. The large main square is lined with magnificent baroque houses dominated by the late Gothic parish church on the hill above.
Erzberg has an open pit mine with imposing terraces covering the entire mountainside. The smelting industry had 19 ironworks dating back to the 16th century. Renewed in the 19th century, some is well preserved: medieval Laurenzkirche, 1846 wheelwork IV, parts of the wheelworks I, III, X, XI and XIV, a hammer mill and the former mining school (1840-49).
There are miner houses throughout the area and the homes of rich iron merchants in Leoben.
Abbey of Kremsmünster Tentative WHS (01/08/1994). A Benedictine monastery founded in 1083, it was a famous seat of learning and monastic observance between 1094-1114 but declined in the 15th and 16th centuries to where it had no monks in 1564. It was almost entirely destroyed by fire in 1580 and again in 1718 after which is was rebuilt on a grander scale. The fresco decorating the imperial staircase is a masterpiece of Baroque architecture. The library has 130,000 books and several valuable collections.
This is another over-the-top Baroque masterpiece but with some twists. Tapestries surround the columns. Everything above the capitals of the columns is heavy stucco with massive stucco ribs, statues, arches and capitals, all framing many frescoes on the ceiling. Lining both sides of the aisles are five large paintings in heavy gilt frames and each supported by a large angel statue.
When I arrived, the church was empty and 11 monks were in prayer with their chant in the background.
One of the more interesting things is a lovely ancient sarcophagus in the back right of a knight (with long hair), head resting in a large pillow, a dog at his feet and a very large dark pig lying on his right side. The paint was still very clear. Free? (it has a ticket booth but I didn’t bother and there was no one to check)
GMUNDEN (pop 13,300)
It is much frequented as a health and summer resort, and has a variety of lake, brine, vegetable and pine-cone baths, a hydropathic establishment, inhalation chambers, whey cure, etc. It is also an important centre of the salt industry in Salzkammergut. It is situated next to the lake Traunsee on the Traun River and is surrounded by high mountains, including the Traunstein (mountain) (5,446 feet or 1,660 metres), the Erlakogel (5150 ft), the Wilder Kogel (6,860 feet or 2,090 metres) and the Höllengebirge.
Weyer Castle. This large house is enclosed by a wall, is private and not open to the public. I really only had a look at the nice outbuildings. They have a gallery of Meissen ceramics.
Seeschloss Ort (Lake Castle Ort). On a small island in the lake, the castle is a 2-story triangular structure enclosing a courtyard. The museum tells the history of the castle, the Legend of the Giant Erla, a photographic exhibit, the TV series and the Tranunstein Mountain Legend.
BAD ISCHL
On the Traun River in the centre of the Salzkammergut region, it was a settlement area since the Hallstatt culture. A first salt mine was opened in 1563 and a salt evaporation pond (Saline) followed in 1571. When in the early 19th century brine came into use for medical purposes, Ischl soon became a fashionable spa resort with notable guests like Archduke Franz Karl of Austria.
In 1849 Franz Karl’s son, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria chose the town for his summer residence and in 1853 he became engaged to Elisabeth of Bavaria here. In 1854, the Emperor’s mother, Archduchess Sophie, gave him the Kaiservilla (Imperial Villa) as a wedding present. The villa became the imperial family’s summer residence; Franz Joseph described it as “Heaven on Earth”. He also granted a nearby mansion to mistress Katharina Schratt, that could be easily reached via a hidden footpath. In the Kaiservilla on 28 July 1914 Franz Joseph signed the declaration of war against the Kingdom of Serbia, signaling the start of World War I. He left Bad Ischl on the following day and never returned. The villa is still owned by the Habsburg-Lorraine family, although the grounds and parts of the residence are now open to the public.
HALLSTATT-DACHSTEIN / SALZKAMMERGUT CULTURAL LANDSCAPE The World Heritage Site includes: the Dachstein massif and the Inner Salzkammergut around Lake Hallstatt including the village of Hallstatt. The core zone covers around 285 km². It includes a 3000-year history, from the beginnings of salt mining in the Hallstatt period (800 to 400 BC, Hallstatt culture ), the Habsburgs, Salzkammergut , the beginning of alpinism, to modern tourism. Despite its designation as “landscape”, it was primarily designated as a cultural heritage.
Architectural heritage from the early Iron Age (the oldest known industrial landscape in the world) to Roman times, the medieval salt economy with representative buildings in Gothic, Baroque and historical styles, especially in the village of Hallstatt, the Hallstatt salt mine and still active salt mining. Technical examples of salt production from brine to the salt works in Bad Ischl and Ebensee, and the traffic routes especially the water structures of Lake Hallstatt and Salzkammergutbahn.
There are around 80 architectural monuments in the World Heritage region, 60 of them in Hallstatt, including the important archaeological complex of the Hallstatt salt mine and the late antique retreat settlement Knallwand near Ramsau plus numerous other excavation and discovery areas.
Natural heritage: limestone cave systems (Dachsteinhöhlen), karst phenomena and the mineral wealth of rock salt cultural-historical heritage, such as the specific, due to the salt system management of the forest.
Cultural heritage: literature (the landscape literary Adalbert Stifter), art (landscape painters Franz Steinfeld and Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller), tourism (the mountain pioneer and researcher Friedrich Simony , the alpine huts and cable cars), customs (such as the cryptoprotestantism of the miners and farmers of the region, the skull site in the ossuary Hallstatt , the typical bird trap) and rock carvings, most medieval to modern in origin at Notgasse on the Dachstein plateau
Hallstatt is situated between the southwestern shore of Hallstätter See and the steep slopes of the Dachstein massif, in Salzkammergut region. Hallstatt is known for its production of salt, dating back to prehistoric times, and gave its name to the Hallstatt culture, the archaeological culture linked to Proto-Celtic and early Celtic people of the Early Iron Age in Europe, c.800–450 BC.
A large prehistoric cemetery at the Salzberg mines near Hallstatt found 1,045 burials. The community at Hallstatt exploited the salt mines in the area, which had been worked from time to time since the Neolithic period, from the 8th to 5th centuries BC. In the mine workings themselves, the salt has preserved many organic materials such as textiles, wood and leather, and many abandoned artefacts such as shoes, pieces of cloth, and tools including miner’s backpacks, have survived in good condition.
Major activity at the site appears to have finished about 500 BC, for reasons that are unclear. The salt workings had by then become very deep.
Romans onwards. A Roman settlement and salt evaporation pond at Hallstatt is documented about 100. Since 1595 the salt was transported 40kms from Hallstatt to Ebensee via a brine pipeline, possibly the world’s oldest pipeline, constructed 400 years ago from 13,000 hollowed-out trees.
There is so little space for cemeteries that every ten years bones used to be exhumed and removed into an ossuary, to make room for new burials. A collection of elaborately decorated skulls with the deceased’s name, profession, date of death inscribed on them is on display at the local chapel.
19th century. Until the late 19th century, it was only possible to reach Hallstatt by boat or via narrow trails. The land between the lake and mountains was sparse, and the town itself exhausted every free patch of it. Access between houses on the river bank was by boat or over the upper path, a small corridor passing through attics. The first road to Hallstatt was only built in 1890, along the west shore, partially by rock blasting. Nevertheless, this secluded and inhospitable landscape counts as one of the first places of human settlement due to the rich sources of natural salt, which have been mined for thousands of years, originally in the shape of hearts owing to the use of antler picks.
The Hallstatt salt mine, the Salzwelten, is the world’s oldest salt mine. The tour consists of a miner’s slide, a subterranean salt lake and an exciting trip with the mining railroad.
Salzkammergut is a resort area stretching from the city of Salzburg eastwards along the Alpine Foreland and the Northern Limestone Alps to the peaks of the Dachstein Mountains. The main river of the region is the Traun, a right tributary of the Danube.
The name Salzkammergut translates to “salt demesne”, Kammergut being a German word for territories held by princes of the Holy Roman Empire, in early modern Austria specifically territories of the Habsburg Monarchy. The salt mines of Salzkammergut were administered by the imperial Salzoberamt in Gmunden from 1745 to 1850.
There are numerous glacial lakes and raised bogs, the Salzkammergut Mountains and the adjacent Dachstein Mountains, the Totes Gebirge and the Upper Austrian Prealps with prominent Mt. Traunstein in the east. The towering mountain slopes are characterized by bright limestone (karst) and flysch rocks.
Salzkammergut is not an official administrative division of Austria and as such has no clear borders.
GO TO Austria – Salzburg
On September 26, 2019, I returned to here from Salzburg on my way to the Czech Republic.
St. Florian Monastery, St. Florian. About 19kms south of Linz, this is a massive complex. The single-nave church with 4 large chapels (large oil paintings) per side is Baroque with all the usual stucco capitals and decorated friezes, marble columns in all the chapels and gilt angels decorating the pulpit, choir and organ. The choir and supports for the organ on both sides are some of the most richly decorated I have seen – columns, inlays, carved plaques and lecterns. The five parts of the nave ceiling, the dome and apse all have murals.
I entered at 8am and was all alone.
LINZ (pop 205,000)
It is the third-largest city of Austria and capital, approximately 30 kilometres (19 miles) south of the Czech border, on both sides of the River Danube. The population the Greater Linz conurbation is about 789,811.
Linz is well known for the Linzer torte, which is said to be the oldest cake in the world, with its first recipe dating from 1653.
Dasparkhotel, Ottensheim In the NM “Bizzarium” series, these are about 10kms NW of Linz, in a park with some of the tree trunks painted a rainbow of colours. All the 3 “rooms” and 2 toilets with showers are in 2m diameter, concrete sewer pipes. They have 2 port windows in the roof and wood frame doors with key-pad entry, closing them off. Access from “Park Hotel” or the small café nearby.
Both these concentration camps are east of Linz. I didn’t go to them but include them for interest sake.
Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen.
Nazi Germany incorporated Austria in the Anschluss of March 11-13, 1938. Shortly thereafter, the SS inspected a site they thought suitable for the establishment of a concentration camp to incarcerate “traitors to the people from all over Austria.” The site was on the bank of the Danube River, near the “Wiener Graben” stone quarry, which was owned by the city of Vienna. It was located about three miles from the town of Mauthausen in Upper Austria, 12.5 miles southeast of Linz.
At the end of April 1938, the SS founded a company, German Earth and Stone Works Inc. (Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke, GmbH-DESt), to exploit the granite which they intended to extract with concentration camp labor. In August 1938, the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps transferred approximately 300 prisoners, mostly Austrians and virtually all convicted repeat offenders or persons whom the Nazi regime classified as “asocials” from Dachau concentration camp to the Mauthausen site in order to begin construction of the new camp. By the end of 1938, Mauthausen held nearly 1,000 prisoners, still virtually all convicted criminals and asocials.
Prisoners. Three months into World War II in December 1939, the number had increased to over 2,600 prisoners, primarily convicted criminals, “asocials,” political opponents, and religious conscientious objectors, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
After the Nazi regime initiated World War II, the number of prisoners arriving in Mauthausen increased dramatically and broadened in diversity. After the fall of France in June 1940, Vichy French authorities turned over to the German SS and police thousands of Spanish refugees, virtually all of whom had fought against General Francisco Franco’s rebel troops during the Spanish Civil War, and who had fled to France after Franco overthrew the Spanish Republic in 1939. The SS and police incarcerated the overwhelming majority of the Spanish Republicans, more than 7,000, in Mauthausen in 1940 and 1941; individual members of the anti-Franco forces continued to trickle in to the camp until the last weeks of the war. Also incarcerated at Mauthausen were members of the International Brigades, most of them Communists of various nationalities, who had fought the Franco forces in Spain.
An estimated 197,464 prisoners passed through the Mauthausen camp system between August 1938 and May 1945. At least 95,000 died there. More than 14,000 were Jewish.
Gusen Concentration Camp, Gusen.
SS authorities established Gusen concentration camp in Austria on May 25, 1940. Located around three miles away from Mauthausen concentration camp, the Gusen site had attracted the SS because of its proximity to the Gusen and Kastenhof stone quarries. SS authorities purchased land at the site on May 25, 1938. Managers of the SS-owned firm Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke (DESt-German Earth and Stone Works), which used concentration camp prisoner labor to extract and finish construction materials at Mauthausen, established next to the “Wiener Graben” stone quarry in 1938, deployed a forced labor detachment from Mauthausen on a daily basis to the Gusen quarries beginning in 1938. Tiring of marching the prisoner detachment three miles to the Gusen quarries, SS authorities authorized the construction of concentration camp Gusen in late 1939. During the winter of 1939–1940, German, Austrian, and Polish concentration camp prisoners from Mauthausen constructed the camp and prisoner barracks.
Although the site counted as an external labor detachment of Mauthausen during its initial construction, the SS opened Gusen as a separate camp on May 25, 1940, identifying the surviving 212 prisoners from the construction detachment by separate Gusen incarceration numbers and removing their names from Mauthausen records. That same day, a transport of approximately 1,084 Polish prisoners arrived in Gusen.
Over the next several weeks, the SS transferred some 8,000 Polish prisoners to Gusen from other concentration camps, including Dachau and Sachsenhausen. Gusen retained its autonomous status until early 1944. It had its own numbering system, death registry, SS guard battalion, and postal administration.
During the period of its construction, SS Sergeant Anton Streitwieser commanded the Gusen external detachment site. On July 1, 1940, SS Captain Karl Chmielewski became the camp commandant. In late 1942, SS First Lieutenant Fritz Seidler replaced him. Seidler commanded the camp until liberation.
Prisoners. In addition to German, Austrian, and Polish prisoners, the SS incarcerated in Gusen approximately 4,000 Spanish Republicans (Spanish refugees, who had found refuge from the Franco regime in France in 1939 and whom Vichy French authorities turned over to the Germans in 1940) in 1940 and 4,400 Soviet prisoners of war in 1941. Nearly three-quarters of the Spanish Republicans died in the first year at Gusen. By the beginning of 1943, fewer than 500 Soviet prisoners of war were still alive in the camp.
During the later war years, the arrival of more than 3,000 Yugoslavs, more than 9,000 Soviet civilians and more than 2,400 Frenchmen further diversified Gusen’s inmate population. Yet the high mortality rate, caused in particular by Commandant Chmielewski’s brutal and sadistic management of the camp, kept the prisoner population to between 6,000 and 7,000 up until 1943. Better rations and less arbitrary mistreatment led to a decrease in the death rate from the summer of 1943 until the autumn of 1944, as the SS sought to maintain its labor force.
The need for labor to construct underground tunnels in 1944, induced the SS to increase the prisoner population to more than 24,000 by the end of 1944, including the arrival of 2,750 Hungarian Jews from Auschwitz in June 1944, thousands of Polish Jews from Plaszow, Auschwitz, and Flossenbürg in the late summer and autumn of 1944, 1,000 Polish civilians captured in October 1944 during the Warsaw Home Army uprising, and some 1,500 Italian civilians.
Expansion. In order to accommodate this influx of prisoners, the SS deployed prisoner labor to construct a second prisoner barracks complex in the late winter of 1944. A unit of 270 German air force personnel initially guarded this new complex, which the SS called Gusen II. The SS formally established Gusen II as a subcamp on March 9, 1944. The work conditions were so bad that the average rate of survival in Gusen II was approximately six months. The inability of the Wehrmacht bakery facilities in Linz to provide sufficient bread supply to the rapidly expanding Gusen and Mauthausen prisoner populations induced the SS to establish the subcamp Gusen III on December 26, 1944. It was located in the small town of Lungitz, about 1.5 miles northeast of St. Georgen.
The massive expansion of the Gusen facility induced the SS to place Gusen, Gusen II, and (later) Gusen III (established in December 1944) directly under the authority of Mauthausen. In 1944, Gusen, Gusen II, and (later) Gusen III were subcamps of Mauthausen.
Living and working conditions in Gusen, as in Mauthausen, were harsh, leading to the death by murder, mistreatment, starvation, exposure, and disease of more than half of its prisoners. Already in December 1940, the SS contracted with the German firm Topf and Sons from Erfurt to construct a crematorium inside Gusen to handle the disposal of the bodies of the dead. In 1942, the SS staff selected prisoners at Gusen whom they deemed too weak or ill to work and transported them to the so-called euthanasia killing center at Hartheim, near Linz, Austria. There, healthcare professionals murdered over 1,100 Gusen prisoners in gas chambers during 1942 and several hundred in 1944.
During 1942 and 1943, the SS murdered several hundred more prisoners in so-called gas wagons on route between Gusen and Mauthausen. On March 2, 1942, the camp SS murdered at least 62 and as many as 162 Soviet prisoners of war in a makeshift gas chamber erected in block 16 with Zyklon B gas. Even at times in which the SS took measures to reduce the rate of death in the camp in 1943 and 1944, camp personnel conducted systematic killings of individuals and groups of prisoners. In March 1943, the Gusen SS murdered more than 100 Soviet prisoners of war in retaliation for the German surrender at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union the previous month.
Medical Experiments. SS physicians subjected Gusen prisoners to medical experiments. Working in close cooperation with the SS Medical Academy in Graz, the camp SS murdered prisoners to provide cadavers for the medical students. Financed by the chemical conglomerate I.G. Farben, physician and SS Captain Helmuth Vetter tested vaccines for various diseases on Gusen prisoners in the autumn of 1944.
Forced Labour. Initially, the SS deployed prisoners in construction of the camp and in the Gusen and Kastenhof stone quarries. Until 1943, most of the Gusen prisoners worked for DESt in the stone quarries and, increasingly, in finishing the raw stone extracted from the earth. To move the product, they built streets, cleared paths and laid track to the nearby town of St. Georgen, where the DESt factory management had its headquarters. Prisoners also regulated the Gusen River and built a dockyard on the nearby Danube River. Finally, the SS used prisoner labor to tend to a 1,000-animal Angora rabbit farm at Gusen.
Armaments Production. During 1943, the SS deployed Gusen prisoners increasingly in armaments production. In spring 1943, the Steyr-Daimler-Puch Aktengesellschaft relocated a rifle production plant to Gusen, where the DESt constructed eight factory barracks with the expectation that prisoners would produce 10,000 rifles a month. By the end of 1944, some 6,000 prisoners worked in 18 factory halls in Gusen producing rifles, machine pistols and aircraft motors. In August 1943, the aircraft industry giant Messerschmitt relocated its bombed out plant in Regensburg to Gusen, where prisoners produced parts for the Me-109 fighters.
The stress on armaments production brought some benefits to the prisoners in 1943 and 1944. SS authorities increased rations, allowed packages with food and medicine to come in from the outside, and issued worker vouchers for especially productive workers. In late 1942, Himmler ordered the establishment of a bordello in Gusen, in which the SS forced some eight to ten female prisoners from Ravensbrück to provide sexual services for Gusen prisoners seeking to “redeem” their vouchers.
In 1944, with the danger from Allied bombing increasing, SS authorities at Gusen began to move armaments production underground. In November 1943, the camp authorities deployed prisoners at the Detachment “Cellar Construction” (Kellerbau), building underground tunnels in the sandstone hills northwest of Gusen. By the end of 1944, Messerschmitt, Steyr-Daimler-Puch and the SS had moved much of the armaments production plant to various underground locations. The Gusen camp authorities deployed thousands of prisoners to build the tunnels which housed these production sites.
January-May 1945. Like other concentration camps in the interior of the German Reich, Gusen was the destination for thousands of concentration camp prisoners in 1945. In January and February 1945, the SS forcibly evacuated thousands of prisoners to Gusen from Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, and Sachsenhausen. Most of the new arrivals were Jews/
In January 1945, the Third Reich stood on the verge of military defeat. As Allied forces approached Nazi camps, the SS organized death marches of concentration camp inmates, in part to keep large numbers of concentration camp prisoners from falling into Allied hands. The term “death march” was probably coined by concentration camp prisoners. It referred to forced marches of concentration camp prisoners over long distances under heavy guard and extremely harsh conditions. During death marches, SS guards brutally mistreated the prisoners and killed many. The largest death marches were launched from Auschwitz and Stutthof.
During April, as Soviet troops invaded eastern Austria, the SS evacuated prisoners from the subcamps of Mauthausen in eastern and southeastern Austria, and southern Moravia to Mauthausen and Gusen. During 1945, some 14,000 prisoners, nearly 25% of all prisoners registered in Gusen, arrived at the camp. In February 1945, the Gusen concentration camp reached its peak capacity of 26,311 prisoners; more than 10,000 prisoners died in Gusen between January and May 1945, including 4,500 prisoners who were shipped back to Mauthausen to die.
During the month of April, Kapos, acting on the orders of the SS, beat several hundred prisoners to death. At the end of that month, in one of the last gassing operations in the Third Reich, the SS murdered 650 ill prisoners with poison gas in a barrack. In early May 1945, some in the SS and in the Upper Austrian Nazi Party leadership toyed with the idea of forcing the surviving prisoners into the underground tunnels dug for the armaments industry and caving the tunnels in with explosives. Neither the SS nor the Nazi Party zealots carried out these plans.
US soldiers liberated some 20,000 prisoners in Gusen on May 5, 1945. In the confusion at liberation, prisoners, enraged by the killings perpetrated by Kapos and barrack elders the previous month, killed a number of prisoners who had served as Kapos, room elders or other types of auxiliary service to the SS staff.
Over the course of its existence, some 35,000 of a total of over 60,000 registered prisoners were killed in Gusen.
After the War. US, West German, and Austrian authorities conducted criminal proceedings against SS personnel serving at Gusen after the war. Gusen played a major role in the US military proceeding against Hans Altfuldisch et al., held at the site of the Dachau concentration camp in 1946. Among the most important proceedings against Gusen personnel was the trial of former Camp Commandant Karl Chmielewski, whom a West German court in Anspach convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1961.
Unlike Mauthausen, the Allies tore down Gusen, though Soviet occupation authorities continued to economically exploit the stone quarries. In 1965, former Italian prisoners were instrumental in erecting a memorial to the victims of Gusen. The memorial was financed by privately raised funds until the Austrian state assumed responsibility for it in 1997. In 2005, Austrian authorities established a visitor and educational adjacent to the memorial.
European Cities
LINZ World City and Popular Town
Airports: Linz (LNZ)
Railway, Metro, Funiculars, Cable Cars: Linz trams
Museums
Landesgalerie
Lentos Art Museum
Nordico
Pöstlingbergbahn Museum
Toothmuseum
Castles, Palaces, Forts
Linz: Linz Castle and Museums
Linz: Schloss Ebelsberg
Entertainment/Things to do: Linz: Ars Electronica Centre
Botanical Gardens: Linz Botanical Garden
Bizzarium: Linz: Cowboy Museum Fatsy
SANKT PÖLTEN
Museums: Sankt Polten: Lower Austria Museum
VIENNA World Capital, World City and Popular Town
World Heritage Sites: Historic Centre of Vienna
Airports: Vienna (VIE)
Railway, Metro, Funiculars, Cable Cars: Vienna U-Bahn, Wiener Linien Trams
Museums
Albertina
Haus der Musik
Imperial Treasury
Jewish Museum
Kunsthistorisches Museum
Leopold Museum
Modern Arts Museum
Modern Clocks Museum
Mumok
Museum of Applied Arts
Museum of Ethnology
Museum of Military History
Sisi Museum
Technisches Museum
The Globe Museum
Third Man Museum
Vienna Museum
Vienna Museum of Natural History
House Museums/Plantations
Beethoven Museum
Haydnhaus
Johan Strauss Apartment
Mozarthaus Vienna
Museum of the Strauss Dynasty (Strauss Museum)
Schubert’s Birthplace
Sigmund Freud Museum
Castles, Palaces, Forts
Belvedere Palace
Hermesvilla
Hofburg Palace
Kinsky Palace
Lobkowitz Palace
Pallavicini Palace
Schönbrunn Palace
Religious Temples
Greek Church to the Holy Trinity
Peterskirche
St. Michael’s Church
St. Stephen’s Cathedral
Stadttempel (Synagogue)
Vienna Islamic Centre
Modern Architecture Buildings
Austrian Postal Savings Bank
Danube Tower
DC Towers
Gasometer
Hundertwasserhaus
Millennium Tower
Steiner House
Entertainment/Things to do: Haus des Meeres
Zoos: Tiergarten Schönbrunn
Botanical Gardens
Botanical Garden, University Vienna
Palmenhaus
Aquariums: Haus des Meeres
Planetariums: Wiener Planetarium
Theme Parks: Wurstelprater (Prater)
Malls/Department Stores: Donau Centrum
Markets
Brunnenmarkt
Naschmarkt
Monuments
Monument to the Republic
Emperor Franz Monument
Johann Strauss Monument
Memorial for the Victims of Nazi Military Justice
Mozart Statue Burggarten
Soviet War Memorial
Religious Monuments: Danube Park Papal Cross (Papstkreuz) new
Pedestrian Bridges: Lugner City Bridge
The Dark Side
Augarten Flaktowers
Catacombs, St. Stephen’s Cathedral
Cemetery of the Nameless
Funeral Museum
Gestapo Memorial
Third-Man-Tours of Vienna sewers
Bizzarium: Wotruba Church
WELS
Museums: Welios Science Center
Castles, Palaces, Forts: Wels Castle
Villages and Small Towns
Bad Ischl
Dürnstein
Eferding
Gmunden
Grein
Hallstatt
Melk
Mondsee
Spitz
St. Wolfgang im Salzkammergut
ENNS
Castles, Palaces, Forts: Museum Lauriacum
KREMS
Museums
Krems an der Donau: Kunsthalle Krems
Caricature Museum
Gozzoburg
House Museums/Plantations: Beethovenhaus