While I thoroughly enjoyed all the Royal Palaces, the Imperial Apartments, the amazing museums and of course all the great architecture of Vienna, for my last day I decided I needed to commune with nature a little bit. Get away from all the people and the city and go hiking.
So I found an area north of the city called Vienna Woods. It’s a forested area that at the peak of the mountain shows a panoramic view of Vienna and the Danube. On my way up, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so I looked forward to the view. Well there seemed to be a haze or fog that had settled into the valley so the pic I included you can’t hardly see a thing. But I thought the sunbeam coming down looked cool! Or maybe that was “The Big Guy” sending me a message since I’ve been visiting so many churches lately! Hmmmm…
Speaking of churches, of course I did find a cute little church at the top and they too had the “love locks” on the wrought iron covering their well.
So I started my hike downward (I had taken the subway and bus to get to the peak). It was about an hour and a half hike downhill thru some beautiful tree covered paths and these rolling hills of vineyards. So peaceful. I learned that Vienna has the most vineyards planted within their city limits than any other city in the world. Who knew?
After my hike I took the subway over to another peaceful outdoor area called Danube Island. In the 1970’s, as part of a flood protection program, the city dug a channel (they called it New Danube) parallel to the Danube River. With the dredged out dirt, the engineers formed the 12 mile long Danube Island. I guess since it was during the week there weren’t too many people there but I rented a bike and just biked the island all afternoon. And I must say, for once something Rick Steves said in his guidebook was not true. He said if you biked to the end of the island you’d likely encounter nudists on in-line skates. Well I biked my little tushy off and saw nothing! Dang you Rick. Lol.
I also shared a picture of the area they call Danube City, which is what they call the sky-scraping “Manhattan” of Austria. It was laid out as a potential Vienna-Budapest expo site in the 1990’s. But Austrians voted down the fair idea, and eventually the real estate became today’s modern planned city.
Well that’s it for Vienna. Tomorrow I head to my fifth and final country of this trip. I found an off the beaten path town called Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic to visit for a few days. Heck some people would say the Czech Republic is off the beaten path! But with Prague now on the radar of a lot of international tourists (we’ll be there next week), it’s no longer off the beaten path.
Hope everyone is having a great Thursday!
Jeff
The Wandering Italian 