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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.