Two Towers

... but not *THE* two towers.

I have been trying to get out on a hike at least once a weekend throughout this summer, I really didn't take quite enough advantage of the hiking around here last year and besides, when it is predicted to hit 38 degrees sometime on Sunday, it is clear that leaving the tarmac filled heat sink that is the city centre is just a matter of common sense!

This brief bunch of photos were both taken at the top of lookout towers in the Wienerwald, although the similarities mostly end there. The first group of images were taken atop the 600m Anninger after a pleasant, conifer shaded walk with Ash from the train station at Mödling. I feel sure that I have mentioned the Anninger before, it is one of the higher hills in the immediate vicinity of the city, and seems somewhat higher once you reach the summit as to the East of it lies only the flat Vienna basin. Most of the walk is shrouded in trees, but once you reach the lookout tower you are treated to a magnificent view of the peaks of the Wienerwald, ranging away to the Schneeberg in the distance. I have taken hundreds of photos of this view, but this time some excellent shafts of light breaking through the clouds made it all look just that bit better.

The next small batch of pictures come from a couple of weeks later, on the evening of the summer solstice. I had actually planned to nip up a lookout tower, the Jubiläumswarte that overlooksVienna from its western slopes, in order to catch the sunset. As it turned out, despite a rather brisk walk from the tram stop up into the hills (necessary to avoid the mosquitos, never mind anything else), I managed to miss the actual sun by 10 minutes or so. Shouldn't have spent so long on dinner! Nonetheless I spent a good hour and a half relaxing in the cooler air at the top of the tower, watching it go slowly dark over Vienna. I spent a long time trying to photograph the planes coming in to land at vienna airport, from a good vantage point such as mine one can usually see about three at once strung out in a line getting ready to land...

Enjoy! And I hope it is cooler than 30 degrees in your office right now!

Der Tom

Wiener Wasserleitungsweg

Apparently in Austria sometimes there are work outings, I suspect possibly just excuses to use spare department money for wine. Anyway, this year for the first time my department had one, where we went for a brief walk in the sun along the path named in the title of this post. After a short time we ended up in the picturesque and wine-filled town of Gumpoldskirchen to enjoy the fruits of its labours and tonnes of very fatty spreads on bread. This is what one does in Gumpoldskirchen.

After the wine drinking was over and everyone was setting out for the somewhat infrequent trains back to Vienna, I decided that I hadn't had enough of the Wasserleitungsweg, and headed off for another hour and a bit, walking through sunset and finally stopping when it was basically too dark to continue. I eventually blundered my way to a train station and went home, much refreshed.

Perhaps I should mention, the Wasserleitungsweg is a path along the slopes at the edge of the Vienna basin which follows the route of one of the large aqueducts that provide Vienna with its famous water. As you were perhaps aware, almost all viennese water is springwater from the alps, piped in two vast aqueducts towards Vienna, the first of which is 140 years old. It is 95km long and the water drops through 270m over its course, meaning that absolutely no pumping is required! The water from a spring in the vicinity of the Schneeberg in the alps delivers around 62 million cubic kilometers of water a year (just over 50% of all the water needed/used) according to the wikipedia article, which is only available in German.

As is traditional, please enjoy the photos I took of the sunset over the vineyards (which I persist in trying to call winegardens even in english nowadays) by clicking on a linky thing.

Der Tom

Todays PS highlights an absolutely incredible installment of NASA's image of the day feature, a photo shot by a crewmember on the international space station showing a view of storm clouds over the atlantic ocean. It is my current desktop, you shall see why!!!

Hochwasser

As you may or may not have gathered, the beginning of June saw a rather wet time for central and eastern Europe. Weeks of unseasonal rain swelled rivers to bursting in Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and many other countries. For inhabitants of many towns, cities and villages, this was a stressful, expensive and for a few even deadly time. I say this as I don't want to make light of all the damage done by the floods in the rest of this post, but as many know, the natural world in excess can be beautiful as well as dangerous.

The swirling floodwaters

The reason that allowed me as an inhabitant of Vienna to spend my time gawking and the high waters rather than worrying for my house is Vienna's rather effective flood defence system. In the 70s a whole second channel for the Danube was dug out, the material excavated from this was then used to build an island separating the new and old channels. The new channel, Neue Donau or new Danube, is usually sealed off from the Danube proper by large gates, making it still water and incidentally the only bit of the Danube that is even remotely blue. Together with the 20+ km Danube island, the new Danube spends most of its time being a much loved recreational area of Vienna, affording opportunities to swim, jog, relax, bike, eat pizza or whatever your heart desires, all in easy reach of the main city but somehow a million miles away.

When the floodwaters appear, the gates are opened and the second channel comes into use. With an almost doubled cross section, the Danube can handle much faster and more voluminous flows without breaking its banks. The gates were indeed opened during the most recent flooding, and like a number of Viennese I went out to take a look at our favourite recreational destination being used for its most important purpose! The danube islan and new danube are without a doubt one of the most effective and thoughtful pieces of town planning I know of, and a great example to the world's cities of how to improve and protect yourself at the same time!

The photos I took of this undeniably rather impressive phenomenon can be found as usual by clicking on a link.

Der Tom

BONUS FINNISH FACT: The finnish word for 'world', 'maailma', is an ancient compound of the words for 'earth'/'ground' (maa) and the word for 'air' (ilma)

Hainburg an der Donau

I am an occasional member of a group of likeminded and extremely international people who like to go for a walk on a Sunday, sometimes this will be an actual 8 hour hike, sometimes a tiny stroll with a bit of culture thrown in. This is the advantage of doing things with non-natives, they are a lot more willing to go see the sights, and/or go see if there are any sights to be seen!

The castle at Hainburg, beneficiary of Richard the Lionheart's misfortune

The Sunday we went to Hainburg was one of those Sundays more tourism than hiking tour. Hainburg an der Donau is a town of about 6000 people situated right next to the danube (the clue is in the name!). It has quite a lot to recommend it, touristically speaking. The town centre is still surrounded by high walls built originally in the 13th century, and these are broken only by some rather large medieval gatehouses, one of which houses the comprehensive town museum. Atop the hill above the town is the castle (Burg) alluded to in another part of the name, the destination for our mild stroll. A real proper castle ruin, not a prettified villa or folly, the castle was expanded and improved substantially using the ransom money England paid to get back Richard the Lionheart! Near to the town proper lies the important Roman crossroads settlement of Carnuntum, and the town also includes a museum featuring a number of roman artefacts (and on the day we arrived, some kind of archaeological conference).

Above, one of the medieval town gatehouses!

Hainburg is also almost directly on the border with Slovakia, and is closer to Bratislava than Vienna. From the castle walls Bratislava can be recognised by some of its more famous sights such as the castle. The train line to Bratislava used to run past Hainburg but now the main line runs somewhere else due to a cocktail of historical circumstances, the modern train service runs on only one line and the stations are tiny... The same S-Bahn that terminates after Hainburg goes past the airport, so the train starts out packed and then very quickly empties as you travel across the dead flat of the Vienna basin towards the widely visible hill behind the town. Geologically speaking these hills mark the edge of the Vienna basin, the very end of one little outlier of the alps and, over the river, the start of the slovakian tatras.


Hope you enjoy the small gallery of images, showing a more typical small austrian town instead of the overgrown and beautiful monster metropolis (hah) that is Vienna.

Der Tom

PS stay tuned for a couple more updates soon, I have already sorted and uploaded pictures for them which is always the slowest task, so I should get round to writing about them shortly.