Now that I have been in Vienna for a year, I have seen virtually all of the city's primary tourist attractions. Some more than once. And as much as I'd love to spend all my Saturdays at the Naturhistorisches Museum, I'm not down with paying that € 10,- entrance fee every week. Thus, my project for this year is to investigate some of the lesser-known intrigues about town. I set to work a couple weeks ago, when spring arrived in full and biking stopped being a miserable activty.
Last weekend, I cycled over to the Otto Wagner Krankenhaus. Or cycled up, rather. What Google Maps claimed to be a 33 minute bike ride took me almost an hour. There were two hills I gave up and walked. On the plus side, I had to pedal, like, twice on the way home. The hospital complex is beautiful - more like a university campus than anything, with stately architecture and plenty of green space, gardens and trees. It climbs up a hill to a gold-domed church with a network of woods and open fields behind. On that fine spring afternoon, there were swarms of people strolling about, flying kites, and soaking up the sunshine.
Last weekend, I cycled over to the Otto Wagner Krankenhaus. Or cycled up, rather. What Google Maps claimed to be a 33 minute bike ride took me almost an hour. There were two hills I gave up and walked. On the plus side, I had to pedal, like, twice on the way home. The hospital complex is beautiful - more like a university campus than anything, with stately architecture and plenty of green space, gardens and trees. It climbs up a hill to a gold-domed church with a network of woods and open fields behind. On that fine spring afternoon, there were swarms of people strolling about, flying kites, and soaking up the sunshine.
My other discovery was the Augarten, a park a bit south from me, on the opposite side of the canal. At the northwest entrance to the park stands this behemoth:
It's a flak tower, an anti-aircraft tower, one of several built during WWII to help protect the city from Allied air raids. There are two in the Augarten, and today they just stand there, empty and decrepit, surrounded by wire fences. At the opposite end of the park, you find the Schloss Augarten (home of the Vienna Choir Boys) and a particularly brilliant old wall.
One of my favourite books as a kid was set in a place called Time City, a city set outside the world's historical timeline, where the ghosts of people from all different eras regularly roamed the streets. Sometimes Vienna feels like something of a Time City. A seventeenth century palace at one end of a park; military detritus from the Nazi Regime at the other. And all around, 21st century lives going on as usual.