GETTING TO KNOW THE REAL VIENNA, BEYOND THE TOURIST ATTRACTIONS
St. Steven's Cathedral, Belvedere Palace, the Albertina art museum, the Opera House: These are just some of the many sights that are musts to visit while in Vienna, especially for those travelling to the Austrian capital for the first time ever.
But then what? What is there to do once the classic sightseeing tour is behind you? Perhaps dig deeper to ferret out the city's dynamics? For this, you must head to the "Grätzl" or local neighbourhoods where the average Viennese live, dine and socialize. There you can experience what their daily lifestyle looks like. Here are some suggested tours of such everyday Viennese neighbourhoods.
1. At the Meidling Market: Culinary delights
The Meidling Market in Vienna's 12th district, a half-hour walk from the spectacular Schönbrunn Palace, is where a guest can concentrate best on that which the Viennese love: Dining. On a Food Safari - the name of a guided tour - you will be brought to a street market and there, to a host with long blonde hair, Max Kern. Under the open sky, he serves up a "Brettl-Jause" - a cheesy snack on a simple wooden slab. "Our specialities come from small Austrian producers with the highest standards," he assures us.
While enjoying the snack with a glass of white wine - a favoured daytime beverage in Vienna - the guest sits in the centre of the market, watching the flea market activity and farmers selling their produce. People chat and know each other. And nobody in this former working-class neighbourhood worries about having a trendy wardrobe. In this quarter, that's not so important.
"The genuine Viennese loves their pastries, just like they love their neighbourhood," says Mark Ruiz-Hellin. In his tiny pastry shop Hüftgold, the man from the German city of Hanover offers the typical Viennese punch doughnut made from rum dough with lots of sugar and a pink icing. The air is scented like in a bakery.
2. The Serviten quarter: A famous flight of steps and green oasis
In the streets of the Serviten quarter in Vienna's 9th district, there is a definite feeling of being in Paris. French can be heard in the streets, what with the nearby Lycée Français high school, a French bookshop and a bistro named "La Mercerie." There, surrounded by old chemists' cabinets, people enjoy freshly baked croissants and eclairs.
Hidden at the end of an alley is probably the most famous flight of steps in German-language literature: The Strudelhofstiege. Just like in Heimito von Doderer's novel of the same name, people meet up for a rendezvous on the imposing Art Nouveau staircase.
Flaneurs often head from there to the nearby park of the Liechtenstein Garden Palace. The oasis of green with its flowerbeds, bubbling fountains and lofty trees adjoins a princely baroque building from the era of Austria's imperial past. The palace, where a part of the private art collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein is housed, can only be viewed via guided tours or cultural events.
3. In the Prater district: Curiousities and Danube River floodplains
The tree-lined Prater Street with its broad new bicycle lanes attracts visitors to Vienna's 2nd district and its world-renowned amusement park, the Wiener Prater, the same name as the nearby floodplain along the Danube. "Since 1897, our giant ferris wheel is a favourite place for marriage proposals, since the girl can't run away," says city guide Ilse Heigerth with a wink of her eye. "But scarcely anyone knows about the new Prater museum."
In the new building in the district called Leopoldstadt, curiosities from the more than 250-year history of the Luna Park are on display: From the equipment used by matchmakers, to shooting gallery figures to the Watschenmann, the typical Prater character that adorned the booths.
In everyday life, however, the real Viennese will abandon the Wurstelprater, as the park is officially called, in order to stroll through the Green Prater, an extensive park with meadows and floodplains. The long main avenue of chestnut trees leads straight to the baroque Lusthaus, now a restaurant. If you like, you can ride there in a fiaker, or horse-drawn carriage - a touristy thing that the locals normally don't do.
4. The second district: Vienna's most modern neighbourhood
But what an architectural parallel world is waiting right next door - the Viertel Zwei (Quarter Two), which likewise is located in the Leopold district. A world of urbanity, innovation, and, at the campus of the University of Economics and Business, free of automobiles.
There, the wind whistles across the sealed surfaces of Vienna's most modern neighbourhood, where the futuristic buildings by international architects offer unique photo opportunities, especially the university library building of star architect Zaha Hadid with its protruding roof.
Students move across the campus with its building facades of reflective glass and rust-brown Corten steel like in a futuristic film.
Unimpressed by all this, a lone sulky driver trains his horse at the nearby historic Krieau trotting track. With its monument-protected grandstands, it looks like an anachronism amid all the new architecture.
5. In the Freihaus quarter: Seniors waiting tables and a dumpling-making seminar
"A cool neighbourhood with killer energy," is how Sebastian Knoebl from Rebel Tours describes the creative and lively Freihaus area in Vienna's 4th district. The young guide shows his guests the "Vienna of the Viennese" such as the Vollpension café. Seniors who have no desire to spend their late years feeling lonely are there to wait on guests, serving up homemade cakes baked by grandma in a living room atmosphere.
At Stefanie Herkner's dumpling seminar, you can learn how much fun it is to cook Viennese specialities yourself. Visitors stir and knead together in the kitchen of her pub Zur Herknerin, and soon, the curd cheese dumplings are ready.
