Grinzing (Pass By)

Grinzing, situated in the north-west of Vienna at the foot of the Kahlenberg, was already a flourishing village at the beginning of the 12th century. In the Middle Ages, it was mainly inhabited by farmers, winegrowers and day labourers who were in the service of the monasteries or Viennese citizens. During the reign of Emperor Joseph II, "wine journeys" to the surroundings of Vienna became common. After the Napoleonic Wars, Grinzing developed into a "wine tavern town" where wine was served in numerous wine taverns. The parish church of Grinzing, which was originally built by winegrowing families in 1417, stands on Himmelstraße. The Turks destroyed the church in 1529 and 1683, but each time the simple, late Gothic country church with a lateral tower, three-sided choir end and Baroque spire was rebuilt. Ludwig van Beethoven played the organ in the church in Grinzing.

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The Wiener Höhenstraße is an approximately 15 km long road on the western outskirts of Vienna, which runs along the Wienerwald heights from Leopoldsberg to Neuwaldegger Straße. The connection from Neuwaldegger Straße to Hütteldorf, 6 km, is also included. The construction of the Wiener Höhenstraße at the beginning of the 1930s was based on plans that had already been drawn up at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century. However, the construction of the road was not actually started until the time of the authoritarian corporative state, with the main aims of the project being to promote tourism and combat the high level of unemployment at the time. In order to maximise the use of labour, even the use of machines was severely restricted and the work was largely carried out using primitive means. The special feature of the Wiener Höhenstraße besides the view of Vienna is its granite pavement, parts of which, where there are historic buildings and viewpoints, are listed buildings.

1 hour 25 minutes

Burg Leopoldsberg

Visible from afar, the Leopoldsberg is a 425 metre high hill in the north-west of Vienna that slopes steeply down to the Danube. A small hilltop settlement was established there in the 9th century BC. In the Hallstatt and Late Latène periods, the Kahlenberg was one of the central settlement sites in the Vienna area. In the 12th century, the Babenberg Margrave Leopold III, who later became St Leopold, had a castle with a chapel built on the Kahlenberg because of the invasions of the Magyars. The Habsburg Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Leopold I, founded a chapel on the Kahlenberg in 1679, which was destroyed by the Turks in 1683 and consecrated to St Leopold after the victory over the Turks, whereupon the mountain was given the name Leopoldsberg. In 1717, the chapel on Leopoldsberg was transformed into today's church, an early baroque domed building with a double-towered façade. The Wiener Höhenstraße leads up the Leopoldsberg, from where you have a beautiful view of Vienna.

30 minutes

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Cobenzl, on a Viennese local mountain on the edge of the Vienna Woods, originally belonged to the Jesuits. After the dissolution of the Jesuit order, the mountain came to Count Cobenzl and under mayor Karl Lueger the property was purchased by the municipality of Vienna in 1907. The city of Vienna subsequently built a scenic road with switchbacks from Grinzing to the Cobenzl, on which public buses also ran, so that in the 1930s the Cobenzl reached its peak as an excursion destination. On the roof of the Rondell Café, which was rebuilt in 2022, there is a viewing terrace that is open to the public. There is also a vineyard on the Cobenzl where wine was already being pressed in the 13th century. Today, the Cobenzl winery cultivates around 60 hectares of vineyards in Grinzing, on Nussberg and on Bisamberg and has been certified organic since 2023. There is also an adventure farm at Cobenzl with seven stables and around 100 animals, where sheep, goats and rabbits can be fed and petted.

15 minutes

Schonbrunn Palace

In 1282, the Habsburgs took over the former Babenberg lands and thus also became the rulers of Vienna, their favoured residence. From 1638 to 1643, a palace was built for the wife of Emperor Ferdinand II in Hietzing, which at the time was located far outside the city gates. After this complex was severely damaged during the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683, Leopold I commissioned a prestigious new building in 1687. Under Maria Theresa, the palace and the 160-hectare park were extended to their present form. Schönbrunn Palace was the summer residence of emperors and kings from the mid-18th century until the end of the First World War and was the cultural and political centre of the Habsburg Empire during this time. During your tour, you will visit the entire Beletage of Schönbrunn Palace. In addition to the private apartments of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth, the south-facing reception rooms and the State Apartments, you will also see the apartments of Maria Theresa.

1 hour 45 minutes

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The Wiener Gürtel Straße (B221) is a multi-lane main road in Vienna, which, like the Ring, runs in a ring-shaped segment around the city centre from the bridge crossing the Danube Canal in the 19th district along the respective outer borders of the inner city districts to the bridge over the Danube Canal in the 3rd district. The Gürtel is divided into an inner and outer belt along its entire length. The Gürtel separates the former suburbs of Vienna, which were incorporated in 1850, within the Gürtel from the former suburbs outside the Gürtel, which were incorporated in 1890/1892. The Gürtel was built in sections towards the end of the 19th century after the line wall, a fortification system, was abandoned and the then still undeveloped areas on both sides were newly laid out as elaborate Wilhelminian-style neighbourhoods. The high residential quality and attractiveness of the Gürtel was lost with the massive spread of motorised private transport in the second half of the 20th century.

30 minutes

Belvedere Museum

The Belvedere Palace is a baroque palace built by Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt between 1714 and 1723 for Prince Eugene of Savoy with an upper and lower complex connected by a garden on a slope rising south of the city centre, where after 10 years of occupation following World War 2 the Austrian State Treaty was signed on 15 May 1955. Today, the Upper Belvedere houses Austrian art from the Middle Ages to the present day, with major works by Austrian artists of Viennese Modernism Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka who dedicated the poem "The Dreaming Boys" with colour lithographs to Gustav Klimt. The centrepiece of the Upper Belvedere's collection is formed by the paintings of Gustav Klimt who was a good fatherly friend of Egon Schiele with his golden pictures "The Kiss" and "Judith". Klimt's painting "The Kiss" is world-famous. The painting was created in 1908/09 and shows Klimt and his muse Emilie Flöge as lovers. The "Kiss" is Austria's most famous work of art.

1 hour 30 minutes

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Prinz-Eugen-Straße in Vienna connects the city centre with the Gürtel street along the border of the Viennese Landstraße and Wieden districts, slightly uphill and running straight in a south-southeasterly direction. Since 1911, it has been named after the Habsburg general, President of the Court War Council and patron of the arts Eugene of Savoy, whose summer palace, Belvedere Palace, the street passes in its southern section. The course of Prinz-Eugen-Straße was determined around 1700 and the baroque Upper Belvedere was built between 1717 and 1723. Today's closed urban development on the right-hand side of Prinz-Eugen-Straße was created during the late Historicism period in the fourth quarter of the 19th century. Several diplomatic missions were located in the representative buildings. A tram line through Prinz-Eugen-Straße was opened in 1901. The line running there has carried the D line signal since 1907 until today.

5 minutes

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In 1862, the street on the edge of the Glacis between Schwarzenbergplatz and the Great Hungarian Bridge was named Am Heumarkt. The Vienna Glacis was an open area between the city walls and the suburbs that existed until 1858 and originally served as a free field of fire for the defenders of Vienna against attackers. The large quantities of hay that were brought in from Hungary every week and sold here gave the place its name. The hay was needed for the oxen from Hungary, which were offered for sale on a large square on the banks of the Vienna River in front of the Stubentor. Heumarkt is home to one of the oldest urban development units in the Landstraße suburb with a prestigious façade facing the former glacis. The Vienna Concert Hall and an ice rink were built on the site of the former glacis in the Heumarkt area, part of which was sacrificed in 1960 to the Vienna operations of the InterContinental Hotels Group. The children's park of the Stadtpark adjoins it to the north-east.

3 minutes

Stadtpark

The Vienna City Park, which was laid out in English landscape style in 1862 on the site of the former water glacis, stretches from the Parkring in an easterly direction across the Wien River to Heumarkt. From the 13th century onwards, Vienna was surrounded by a city wall, which was surrounded on the outside, by a glacis, a strip of meadow, which was intended to provide a clear field of fire for the defence of Vienna. This glacis, known as the Wasserglacis, was one of the most popular promenades at the time of Emperor Joseph II. Emperor Joseph II had footpaths built across the glacis and trees planted. During the reign of Emperor Franz II, the water glacis developed into a popular place of entertainment. After the demolition of the city wall, the Vienna City Park was laid out in 1862 on the site of the former water glacis, which disappeared when the Ringstrasse zone was built, with meadows, water features and ornate ornamental shrubs, as well as tall avenue trees facing the Ringstrasse.

2 minutes

Hundertwasserhaus

Weißgerber is a neighbourhood located on the Danube Canal in the north of Vienna's 3rd district, bordered to the north and east by the Danube Canal. The former suburb of Weißgerber was incorporated into Vienna in 1850 and is now also known as the Weißgerberviertel. The Weißgerber suburb was created after the First Turkish Siege of Vienna in the flood-prone backwater area of the Vienna River and was home to tanners, red and white tanners. These had to settle outside the city as their trade was associated with strong odours. The most famous building in the Weißgerberviertel today is the Hundertwasserhaus, built in the 1980s by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The house is colourful, lushly planted and has uneven floors in the corridor areas. 250 trees and shrubs have grown on the roofs of the house to form a park. Hundertwasser was against "straight lines" and incorporated nature into the architecture. The Hundertwasserhaus is one of Vienna's most photographed attractions.

15 minutes

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Leopoldstadt, between the Danube and the Danube Canal, has been Vienna's 2nd district since 1850. In 1625, Emperor Ferdinand II allocated part of the Unterer Werd to the Jews as a place to live. The ghetto was cleared in 1670 and the Leopold Church was built in place of the synagogue. The Jewish town was united with the main part of the Unterer Werd and named Leopoldstadt after St Leopold. The area of today's Leopoldstadt was previously mainly used as pastureland for the livestock of Vienna's inhabitants and for cattle imported from Hungary. Since the end of the 19th century, there has been a strong influx of mainly Jewish migrants from Galicia and Bukovina. The concentration of the Jewish population in the 2nd district was further fuelled by the waves of refugees during the First World War. Leopoldstadt is home to the Prater, which was opened in 1766 and takes up most of the 2nd district. The Giant Ferris Wheel in the Prater is one of Vienna's landmarks.

5 minutes

Wiener Riesenrad

The Vienna Giant Ferris Wheel was built in 1897 for the 50th anniversary of the throne of Emperor Franz Josef I according to plans by English engineers with 30 carriages. The total height of the Vienna Giant Ferris Wheel is 64.75 metres, the wheel diameter is 60.96 metres and the rotational speed is 2.7 km/h. At the time, the Vienna Giant Ferris Wheel was one of the largest Ferris wheels. A ride on the Ferris wheel was relatively expensive. It cost eight guilders. By comparison, a civil servant earned 30 guilders a month. During the 2nd World War, the Ferris wheel was destroyed and then rebuilt, although the number of carriages was reduced from 30 to 15 because it was assumed that the stability of the Ferris wheel had suffered due to the damage caused by the war, and for cost reasons only 4 windows were installed instead of the original 6. In 2016, work began on replacing the 15 carriages with new ones, which were built according to the original plans from 1896/97 with 6 windows.

30 minutes

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The Wurstelprater is an amusement park in Vienna, which has existed since 1825 as the Volksprater and is located in the north-western part of the Prater, in the 2nd district, the so-called Leopoldstadt. The landmark of the Wurstelprater is the Vienna Giant Ferris Wheel. The Wurstelprater owes its name to a figure from popular theatre, the "Hanswurst", a comical character who wore the costume of a Salzburg farmer and acted as a servant on the stage. During the Age of Enlightenment, the popular theatres were expelled from the market squares of today's Old Town and relocated to the Prater. Today, the Wurstelprater is home to numerous fairground and amusement attractions with ghost trains, merry-go-rounds (carousels), wave rides, roller coasters, mirror and laughter cabins, autodromes and drop towers. There are also several slot machine arcades and other gambling facilities. Admission to the Prater grounds is free.

15 minutes

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It all began in 1716 with a Swiss hut where Swiss huntsmen entertained the lords in the Prater. In 1840, a bar building was erected in the style of a "Schweizerhaus". Since then, the establishment has been known as the 'Schweizerhaus'. The Schweizerhaus in the Prater is the cosiest pub in Vienna with a huge, shady, small-scale beer garden with a total of around 1500 seats and 80 percent regular guests. It is run by the third generation of the Kolarik family from Bohemia. The beer in the Schweizerhaus, Budweiser Budvar, has been coming from České Budějovice since 1920. It is supplied in barrels. Budweiser Budvar is a dark yellow, 12-grain lager that is tapped in 3 stages at a 12-metre-long tap, just like in the Czech Republic and Austria in the past. In addition to the beer, the Schweizerhaus is also famous for its crispy stilton. The famous Stelze is a tender, juicy, crispy piece of pork knuckle served with fresh coleslaw.

1 hour 30 minutes