Austria is a central European landlocked country with around 8.8 million inhabitants. The country is bordered by the Bohemian massif and the Thaya in the north, the Karawanken and the Styrian hill country in the south, the Pannonian lowlands in the east and the Rhine and Lake Constance in the west. More than 62 percent of its territory is made up of alpine high mountains.
Austria and its mountains play an important role for active holidaymakers both in winter and summer for mountain hikes, mountaineering and skiing. The highest mountains in Austria are three-thousand meter peaks and are located in the Eastern Alps. At 3,798 m, the Großglockner (Tyrol/Carinthia) is the highest mountain. Austria has numerous refuges and hiking trails that are operated by Alpine clubs and tourist associations.
Bathing tourism is particularly important on Lake Neusiedl, in the Salzkammergut and Salzburg lake areas and in the Carinthian lake area.
In general, tourism is one of the most important sectors in the Austrian economy. Tourism regions are Burgenland, Carinthia, Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Vienna.
Tourism is one of the most important economic sectors in Austria. In 2013, direct added value of 16.94 billion euros was achieved from tourism, which corresponds to 5.3% of the gross domestic product. Tourism is evenly distributed between the summer and winter seasons, although an east-west divide is visible, with the east attracting more summer tourism and the west more winter tourism. Important sectors also include cultural and city tourism as well as spa, wellness and conference tourism.
Within continuing of our project work on the development of camping tourism on the Balkans as well as the creation of intermediate stations (camper-route.de) on the way to the south, our tour planning first integrated the locations of Vienna and Budapest before moving on to Belgrade.
At the end of our tour through Mödling, Robert introduced us to the local museum, which gives an insight view into the history of the town as well as into the surroundings places and into the past too, when the area was connected to an ocean.
Robert's name has long been a synonym for our readers, often we have reported on his activities in Vienna and its surroundings, be it his Roman festival with the legendary Egyptian blue or his salt crystal model, which is now part of a UNESCO exhibition and within this will travel to India.
Many travelers may think it is too far hiking into the inner city of Vienna from the New Danube campsite, but we have managed the hike to the Viennese Prater through the green belt of the city, which was, even very hot that day, really enjoyable.
Like in Bremen (we have reported) and many other cities, cycling in Vienna has become quite popular too. The bicycle has conquered an important place in urban transport in the area of Vienna, but also in the surrounding regions.
We had already mentioned that we wanted to use our stay during the local Roman days in Brunn am Gebirge to make some explorations through Vienna to explore the cultural and historical evolution of the provincial capital of Austria.
In our first blog reports we had already written about the coin findings from the Roman period in Brunn am Gebirge, which are today located in the exhibition at the Heritage House.
Yet another exciting artifact was found in the aforementioned excavations of a burial ground in Brunn am Gebirge in 1972: A polychrome-painted stone slab with the representation of a woman in a Noric-Pannonian costume, a kind of dress in modern language, in a dark shade of red.
The Viennese Karls Church, a Roman Catholic church in the 4th district of Vienna, was built in the first half of the 18th century. Today, the church is a protected monument.
During our tour through Vienna, we have chosen the subway to the station on the Danube Island to take advantage of the rare sunshine of the mostly dull days in February.
After the hike through the Palace Park of Schönbrunn we had gone to the subway station in Hietzing and had taken a day ticket for subway and buses, since we wanted to go into the city center for some more tourist destinations.
The palace and its park form an inseparable ensemble. The center of the park is the Great Parterre, which stretches on the main axis to the Gloriette Hill since about 1780.
Once again, we were meeting to discuss the setting up of a camper stop and its advantages with regard to the further development of local culture and travel tourism to Brunn am Gebirge, which we could later use to visit the Palace of Schönbrunn and the city of Vienna.
We had already mentioned Robert several times and reported about his various activities in regards to local cultural events and the promotion of education to adolescents.
Vienna is a city that has become the settlement location of the Habsburg Dynasty for centuries. It is one of the most visited and must-see cities among the Europe routes. Vienna is not only the capital of Austria, but also the capital of art that has hosted to Habsburg Dynasty for centuries.
Austria’s capital, Vienna is famous for its cultural events, magnificent imperial palaces, coffeehouses, classical music and its charm that dazzles the visitors. Located in today’s city center of Vienna, the Romans constructed a military camp called Vindobona in B.C. 1st century and this gave a start to the history of Vienna.
We had met Jana and her daughter Lucinka on the Lake Ohrid, had been on mountain tours for some days on the border mountains between Macedonia and Albania and finally met in Prague at her home again.
We met Hannes and Sascha for the first time at the roof tent nomads meeting in Stadtoldendorf, had watched the two explaining their kitchen furniture with growing enthusiasm, so practical and handy the construction of their variously designed box kitchens looks, not at least to start the conversation with them.
En route to the Caravan Salon 2016 with their motor home, Toni and Alex Zampetas had already arrived in Austria, where they decided to continue their way in using the so called "Car Lock Tauernrail".