In the 1st century AD the Romans built a military camp (castrum) on the site of today's Vienna city center near the Danube and the connected civil city Vindobona (today 3rd district) as border security of the province of Pannonia. Still today you can see from the streets of the 1st district (Inner City), the course of the wall and the streets of the camp. The Romans remained until the 5th century. The Roman legionary camp lay far to the east of the Western Roman Empire and therefore rapidly was victim the turmoil of the Germanic barbarian invasions.
Architecturally, Vienna is still characterized primarily by the buildings around the Vienna Ringstrasse from the Wilhelminian era, but also by Baroque and Art Nouveau. Through its role as the imperial capital and residential city of the Austrian Empire from 1804 onwards, Vienna became a cultural and political centre of Europe.
Around 1910, when Vienna was still the capital of the Habsburg Monarchy, the city had over two million inhabitants. The historic centre of Vienna and Schönbrunn Palace are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites. With around 7.5 million tourists and around 16.5 million overnight stays every year, Vienna is one of the most visited cities in Europe.
Anyone who has ever visited the capital of Austria, Vienna, will certainly have a very extensive art and culture program ahead of them and must definitely focus, especially when time is limited.
In his work, created around the middle of the 2nd century AD, Ptolemy calls the mountains between Pannonia and Norikum "Ketion oros".
Again, we noticed, there are connections that were unlikely at first, even if you are interested in history and due to our project work, we are traveling a lot, especially in the Balkans.
With its 6.3 kilometres, Halterbach is the 2nd longest stream in Vienna, which flows through the suburb of Hütteldorf in which the Camping Wien West is located, too.
The sunny weather once more lured outdoors - this time the Vienna River should be our destination and at the same time tour beginning to the Vienna Woods, where the Vienna River has its origin.
Those who drive through the city center of Vienna these days will encounter astonishing lines of visitors in the early morning already, which despite cold and light snow fall hike towards Schönbrunn Palace.
The visit to the Central Cemetery in Vienna, which was quite wet and cold but extremely interesting, had not just led us to the grave and memorial of the artist Falco, which had established itself a real visitor magnet over the years, the visit once again showed a different way of dealing with Death here in Vienna or at least here at the central cemetery.
The Wienerwald has also been populated by people since time immemorial. Neolithic residential pits, which were discovered in 1914 when trenches were dug, were found on the Simonsberg in the Weidlingbach municipality as early from the Neo-Gothic era (2200-1800 BC).
And we continued with regard to the visit of various Christmas markets in Vienna, this time we went to the Christmas market "Art Advent" at Karlsplatz.
Sunshine and the urge to move had lured us up to the jubilee area into the Vienna Woods, a kind of lookout tower on the Gallitzinberg on the western outskirts of Vienna.
Every city, like every country, has its own bizarre peculiarities, so we were more than surprised about the central cemetery in Vienna during a conversation when we found out that the cemetery is also used as a park and green area by the Viennese.
Of course, we took the advantage to pass some city areas in Vienna within our presence in Brunn am Gebirge, this time our interest was mostly directed to one of the buildings of the Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, which were planned and implemented together with his architect friend Josef Krawina.
Once again we took the tram into the city center of Vienna, leaving the tram at Vienna State Opera. This time, our exploration tour was to include the Vienna Hofburg and the museums housed in it, where our special interest was directed to the Ephesus Museum.
If you want to enjoy the ultimate, almost oriental market experience in Vienna, you should visit the Brunnenmarkt in Ottakring, which we were able to do thanks to our city guide Gernot.
During extensive canal construction work in 1948, the remains of the tribunal houses of the legionary warehouse Vindobona were discovered at the Hohenmarkt in Vienna.
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.