Austria Travel Guide
8/12/2008 at 11:01 AM
Tags: UNESCO, World Heritage Sites, Lakes, Google Maps (all tags)
Nicolette Waechter is tired of her family's lake in the resort district of Salzkammergut in Austria. So she's selling Mondsee, and €16 million ($24 million) seems to be the going price.
Mondsee, or Moon Lake, is about a mile wide and 10 miles long, and it's one of only five lakes of substantial size in Austria that is still privately owned. It's also part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it has lent its name to a Neolithic people who built pile dwellings on its shores between 3600 BC and 3300 BC.
But it's not without problems: Waechter has lost numerous court cases trying to ban motorboats on the lake. At least one potential buyer would probably be happy with those rulings, though. Local tabloids say billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, the co-creator of Red Bull, is interested.
Related Stories:
· One of Austria's Privately Owned Lakes for Sale [AFP, via Google]
· World Heritage Sites coverage [Jaunted]
by pbb
6/17/2008 at 3:40 PM
Tags: Euro 2008, Culture Travel, Opera Travel, Sports Travel (all tags)
They may be rowdy, drunk and disruptive, but football fans are generally welcomed with open arms for the sheer economic force they bring to host cities. But not everyone in Vienna is stoked about the UEFA Football Championship and its assorted mayhem: The Vienna State Opera has canceled a concert scheduled the night of the final, and attendance is down by nearly a third overall since the footballers came to town.
Given how much singing goes on at European football matches--albeit in profane ways too complex to explore here--one would think a love of opera and the Euro Cup need not be mutually exclusive. The European championship continues through June 29, and tickets can still be had through the national organizations in competition. (That includes for matches involving teams from Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain at this writing.)
If you'd rather go highbrow, you can buy tickets by phone to the Vienna State Opera's performances or try for €30 ($46) rush tickets to shows like Verdi's "La Forza Del Destino" and Tchaikovsky's "The Queen of Spades."
Related Stories:
· Soccer 1, Opera 0 [Canadian Press, via Google]
· Culture Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Sports Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: station_nord]
by egw
5/15/2008 at 3:30 PM
Tags: Movie Travel, Sound of Music Tours (all tags)
And the hotel bathrobes are made of curtains: The home that the Von Trapp family, the inspiration for "The Sound of Music" musical and movie, will become a "Sound of Music" themed hotel this July.
Tourists have come from as far away as New Zealand to see the house that a young nun once went to live in, and now the bus-tour demographic will have somewhere to stay!
Julie Andrews die-hards take note, the house is not the home that was depicted in the movie, although scenes for it were shot in real houses in Salzburg and in Bavaria. You can buy your own gazebo to build and sing in, though!
Related Stories:
· Von Trapp's "Sound of Music" Villa to Become Hotel [Reuters]
· The Constant Sight of the Sound of Music [Jaunted]
· Movie Set Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: xni]
by egw
4/08/2008 at 9:15 AM
Tags: Austrian Airlines, Airlines (all tags)
We weren't quite sure about Austrian Airlines when they started offering a big brown to passengers, but we've figured out it's just a bad name for a good coffee. So we'll be nice to Austrian Airlines today because the carrier's celebrating its 50th birthday.
The airline has seen a whole heap of changes in that half-century, with initial flights all heading west to destinations like London, Frankfurt and Paris. These days, the focus is on building up flights into central and eastern Europe as well as Russia, and with flights to Riyadh and Jeddah starting in August, the Middle East is a big target area as well.
And in another piece of Austrian Airlines good news, they should move into the new Skylink terminal at Vienna's airport in the summer of 2009. They might not sell big browns there but they should be able to make connection times short and painless. Happy birthday, Austrian Airlines!
Related Stories:
· Austrian Celebrates 50th Anniversary [Business Traveller]
· Gimme a Big Brown, Danke [Jaunted]
[Photo: Guy Flaneur]
by amandak
3/05/2008 at 1:00 PM
Tags: Ferris-Wheels-of-the-World, Ferris Wheels, Attractions, Tourist Attractions, Dubai Travel (all tags)
The Langerado Music Festival starts tomorrow in the Florida Everglades, with all your favorite jam bands--from Beastie Boys to Gov't Mule--making appearances. So what's the Ferris wheel connection? There'll be one on the festival grounds, giving bird's-eye views of the bands.
If you prefer your music a bit more proper, maybe a trip to Haydn's hometown would suit you better. Vienna, Austria's opera capital, also claims one of the world's first Ferris wheels, the Riesenrad. (That's German for "giant wheel.")
The ride, above, towers 200 feet into the air, and even showed up in the film noir classic "The Third Man." If you can't snag a seat on one of the Riesenrad's 15 gondolas, there's a smaller wheel on the outskirts of town at the Böhmischer Prater.
Related Stories:
· Langerado Music Festival [Official Site]
· Vienna Prater, Home of the Riesenrad [Official Site]
· Ferris Wheels coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Wikipedia]
by pbb
2/19/2008 at 12:00 PM
Tags: Music Travel, Classical Music, Joseph Haydn (all tags)
Where would humble lil' Austria be without its musical history? Probably way off the tourist radar, we think. So it's no surprise that the Austrians are already starting the hype for 2009: Haydn Year.
Haydn Year is timed to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the composer's death. Haydn started out as a choir boy in Vienna's gorgeous Stephansdom and eventually became one of Austria's most prominent classical composers. That makes him worth celebrating, Austrian style.
All manner of events are planned to excite locals and tourists alike. Apart from tons of exhibitions in Vienna and Eisenstadt, there will be (seemingly) endless performances of Haydn's music, especially in the capital. The creepiest one is the performance of "The Creation" at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. It'll take place on March 27, 2009, exactly 201 years after Haydn made the oratorio his last public performance before his death. Even Beethoven was in the audience.
If you want to be in the audience this time round, get planning now. If you're lucky they might even throw in a seance and free chat with Haydn himself.
Related Stories:
· Haydn Year 2009 [Official Site]
· The Constant Sight of the Sound of Music [Jaunted]
· Vienna to Fight Junkies With Opera [Jaunted]
[Photo: josquin2000]
by amandak
12/17/2007 at 9:30 AM
Tags: Bruno the Bear, Bears, Movie Travel, Movie Set Travel (all tags)
We can't explain our addiction to the Bruno the Bear story last summer, when brown bear Bruno led a media circus through southern Germany before he was shot dead. He's now ready to stand proud in a Munich museum.
The weird thing is that we are obviously not alone with our Bruno-mania. It was just announced that Austrian film company Cine Tirol have signed on well-known German-speaking writers, directors and even actors for the film version of Bruno's escapades, tentatively titled The Bear is Loose.
The movie's due to be filmed in summer 2008 in Tyrol, in western Austria. We promise to bring you the ultimate in movie set travel through the beautiful hills of Tyrol when Bruno's on set. But right now we're just wondering how on earth they're going to make a movie-length story out of all this.
Related Stories:
· Life of Dead Bear Bruno Will Become Movie [Expatica]
· The Belated Return of Bruno the Bear [Jaunted]
· Austria Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Francois Schnell]
by amandak
7/23/2007 at 9:03 AM
Tags: Movie Set Travel, Sound of Music Tours (all tags)
While the locals in the beautiful Austrian city of Salzburg barely know this film from a bar of soap, a huge percentage of foreign tourists visit Salzburg because it's the home of the soppy The Sound of Music.
Whether it's "The Hills are Alive" or "My Favorite Things", if you're visiting Salzburg in the future you'll be able to tap into some Sound of Music fever 24 hours a day, now that a new TV channel has been launched. It plays The Sound of Music non-stop, 24/7, so you've got no excuse not to catch it. Unless, of course, the sappy songs and trite storyline make you want to puke. Personally, though, we love it.
Related Stories:
· Sound of Music Bus Tour [Albus]
· Salzburg Hotel Reviews [HotelChatter]
[Photo: zh1yong]
by amandak
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