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Bellevue

turism

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Mihaela Vasiliu
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127 views10 pages

Bellevue

turism

Uploaded by

Mihaela Vasiliu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Bellevue-Hhe

In 1891, Sigmund Freud established his medical


practice in Vienna at Berggasse 19, in the 9th district of Alsergrund.
He conducted his analyses in this second-floor house where he developed the theories that fundamentally
changed the understanding of the human psyche.
Freud instigated the analysis of dreams as a way of exposing implicit meanings that proved to be helpful to
understand better patients troubled minds. His book The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1900, is
considered a classic and Freud is known around the world as the father of psychoanalysis.
It is no surprise then that his practice has become a museum, visited by thousands of tourists every year. But
what few people know is that it wasnt the only place where he found his inspiration for his theories.
On Sundays, like many Viennese, Freud put on his walking clothes and went to the the Vienna Woods
(Wienerwald). Of course, unlike the rest of the walkers, Freud was perhaps pondering over his concepts of
sexuality and hysteria.
His favorite place in the woods was the Bellevue-Hhe, a peaceful hill from which he could see the whole city of
Vienna.
One day he wrote to a friend the following: Letter to Wilhelm Fliess. Do you suppose that someday a marble
tablet will be placed on the house inscribed with these words: In this house on July 24th 1895 the secret of
dreams was revealed to Dr. Sigmund Freud? At this moment I see little prospect of it. The house he referred to
was the Schloss Bellevue on the Bellevue-Hhe, a sanatorium where Freud had been assistant doctor, and
which was later turned into a hotel before becoming dilapidated and eventually destroyed in the 1960s.

Today, there is a memorial bearing the words of the letter to Wilhelm Fliess at the Bellevue-Hhe, but it is not
easy to get there. To discover the small monument visitors need to get off the bus 38A at Parkplatz am Cobenzl,
then turn right, walking down onto Himmelstrasse, then turn right again, and finally walking up a concrete
stairway and alongside an old path of trees. At the far end of the path will be found the little-known monument
to Sigmund Freud.

Cemetery of the Nameless

Many tourists who come to Vienna visit the Zentralfriedhof, the


Central Cemetery, which is the citys largest and most famous cemetery where "personalities" such as Ludwig
Van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert, Johan Strauss and more modern celebrities like pop star
Falco are buried.
But among the 55 cemeteries in Vienna, one of the most touching and unusual has to be the Friedhof Der
Namenlosen, the Cemetery of the Nameless.
Although it is considered to be part of the 11th district of Simmering, the cemetery is quite far from the center of
Vienna and the fact that it is rather difficult to get there makes the trip feel like a pilgrimage.
Located nearby the junction of the Danube Canal and the Danube itself, the Friedhof Der Namenlosen is hidden
behind gigantic grain warehouses and equally enormous silos.

The cemetery used to be little visited, especially since all of the 104 bodies were buried there before 1940. (After
1940 the victims of the river were buried in the Central Cemetery.)
Most of the corpses are unidentified victims of drowning which the river's current brought ashore. However the
inclusion of the romantic and sad setting in the popular film "Before Sunrise" has meant that fans of the film
often make a trip out to this spot.
The dead people were buried in wooden coffins, which were donated by a carpenter's workshop. Forty-two of
them were eventually identified by family members but the final resting places of most consist only of a bundle
of mournful flowers and a simple black steel cross, adorned with the inscription "namenlos" ("unknown" or
"nameless").
River improvements have meant that there are no more eddies to bring the dead bodies ashore near the
cemetery, but still every year on All Saints Day (November 1) the nameless are remembered. Some fishermen
from the Albern area keep an old tradition alive by building a raft decorated with flowers and bearing a
commemorative inscription for the victims of the Danube.
The raft is then floated on the river while a band plays and then left to follow the slow currents downstream - in
a similar way to which the bodies of the nameless originally arrived.

Details of Cemetery
Friedhof Der Namenlosen
11, Alberner Hafen
A-1110 Wien

Wotruba Church

On the outskirts of the city at the edge of the


Wienerwald, is a church surrounded by nature but which seems more like an abstract sculpture than a sacred
place.
Located in the 23rd district of Liesing, on the corner of Rysergasse and Georgengasse, the Kirche Zur Heiligsten
Dreifaltigkeit, or the Church of the Holy Trinity, stands on a small hill named Sankt Georgenberg, looking down
on Vienna.
The church is composed of 152 giant concrete blocks of different sizes, weighing between 2 and 140 tons,
superimposed over each other like Lego blocks. The apparent chaos of the asymmetrical blocks is intended to
create a contrast with the harmonious whole of the surprisingly large space inside the building, which can
accommodate 250 people at once. The narrow vertical glass panes let some of the daylight in, providing a
peaceful place for worship.
The church, better known as the Wotruba Kirche, was built according to the plans of its creator, Fritz Wotruba.
One of the most important and influential sculptors of the 20th century in Austria, Wotruba began his career as
a figurative artist, representing human beings in a realistic way.
He sculptured various monuments for public places in Vienna, like Man, condemn war, in the front lawn of
the Belvedere, or statues for museums, like The Lying Adolescent, exhibited at the Albertina Museum.
In the 1950s he became interested in geometrical abstraction and started using cubic shapes as the basic
structure of his creation.

The Kirche zur Heiligsten Dreifaltigkeit is considered by most art critics to be his ultimate artistic achievement.
When it was finished in 1976, few people shared the critics enthusiasm. The unusual appearance of the
building provoked a storm of protest in the local population of Vienna-Mauer who found it inappropriate for a
temple dedicated to God.
But the perfect setting and the somewhat unique aspect of the church, designed like a work of art in which you
can enter, finally won them over and it is now the pride of the community.
Wotruba had found his inspiration during a visit to the French city of Chartres, a place that embodied the
essence of modern Europe to him, and started working on the plans in 1967. Unfortunately the sculptor died in
1975, before the completion of the church. His collaborator, the architect Fritz G. Mayr, finished the work, thus
achieving his vision of a temple to God in todays modern world.

Vienna and the Sachertorte

Forget Wiener Schnitzel, for anyone with a sweet


tooth the 'must have' culinary delicacy of Vienna is the Sachertorte.
This rich, dark chocolate sponge cake with apricot jam and a thin layer of bitter sweet chocolate icing can be
found in practically every coffee and cake shop in the city (in the country for that matter), but if you like to
know you're having the real thing then head for the Cafe Sacher in Vienna just behind the Opera.
Here at the Cafe Sacher you can enjoy the original Sachertorte in its original setting during your visit to the city.
The closely guarded secret recipe dates back to 1832 when the young Franz Sacher was working at the court of
Prince Metternich, the State Chancellor. The story goes that Franz jumped to the rescue one evening when the

chef was off sick and he was given the task of creating a dessert for guests of the court the Sachertorte was
born.
The cake was a hit and after finishing his apprenticeship, Franz Sacher started to work for himself and the
family business took another upward turn when his son Eduard opened the Hotel Sacher in 1876.
Like most success stories however, it wasn't all plain sailing and the family Sacher had to contend with many
confectioners producing imitations of their cake, none more so than Demel's, one of Vienna's finest, longstanding pastry shops, which eventually prompted the current owners to gain a court order in the 1960's giving
them and only them copyright to advertise and sell the Original Sachertorte.
Although the original family may be long gone, the quality and style that they introduced live on with the name
Sacher and that cake!
Almost 1,000 cakes are produced each day, many to be sold as gifts in the attractive Sacher wooden
presentation boxes complete with original seal.
Caf Sacher Wien
Philharmonikerstrasse 4
A-1010 Wien
Tel: +43 (0)1 51 456 0
The caf is open every day from 08.00 - 24.00.

The Ringstrasse

Think of ringroads and you probably think of


flyovers, traffic, junctions, but not in Vienna...
Here the 'Ring' is 4 miles of sheer extravagance built at the end of the 19th C. along the route of the former city
fortifications, demolished according to the wishes of Emperor Franz Josef.
Nowadays you find one major sight after another and you have to be careful how you visit it as if you choose the
tram or one of the hop-on/hop-off buses for example, then you might feel you're at a tennis match with eyesleft/eyes-right all the way round.
If you have the time and the energy and don't necessarily want to view anything in great detail, then walking the
Ring is a better option.
The Opera was the first building of importance to be completed so it's a good place to start. Head off in a
clockwise direction and after the statues to Goethe (R.) and Schiller (L.) you'll come to the gardens of the
Imperial Palace (R.), with the statue of Mozart, and after that the Palace Gate leading into the Hofburg complex
(both R.).
Opposite the gate you have the almost mirror images of the Natural History and Fine Art Museums, with the
Empress Maria Theresia between them, and around the corner you have the beautiful Greek style Parliament
with Athena outside (L.) and next door the equally impressive neo-Gothic Town Hall.

On the right you'll have passed the Volksgarten people's garden famous for its roses (R.), the Burgtheater
National Theatre and one of Vienna's famous coffee houses, the Landtmann.
Next of interest is the University (L.) and as you carry on around the bend, look off to the left to see the delicate
spires of the Votivkirche. Now on the 'Schottenring' you'll come to the former stock exchange (R.) and the
former military barracks (L.) before reaching the Danube Canal.
Go along the canal as far as the Observatory and turn right back onto the Ring and go past the war museum and
the statue to General Radetzky (L.) and onto the Stadtpark city park with the statue of Johann Strauss and
voil, you're almost there, back at the opera!

The Vienna Hofburg

Well, where to start? The Hofburg, or Imperial


Palace, is not simply one grand building but rather a series of grand buildings which sprawls over the southwest part of the inner city of Vienna.
Hardly surprising when you consider that it was home to the Austrian rulers from the 13th C. until the end of
the Empire in 1918 and most of them chose to leave their mark in some way or another.
In actual fact records show that how we find it today wasn't even the final version as the First World WarI
meant that plans to extend had to be cut short.
You can enter the Hofburg complex from various points but an easy one to find is just off the 'Ringstrasse' by
the Palace Gate which is now a memorial to the WW I dead and the site of the tomb of the unknown soldier.
Once through the gate you're in Heroes Square with 2 striking statues of Archduke Karl and Prince Eugene of
Savoy, both successful military characters in Austrian history. Off to the right you see the so-called New Palace

and to the left, well, nothing as this is where things came to a halt in 1913 and the plans for the second crescent
shaped palace never materialised. It is now Vienna's largest square for public gatherings.
Carry on beyond the Old Palace to an inner courtyard and out the other side at the fabulous Michael's Gate with
its wonderful statues.
Turn right and go past the world famous Spanish Riding School and then at the Josef's Square you'll find
yourself by the Austrian National Library and from there you can cut back through archways and courtyards to
where you started.
Passing along the way the Imperial Chapel where the Vienna Boys Choir perform on Sundays (not in high
season).
If you're interested you can go inside various parts of the Hofburg (at a cost generally) or if you find the external
architcture quite imposing enough, you can take a stroll through the imperial gardens behind the New Palace
and simply ponder over what a mighty Empire Austria once must have been.

U-Bahn (Subway)
The subway system consists of 5 lines - U1, U2, U3, U4 and U6. The trains stop at 104 stations
along 74.6 km of track. All platforms are equipped with electronic information displays that
show the waiting time in addition to the destination

U-Bahn transfer stations

Karlsplatz U1, U2, U4

Landstrasse U3, U4

Lngenfeldgasse U4, U6

Praterstern U1, U2

Schottenring U2, U4

Schwedenplatz U1, U4

Spittelau U4, U6

Stephansplatz U1, U3

Volkstheater U2, U3

Westbahnhof U3, U6

Network expansion

U1: the route will be expanded by another 4.6 km - or five new stations - by
2017, terminating in Oberlaa

http://tourwien.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Vienna-ubahn-map.png

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