Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Welcome to
Austria
Austria is a contrast of spectacular natural landscapes and
elegant urban sleeves. One day you're plunging into an alpine
lake, the next you're exploring a narrow backstreet of Vienna.
Culture in Many Disguises
The cultural contours of the Habsburg empire can be felt everywhere in Austria today,
whether it's while taking in a performance of Lipizzaner stallions, or crossing the Hofburg
to admire a Rubens masterpiece in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Beyond this grand his-
torical face, the classical works of composer Arnold Schönberg, inspired by Mozart, echo
atonally across the country; music festivals like Bregenzer Festspiele are staged against
spectacular lakeside or mountain backdrops, and artists like Klimt, Schiele and the radical
Actionists feature in Vienna's extraordinary MuseumsQuartier.
Landscapes & the Outdoors
Travel in Austria is often a meandering journey through deeply carved valleys, along
roads and railways cut improbably into the rocky flanks of mountains, and around pictur-
esque lakes. But often the landscape is simply too rugged for road or rail: hiking and
mountain biking is then the best way to reach isolated alpine meadows. Sometimes cable
cars or dizzying chair-lifts offer an alternative way up, and come winter they bundle skiers
and snowboarders onto the slopes. Austria's plentiful lakes are ideal for summer swim-
ming, and in winter many freeze over for skating.
Architecture
Austria is best known for its sugar-cake baroque church interiors, its historic palaces such
as Schloss Belvedere and its Gothic masterpieces such as Stephansdom, but we don't often
imagine it as a country with impressive contemporary architectural contours. A visit to Vi-
enna's MuseumsQuartier, to Ars Electronica in Linz, or a stroll alongside the illuminated
'slug-like' Kunsthaus Graz casts Austria in a different light.