Doebling | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts tagged ‘Doebling’

25T73 Stefaniewarte lookout tower on Vienna Kahlenberg

E72, V20.

I’ve been up to Kahlenberg hill a couple of times in past years, but coming up during weekdays meant I lost out on the lookout tower. A warm sunny Saturday is an opportunity to fix my error.

In 1887, the Kahlenberg railway company completed an extension of its cogwheel railway to the top of Kahlenberg (484 m/1588 ft). At the same time, the company constructed next to the railway terminus station a 22-metre high brick lookout-tower, named after the Crown Princess Stephanie of Belgium. The cogwheel railway is long gone, and there had been years when the tower was neglected or forgotten. Reopened to the public in 1992, the lookout tower is now managed and operated by Naturfreunde Döbling. The top of the Stefaniewarte lookout tower is effectively about 500 metres above sea level, providing 360° views of the city and surrounding area.

Open only on summer weekends in good weather, the tower is open until 6pm with 2€ admission. Public transport: S45- or U4-train to Heiligenstadt station, then bus 38A to Kahlenberg.

*The climb up the 120 or so steps was comfortable: wide deep steps, reasonable stairwell-clearing or -height.*

*To the northwest is the 165-metre tall Kahlenberg Transmitter tower which is not open to the public. The transmission tower is anchored by 3 pairs of cables onto 3 piers.*

*North. This is where the crescent of the Alps’ mountain range tapers to an end.*

*South. In the background almost 70 km in distance is the 2078-metre high Schneeberg*.

*Visible in this 4x digital zoom view to the southeast: DonauCity (DC) Tower 1, Danube river, Millennium Tower, Red Vienna’s Karl-Marx-Hof, the Prater and its Ferris wheel.*

Visible in this 4x digital zoom view to the south: Müllverbrennungsanlage Spittelau, Ringturm, Votivkirche, Stephansdom, Peterskirche, Karlskirche, Oberes Belvedere, Hauptbahnhof complex, Arsenal communication tower, AKH general hospital.

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 19 July 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

25T63 Salmannsdorf in the northwest hills of Vienna

E62, V10.

Salmannsdorf is tucked away in the northwest corner of the Austrian capital city. It only seems “far” when a bus route reaches its final stop; fact is the terminus for bus 35A is only 8 km northwest from the city centre.

First mentioned in an official document in 1279, the small village of wine growers began next to the Krottenbach creek and surrounded by hills. The name “Salmannsdorf” is likely derived from the personal name Salman or Salmann, or from the professional name of the “Salmann” who was a trustee or scribe of the land register called the “Salbuch”; literally, he of the Sal, or the Sal-man(n). By 1938, the village had been fully absorbed into the city of Vienna’s 19th district.

In a compact area, I’ve gathered:

a cross dedicated to victims of the French Napoleonic occupation 1809
where Franz Schubert composed “Das Dörfchen” (The Little Village) in 1821
Johann Strauss II (JS2) spent boyhood summers at his maternal grandfather’s house, where JS2 wrote at age 6 his 1st attempt at waltz “Erster Gedanke”
Salmannsdorf Church, a.k.a. Dreimarkstein Chapel, a.k.a. Sebastian’s Chapel.

*Franzosenkreuz (French cross), in front of Salmannsdorfer Straße 32.*

*French cross: memorial to the victims of the 1809 Napoleonic campaign and French occupation.*

*The slope up Dreimarksteingasse with a plaque at building address 6 (right).*

*Memorial plaque: Franz Schubert composed “Das Dörfchen” at this location in 1821.*

Dreimarksteingasse 13, facing northwest. There’s a plaque on the outer wall of the bright yellow barn-like structure (upper right). Johann Strauss Sr. And his family spent summers here from 1829 to 1832.

Johann Strauss Jr. at age 6 composed his 1st waltz at this location; this is memorialized by the plaque on the wall. “Hier hat ein großer Musikant / Der ‘Meister Strauß’ war er benannt / Den ersten Walzer komponiert / Und dadurch dieses Haus geziert.”

*Across from the Strauss’ summer residence is the village church whose names include Dreimarkstein Chapel and Saint Sebastian’s Chapel. The small church dates back to the late 18th-century.*

*Near the top of Dreimarksteingasse with the village chapel at left and the yellow building (once occupied by the Strauss family) at right.*

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 9 July 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

Vienna Heiligenstadt: Beethoven, despair, deafness, & his 6th Symphony

Above/featured: Memorial statue in Vienna’s Heiligenstadt Park; more details below.

Composer Ludwig van Beethoven spent a total of 35 years in Vienna, from 1792 with his arrival from Bonn until his death in 1827. Every summer, he would leave Vienna to stay in a country- or farm-house in Heiligenstadt which at the time was rural; a stagecoach trip from the inner city required several hours. Today, urban development and expansion have reached and overtaken the once verdant fields right up to the flanks of the city’s northern heights.

By 1802, Beethoven’s hearing loss was almost complete. With his doctor’s recommendation, Beethoven had hoped time away from the noisy city would help recover some of his healing, but after the summer had passed, his initial fears had come true: his hearing would not return. In desperation, Beethoven wrote to his brother a letter, known as the “Heiligenstadt Testament“. He never sent the letter to his brother; the letter would only be discovered 25 years later with Beethoven’s personal effects, shortly after his death in 1827.

I’m tracing out some of Beethoven’s footsteps in Heiligenstadt wrapped inside the present-day city’s 19th district of Döbling. All locations can be visited comfortably on foot in a single day. The following description is part of a larger overview of my search for Beethoven in the Austrian capital city.

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Vienna: Beethovenhaus Mayer am Pfarrplatz

Above/featured: “Beethovenhaus” Heuriger Mayer am Pfarrplatz. Pfarrplatz square in Vienna’s Heiligenstadt, Döbling distrct (19.)

It’s a nation-wide holiday on the 26th of May (2022): Ascension of Christ (Christi Himmelfahrt). On a bright and warm late-spring day, people are out and about, and very few shops are open.

I’m halfway through my month-long stay in Vienna, and today, I’m in the city’s 19th district, Döbling, where in his time Beethoven spent many summers resting, composing, and contemplating life with total hearing loss. I’ve spent the morning wandering through the Heiligenstadt neighbourhood, including a visit to one of his summer residences that’s now a museum dedicated to Beethoven. Not far down the street is another Beethoven summer house that’s now a wine tavern or “Heuriger“. A hanging bunch of pine branches at the front door means this tavern is open for service, with food and their own wine on offer.

The Austrian capital city is home to the world’s largest “urban vineyard” and is the world’s only capital city producing wine within its city limits. There are some 600 wine producers; 400 individual vineyards; over 7 million square metres (75 million square feet) of cultivation space producing both white and red wines in a 80/20 split, respectively; and an average annual yield of 2 million litres or over 2.5 million bottles of wine. Most of the wine is sold for immediate consumption at wine shops and grocery stores, and at the city’s many wine taverns. The Mayer family has been making wine here in Heiligenstadt since the late 17th-century after the combined European forces successfully repelled the (second) Ottoman siege of Vienna.

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