Austria – A Note On a Rainy Night

Ternberg is a small town in Oberösterreich, very near Weyer where I went a few years ago.

Return to Öz

I think people get the idea I go to some kind of Alpine Scandinavian utopia, by looking at the scenery and maybe an mental image of some long ago ski holiday or weekend break in Vienna.

I realised I still had a few photos from February in Austria left unposted, so here they are. Strange to think that six weeks ago I was travelling around Central Europe for work, and now I don’t venture more than a mile or two from home.

Amstetten

Amstetten is the most extremely average place in Austria. It’s a largish commuter town in between Linz and Vienna. You have no reason to visit it. Its main claim to fame is that Josef Fritzl lived there. I was there to teach in one of the schools as a visiting teacher.

A less than exciting walk around Salzburg

I was supposed to be back in Austria right now, running more school workshops. Obviously that’s not happening now, due to the Coronavirus lockdown. Here’s some photos from Salzburg a couple of weeks ago, where I flew en route to Amstetten.

What’s in the box?

Austria Post does an excellent fixed price box within Europe which is extremely handy when you’re travelling around for weeks on end with a 20kg luggage restriction and needing to dress nicely for work and no access to laundry.

Assorted Deutschlandsberg

Here’s some assorted photos from Deutschlandsberg. It’s a very ordinary small Austrian town near Graz. Although it’s a pretty and nice place, it’s probably not where you’d pick for a holiday in Austria (although they do get hikers and people coming for the wine trail in the summer).

Arrival in Deutschlandsberg

My next work assignment was in Deutschlandsberg, a small town at the foot of the Koralm Alps, near the Slovenian border. (Austria is a lot further south and east than people imagine). I was there three years ago (at a different school), when it was snowing heavily. This time I arrived to brilliant sunshine, and went for a walk up in the vineyard filled hills with Jemeala, one of the other teachers.

Graz Art Museum

Graz

En route to my next work assignment in Deutschlandsberg near the Slovenian border I stopped off in Graz overnight. I’ve been to Graz loads of times. It’s a really nice city, even if everyone does have a thick Arnie accent.

Crossing the Alps playlist

To travel in between Vienna and Graz, until the never-ending tunnel under the mountains is finished later this decade, you have to take the train over the top of the Semmering Pass, going up and down over the Alps. You get some spectacular views, and the trainline itself is a UNESCO site. It’s hard to take good photos out of the train window, so here’s my playlist for over the mountain.

Wallern Carnival- home of the Party Tractor

A lot of small towns in Austria have a Mardi Gras carnival, and they often organise them to be on different days to not clash. This means that if I’m in Austria doing school workshops in February I often see multiple carnivals. Wallern-im-Burgenland is still the most surreal I’ve seen.

Pamhagen and Wallern-im-Burgenland- the Kansas of Austria

My next work assignment was in a small village called Pamhagen on the Austria-Hungary border. The main hotel in the village was closed, so we were put up in a neighbouring village called Wallern-im-Burgenland. Pamhagen is only about 70 miles away from Vienna, but it’s a million miles in reality. Until 1989 it was pinched between the lake and the heavily militarised Iron Curtain. The border is open again now, with no passport controls (thanks Schengen Agreement!) but the area still feels like the end of the line.

Street Signs of Vienna

Vienna has strong rent controls for shops, meaning that many of them are in the same location for decades, leading to lots of vintage shop signs around town (along with stylish new ones like the brewery one above). Here’s a selection of different ones I spotted on this trip.

Architekturzentrum Wien

I also visited Vienna Architecture Centre- I’d never been inside this small museum before, but the entry was thrown in free with the bundle ticket I bought for the other exhibitions.

Türkenschanzpark

About 15 minutes walk from the school I was working at in Vienna, and next door to the University of Life Sciences was Türkenschanz Park

Vienna Academy of Fine Art

On a rare day off in Vienna I went to the Open Studio day at the Vienna Academy of Fine Art. This is the top art school in Austria, and also the same institution that famously rejected Hitler twice for his lack of creativity. The studios are in this impressive building, the Semperdepot, which was originally built to store theatre scenery and props.

Kunstautomat

Das Geht Sich Gut Aus

I’ve been in Vienna and now a tiny village on the Austro-Hungarian border for the last few weeks. Here’s what I’ve been listening to.

Kunsthalle Wien – Nina Vobruba/Malte Zander + Time is Thirsty

The Kunsthalle Wien holds temporary exhibitions- I caught the last day of this show. It definitely isn’t the best thing I’ve seen there- I’ve previously been to blockbuster Basquiat, Haring and Švankmajer shows there, but it was included in the Combi-ticket I bought for the other museums, so I made sure to see it.

This Means Nothing To Me?

I’ve been back in Vienna since Saturday, but I was busy at the annual work conference. Last year was the first in a decade that I didn’t spend any time in Vienna, and that was strange. Vienna is a very big and grand capital city for a small country of six million sparsely spread mountain people, a remnant of the days when it was the capital of the whole Austro-Hungarian empire, covering Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and parts of Romania and Poland.

Innsbruck

Here’s some more old films I scanned- this time of Innsbruck from two years ago. Standard Ilford HP5 with a 70s Pentax SLR.

Schwartzsee

A short train ride or couple of miles walk outside Kitzbühel is the Schwartzsee (“black lake”). It’s full of minerals washed down from the mountains that give it the glassy black effect…

Assorted Other Reichenthal

Kremsmünster

Ternberg OÖ