THE SIGN HUNTERS

AUSTRIA: Flak tower and graffiti hunt in Wien

Written by Laszlo, 30 July 2019

Recently, we spent a few days in Wien (Vienna), in the capital city of Austria (Österreich). During these days, I managed to take over 1600 photos which just tells that there are really a lot of things to see in this beautiful city. For this post only, I have selected 300 photos which makes this one of the richest articles in pictures on our website.

Wien is a fantastic place and it is a large city. As Katie phrased it: "you can feel that it's big". No surprise then that the capital city of Austria is the 7th largest city within the European Union, and with its nearly two million inhabitants within its city limits, it is the largest city in Austria which equals 1/3 of the country's total population. Before World War I, it was the World's largest German-speaking city and currently only Berlin is larger.

The number of photos that I share capture only a small fraction of Wien through. This city has so much heritage, so much history and so much beautiful human creations that it is impossible to see everything within a few days. It would be nice to live here for a few months which would give us a better chance to find everything that we want. Because of this reason, we decided to theme our visit and focus on only three things: 1) the settlement sign, of course, 2) graffiti, and 3) finding as many flak towers as possible. And this specification actually made our visit a pleasant one, and while looking for these, we, of course, saw many other interesting things and many famous landmarks. Among the most touristy things we did was visiting the former main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers, Schloss Schönbrunn (palace and gardens) which is the most documented and focused in this blog. This also includes photos of us visiting the 'Palm house' which is located in the palace's massive garden.

It is worth saying a few words about the flak towers. These are large, above-ground, anti-aircraft gun blockhouse towers that were constructed by the Nazi Germany from 1940 on-wards. The towers were used by the Luftwaffe to defend against Allied air raids against selected (mostly Berlin and Vienna) cities during World War II. They also served as air-raid shelters for tens of thousands of local civilians.

Beside the themed programme and visiting Schönbrunn, we also went to see one of Wien's other remarkable landmarks: the St. Stephen's Cathedral (Sephansdom).

This is for now. I hope that you will find this post and my pictures just as engaging as we did enjoy our exploration. Thank you!