Whats New in Austria

AUTHENTIC DOWN TO THE LAST DETAIL.

The Hilton Vienna Danube has an impressive new shine: with the first stage of construction coming to an end, the hotel has reopened its doors on a regular basis. The renovation will be complete by November 2011, when the hotel will be extended by a new Meetings Congress Center. 166 of the hotel’s 367rooms are already available in the new look. At around 40 square metres in area on average, these are the largest hotel rooms in Vienna. The new lobby, Hilton Meetings rooms and gastronomic product have also been completed. Business travellers can look forward to the Executive Floors with their numerous conveniences and unique view over the Danube and the Viennese skyline.

SUMMER IN THE CITY.

This year, Vienna’s summer locations are inviting visitors to lay back and enjoy the open air once again. One particularly popular meeting point for gourmets, art lovers, athletes and fans of great live concerts is the summerstage beside the Danube Canal, while the Herrmann beach bar near the Urania offers a holiday feel like no other – complete with sand, deckchairs, sunshades and cocktails awaiting its guests’arrival. The bathing ship Wien (a floating open-air swimming pool), is pulling in the crowds with its combination of sun, pool and a two-crown restaurant, Holy-Moly! Austria’s largest ‘city beach dub’, SandintheCity, has already opened its doors, bringing southern flair to the heart of the city. Summer relaxation and leisure fun is hotter than ever, of course, on the Old Danube and Danube Island.

HIKING IN THE NATIONAL PARK.
 The Hohe Tauern National Park holiday region is celebrating its ten-year anniversary this year. It’s been a decade in which the largest national park in the Alps has been sustainably protected as a unique natural and cultural landscape. The trained National Park Rangers also make an essential contribution to the “national park experience factor”; holidaymakers with a guest card for the region can take part in over 30 guided hikes with them alongside free of charge from 11 July to 5 September, with themes ranging from wild animal observation to experiences of the peaks.

ON THE TRAIL OF ART.

Since2002, the Salzburg Foundation has been commissioning renowned contemporary artists with installations in the public sphere. Over the last ten years, this has produced a top-end course of art and sculpture entitled “Walk of Modern Art in Salzburg”, with such luminaries as Anselm Kiefer, Markus Liipertz, Stephan Balkenhol and Anthony Cragg having developed work for the city so far. This year, three artists from Austria, Brigitte Kowanz, Manfred Wakolbinger and Erwin Wurm, have been invited to the tenth and final project. The mutual starting point is the debate with the City of Salzburg.

GOLF FESTIVAL IN KITZBUHEL.

From 26 June to 3 July, ambitious part-time golfers will be descending upon the Tyrol: the 9th Kitzbuhel Golf Festival offers existing tournaments and numerous society highlights. For the first time, the Royal Spa Kitzbuhel Hotel ri in Jochberg is staging the opening tournament and evening event this year. The five-star luxury hotel has put together special packages for the festival. Naturally enough, the hotel’s focus is very much on its golfers: they can train with its Goif Physio & Goif Mental Coach, and use the hotel’s own goif practice facilities or indoor goif simulator.

RELAX ON HOLIDAY.

Insurance giant Europaische Reiseversicherung has developed a new product designed to offer holidaymakers immediate help if their home is broken into while away:’Break-in Cover’ will set you back 8 euros (per apartment/home and trip up to 31 days), and makes the perfect complement to any travel insurance. If you suffer any damage, the new package covers the cost of urgently necessary assistance such as safeguarding and protecting the apartment (up to a maximum of1,000 euros),-am lakes over the cost of return traM if you need to cut your holiday short. 4 package of500 euros covers any inconyppjencesyou may suffer, and a 34-hour emergency hotline guarantees mired.papiesreceive help aroundthe dock.

LEADING HOTEL IN JOSEFSTADT.

The Fleming’s Deluxe Hotel Wien-City has opened for business in one of Vienna’s loveliest districts, Josefstadt. It is located just a few minutes’ walk from the Austrian Parliament, the Rathaus and Burgtheater, and is captivating thanks to its beautiful facade, which dates back to the country’s founding era in the 1860s. The interior is a symbiosis of tradition and modernity, and renowned designers Catellani & Smith were responsible for the lighting concept. The hotel is looking to appeal to an international public who set great store by comfort when on holiday or business trips. Amongst other things, for instance, the hotel offers a limousine and 24-hour floor service.

TOP TRIPS WITH LEADING ATHLETES.

Ruefa and Intersport Eybl are launching an exclusive cooperation: ten new sporting and experience trips are now being offered under the title “Freedom without Frontiers”. The programme includes a range of sports including running, triathlon, trekking, sailing and skiing The trips take participants to seven different countries (from Austria to Morocco and Canada), and range from the Beginner Camp to Marathon Running. Each journey is accompanied by an experienced athlete, including Wolfgang Fasching and Christian Mayer.

Water in Vienna

Vienna coffee house tradition

An ancient, still popular Vienna coffee house tradition known far beyond Austria’s borders dictates that the honoured guest of the establishment should always, and automatically, be served a small glass of water on the small silver tray beside his or her melange, kleiner Brauner or grofier Schwarzer. This glass of water should not just be free of charge, of course. It should also be replaced with a fresh one the moment it has been imbibed by the guest, certainly in those coffee houses which keep to the old coffee house traditions, even if the guest has since ordered another coffee. And in really, really good coffee houses, this water will, should need be, continue to be served all afternoon, as the guest reads one newspaper after another or chats away to other customers.

And this is why the struggle over the price of water in Viennese guesthouses has become not so much a question of profitability and commerce as a true cultural battle. In Vienna, that small glass of water is a symbol of hospitality. An outmoded, almost anticapitalistic, egalitarian expression of the idea that, even if you are not blessed with a bulging wallet and can only afford the smallest of small black coffees today, you remain as welcome at a Viennese coffee house as a better-off guest. The coffee house, after all, is supposed to be a place to bring all in the community together, young and old, rich and poor. This water symbolises the idea that a real coffee house is more than just a gastronomic business oriented to nought but profit; rather, it is a communal meeting place, a place to be together. And it is a nonchalant nicety, because such a glass of water, which comes out of the tap and so has to be paid for by the coffee house owner through his rates whether served to customers or not, might just as well be served to a thirsty guest as used to wash the dishes.

Which is why it is really, really getting up the noses of the people of Vienna that simply because they have poured it into a small glass and put it on the guest’s table, some restaurateurs are now demanding money for a product they will quite happily waste by leaving their dishwashers on, and gallons of which they pour on their floors. In Vienna, that just isn’t on. The Viennese don’t like it. The only ones who buy it are tourists who are used to nothing else. In Vienna, however, it is not normal -and hopefully never will be.