Vienna Sights Minivan Tour: Heuriger

Vienna Sights Minivan Tour: 3 Hours, 60 Km, 40 Finds

Vienna Sights Minivan Tour. When visiting Vienna with friends from abroad, I want to show them how diverse it is. However, the sheer idea exhausts many of them, and bus tours are a no no: too little privacy.

Hence I decided to test a Vienna minivan tour: 3 hours, 60 kilometres and 40 sights of Vienna: from the city centre to the Vienna Woods, from Hofburg to neighbourhood allotments, from Middle Aged landmarks to brand new urban developments.

Vienna Sights Minivan Tour

Vienna sightseeing: Burgtheater

Vienna Sights Minivan Tour. To begin with, we had agreed to start off from Ringstrasse and the Vienna State Opera (photo). Because Ringstrasse not only girds the historic center but lines up the most landmarks, circumnavigating it made sense.

While Bettina’s shiny new minivan cruised along the boulevard she shared some historical anecdotes. “Hofburg should have been twice as big. In fact, do you see that vast empty square over there?”

Further down Ringstrasse, Vienna’s most famous theater, Burgtheater, triggered a hilarious anecdote of a glass coffin. No common guide book would have revealed that. Right next to it, we passed hidden Mölkersteig and talked about its unprecedented rise to an international film location.

Vienna's RuprechtskircheDiagonally opposite, The old University of Vienna and brilliantly renovated Votiv Church together with its bloody origins took us around the corner to Danube Canal. On the way, we glimpsed up to sparkling high-society rooftop glass-cube K47, with Vienna’s oldest church Ruprechtskirche right next to it. At Hundertwasserhaus, Bettina, driver Michel and me jumped off for a photo shoot. As a matter of fact, that landmark is one of the hardest to reach by public transport.

As we were half bemoaning, half admiring the crazy Danube Canal graffitis, our minivan crossed the canal.

Prater And Bold Architecture

Vienna Sights Minivan Tour. Although Vienna Prater amusement park and the Giant Ferris Wheel top many tourist agendas we went far beyond. To give you an idea, the Prater was the Emperor’s former hunting ground and still covers a size of 840 football fields.

Zaha Hadid's Vienna University libraryOther than a historic amusement park you will find the lushest recreational woodlands there, along with tiny neighbourhood allotments, telling of many Viennese’s ongoing love of their Schrebergarten. On that same ground, a few hundred meters further, you will find a cutting-edge university campus and cool 21-century urban developments.

Since you don’t stumble across a Zaha Hadid-styled library that often I jumped out for a photo shoot. Unlike conventional guides, Bettina and Michel were totally up-to-date on urban development.

Around The Danube

Vienna Sights Minivan Tour: DonauplatteVienna Sights Minivan Tour. Once we crossed the Vienna Danube, the green Danube Island and side arm Neue Donau (New Danube) the city opened up to vast river views, contemporary ‘green’ architecture and bold skyscrapers such as the DC Towers and the sail-shaped TechGate Tower.

Donaucity also includes the 150 metre high viewing tower Donauturm and the United Nations headquarters, which have long turned into landmarks themselves. Set foot there and you take a leap beyond historic travel guides.

Vienna’s Quirkiest Plant

Vienna sights by car: Hundertwasser designed waste plant SpittelauVienna Sights Minivan tour. To be honest, waste incineration plants do not warm my heart. But that is different when visiting Vienna. Bettina and Michel deliberately steered me past Fernwärme Wien: chapter two of Hundertwasser’s revolutionary colour-blob house at the start of our tour.

Not just the building was otherworldly. Actually, it took me a while to understand how stern environmentalist Hundertwasser designed a toxic building at the borders of the Vienna Woods. In fact, it took Vienna’s mayor several attempts to convince the artist. But in the end Hundertwasser agreed on the grounds that the waste incineration plant incorporated state-of-the-art technology. And second that avoiding and reducing waste became Vienna’s top waste management objective.

Northern Vienna Woods

Vienna Sights Minivan Tour: Oberer ReisenbergwegAfter that, we headed straight for green Vienna: Officially, it started with Hohe Warte, winery paradise Grinzing and Himmelstrasse. “And now I’ll take you through Oberer Reisenbergweg,” boasted Bettina. I was so glad we didn’t take my car. In fact, the ascent on a narrow path was lined with old stone walls and gnarled trees along vineyards, wineries, villas and wooden lodges. That was ‘vineyard Vienna’. No tourist on a three-day stay would usually experience that. We discussed local gossip about popular vintage café Cobenzl on the hilltop, and its future…if it had any.

Wine tavern Weigel in ViennaDriving along scenic Höhenstrasse, Vienna’s longest road, we found ourselves deep in the Vienna Woods. When guests want a lunch break, Bettina’s drivers would turn left into a small side way, where it says ‘Häuserl am Stoan’ (little house on the stone). The popular tavern offers local fish, deer, meat and vegetarian specialities, and breathtaking views over the vineyards and Vienna. At the other end of Höhenstrasse we dropped into another vintner village.

Neustift am Walde is the location of some of the best Vienna wineries. Today, Neustift is called home by a mixture of long-established vintner families, working class Viennese who transformed their allotment lodges into permanent residences, and urban professionals with a hang for rural retreats.

‘Real’ Vienna Sights

Vienna sightseeing: R. Fernau & Comp. iron foundryVienna Sights Minivan Tour. The way back to the centre led us through traditional neighbourhoods Hernals and Ottakring: typical 19th century townhouses, slightly run down, with double-glazed windows and window cushions to fight the draughts. It was the Vienna of employees and pensioners, trades people and factory workers, and more recently young urban professionals.

The best relic of Hernals’ industrial history on our way was the former iron foundry and machinery tools factory Fernau&Comp. (photo), and the Manner wafer factory, a pilgrimage site for die-hard fans of our iconic chocolate wafers. We passed the large brick building of Ottakringer Brewery, an active industrial site that hosts concerts, clubbings, design fairs and other events in its abandoned production halls.

Vienna Sights Minivan Tour: Auf Der SchmelzA little further down, Middle Europe’s largest urban allotment club came into sight. Since local allotment communities (‘Schrebergartensiedlungen’) represent a key Viennese subculture. As matter of fact, this closely knit allotment community even runs its own TV channel!

Historically, the allotments originate from World War I. When the city’s residents were starving during and after the war, the local municipality granted small patches of land to citizens to grow their own fruit and vegetables. Insider tip – if you have some time do visit the publicly accessible club house and restaurant Schutzhaus Zukunft.

Schönbrunn And Belvedere Palace

Sphinx at Belvedere gardensVienna Sights Minivan Tour. For the last part of our trip, the Vienna minivan tour lead us down the hill. We were promised a unique view of both Schönbrunn Palace and the Gloriette belvedere on the opposite hilltop. When we rolled down towards the castle, we passed right in front of the entrance and main portal. If you don’t already have 300 photos of the palace like me, do ask for a photo stop.

On the way to our final stop Bettina and Michel were keen to show me our new Vienna Central Station alongside a shiny urban quarter that was in the middle of being built.

Finally, the last grand site of the tour were Prince Eugene of Savoy’s baroque Belvedere Vienna palace and gardens. Michel drove right into the courtyard, where Bettina and I hopped out for some great views of the palace and baroque flower beds across to St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the centre.

How To Book The Minivan Tour

Vienna Sights Minivan Tour. To book this private Vienna minivan tour, or a tweaked version of it, click here. Besides a chauffeur you will have your own a licensed tour guide for in-depth historical input. Since you can tailor these tours individually, make sure the tour operator knows exactly what you’d like to see after you book.

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