Insight Vienna Tours | Insight Cities

Vienna: An Introduction

“If I speak of Vienna it must be in the past tense, as a man speaks of a woman he has loved and who is dead,” said Erich von Stroheim (1885 – 1957) of the capital city of Austria. The Austrian actor and filmmaker of the silent movie era was quite right about Vienna being a city of the past. And not just a city of one past, but of many pasts. Vienna is notable for its layers of history, built one on top of the other, the oldest, Roman layers reaching as far down as nine meters below the ground level of today’s sidewalks.

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Schönbrunn: the Public Grandeur and Private Realities of Emperors

We begin our encounter with the astonishing High Baroque Schönbrunn Palace (built to rival Versailles) with a stroll through the magnificent formal gardens, exploring the Baroque landscaping principle of interlaced nature and architecture that is illustrated everywhere in the layout of the grounds. Approaching the Gloriette, a huge triumphal arch situated on a hilltop with panoramic views of Vienna’s woods, we recall the military victories that made Empress Maria Theresa’s reign (1740-1780) a highpoint of the Habsburg dynasty’s political and cultural dominance in Europe.

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Vienna Art Nouveau, Otto Wagner and the City Trains

The question of an efficient infrastructure is a topic that inevitably dominated Vienna during the late 19th century, at the moment when the city’s population underwent rapid expansion. The capital city of an Empire, Vienna had become a magnet for people from all over Europe looking for work. There was a high demand for labourers of every type since, just a few years earlier, Vienna’s venerable medieval city walls had been demolished in order to make way for the grand boulevard of the "Ringstrasse" and the construction of the impressive buildings that lined it.

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“Das Rote Wien” – The Architecture of Red Vienna (Between Two Wars)

This walk was crafted to help visitors encounter an era of Vienna that is truly off the beaten trail, one which travellers seldom manage to discover on their own even though it is well worth the excursion. The end of World War I brought about the collapse of the Austro Hungarian Empire and with it the disappearance overnight of six hundreds of years of Hapsburg rule.

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The Ringstrasse Project

The scene is Vienna, Christmas 1857. The talk of the town and the media was the announcement by the Austrian emperor that he was going to tear down the outdated medieval city walls to make way for a modern boulevard on the green line around the old city centre. The ring-shaped boulevard was to symbolize the wealth and power of Vienna and its readiness for modern times, therefore enabling the city to compete with the famous reconstructions that had made 19th century Paris and Berlin famous for grand avenues and sweeping vistas.

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Belvedere Palace and Museum: A World-Class Art Collection in an Aristocratic Utopia

The Belvedere complex is an architectural masterpiece of a bygone aristocratic splendor designed to project a sense of earthly harmony. This terrestrial utopia was founded in the first decades of the 18th c. as a summer residence for Prince Eugene of Savoy, the commander-in-chief of the Austrian army and one of the most successful military commanders in modern European history.

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The Habsburgs: Patrons of Music from Baroque to Classic

Throughout this 3 hour walk, we pause to listen to selections of Vienna’s musical masterpieces on headphones while also exploring the major sites of musical history. Vienna is rightly named the “city of music” as home to the most famous composers of musical history: Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven amongst others. But what made Vienna so attractive for young musicians seeking their fortune? Surprisingly, the most important answer is the Hapsburg ruling family itself.

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Vienna Modernism: Cosmopolitanism and the Age of Nervousness

The period of Vienna Modernism was dominated by deep antagonism between traditionalism and the avant-garde; conservatism and anti-Semitism emerged as reactionary expressions of rejection towards the fast alterations of modernization. Cultural pessimism surged in a paradoxical mix with a dynamic spirit of innovation and cosmopolitan progress. Throughout this 3 hour walk, we pause to listen to selections of Vienna’s modernist musical masterpieces on headphones while also exploring the major modernist sites of Vienna’s urban topography.

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The Battle of 1683: Vienna’s Ottoman Endings and Baroque Beginnings

The date September 12, 1683 has been etched into the Viennese calendar for over 300 years as the day of the city’s greatest victory over imminent destruction. After a prolonged two month siege by the armies of the Ottoman Empire, the united efforts of several Catholic armies defeated their Eastern foes. This triumph not only inaugurated the definitive defeat of the Ottoman threat in Christian Europe, but was viewed at the time also as proof of the religious superiority of the Catholic Church over the emerging Protestant reformation in Europe.

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Tales of Dragons and Saints: Vienna for Children

This walk is designed for families visiting Vienna with children. Moving through the Inner Stadt, we look backward to the city’s legends of brave knights and fearful dragons, while passing churches, monasteries, noble and humble residences. For starters, we help kids to examine the central cathedral of Stephansdom, the landmark of Vienna.

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