Districts

Some days ago, your Secret Vienna explorer came across a very interesting painting. An old view of the Burgtor. This gate gives you access to the city center via today’s Heldenplatz. This is the only gate that was left after the city walls were removed. And if you look closely at the pic you will…

A bit hidden in the district of Wieden (Vienna’s fourth district), between the well-known Kettenbrückengasse and the perhaps less-known Heumühlgasse, you will find a small house. At first sight it may not look like anything special, but if you pay attention you may wonder what the deal is with this small house surrounded by buildings…

Perhaps visitors to Vienna have noticed that part of the city is surrounded by hills. If you walk, for example, east from the Stephansdom there is no chance you will miss them. It is likely that the most famous hill in the city is the Kahlenberg. Located in the district of Döbling with a height…

Perhaps you know that in the very old days it was customary for churches to be surrounded by a cemetery. This was for example the case of the Stephansdom and the Michaelerkirche in the city center. In the 18thcentury, Kaiser Joseph II decided to ban cemeteries from Vienna’s inner districts and one of the cemeteries…

It is quite impressive how some buildings in Vienna have survived the last centuries facing, among many others, the demands of modern societies and the consequences of two World Wars. One such place is the Hermesvilla. Built in 1882-1886, at the request of the emperor Franz Joseph for his wife Elisabeth, the Hermesvilla is located…

Walking down the Rotenturmstraße to the Schwedenplatz area you perhaps will find a street with the name Fleischmarkt. The street is very old and was already known in the 1200s as “carnifices Viennensis”, which suggests that there used to be a meat market. You see, as Vienna was well situated for maritime transport, a lot…

In some of our stories we have made references to the Ottoman sieges of Vienna.  The first siege took place in 1529 and the second in 1683. There is information about those events and there is even a visual description of the first siege. A publisher from Nuremberg, Niklas Meldeman, came to Vienna shortly after…

Perhaps many of our SV explorers are familiar with the Kettenbrückengasse metro station as this is the one that stops right next to the famous Naschmarkt. And most likely, many also know the Kettenbrückengasse that is one of the streets that marks the separation between the 4th and the 5th districts of Vienna. And if you understand…

The time of the cherry blossom is one of the highlights in the Japanese calendar and marks the beginning of spring. To celebrate this special time of the year, we want to introduce to you the Setagayapark, a little Japanese hideout in Vienna’s 19th district. The name simply alludes to the partnership between Döbling and the…

On Sunday March 17, the district museums of Vienna will be open to the public from 10 am until 4 pm.  There are 23 museums to visit and the overall theme of the event is “Zu Gast in Wien” (“As a visitor in Vienna”) .  Each museum offers different activities, including tours and special talks. …