Our flight home wasn’t until the afternoon, so we had time to visit the Manner shop in Hernals. Although cyclemeter seemed to be capturing our travels (see some screenshots below), its record gives up at Schwechat.
So today was another chance to see the Danube canal and the main Danube, this time on a boat. It was exceedingly hot again – if I felt my arm out of shape for a moment, I start to feel myself cook. To help you follow our travels, here’s the cyclemeter record.
Many of my photos from today feature the graffiti along the canal and river. I often find these entertaining and thought-provoking. This does not mean I’m a fan of graffiti elsewhere.
We’ve visited Vienna a few times, so today we wanted to visit its almost-namesake, Wiener Neustadt (Vienna new town). It may help to know that despite this name, it was founded in 1194. As is almost inevitable, cyclemeter recorded our travels.
I may have taken too many photos. I definitely should have taken more notes on what I was capturing. However, quite a few of my photos are of information about the exhibits, so this has helped me read up a bit.
After a day of wonderin, being cooked and learning, it was time to go back to the Muttistadt.
In March, we saw an advertisement for this exhibition about the building of the Danube island. As the blurb says:
This dialogue-based tour traces the development of the Donauinsel, how it became a diverse natural and recreational area by the water, and what we as residents of the city associate with this unique space today.
Elly really wanted to go but the exhibition started on the day we were to leave, so I plotted to take us back in July. I was keen to go back for a couple of reasons: I love doing things for my wife, I was interested too, and I want to spend as much time as I can in the Muttistadt.
Here’s our travel details. (My attempt at cyclemetering the flight failed.)
| mode | depart time | depart from | arrive time | arrive at |
| tram | 11:00 | home | 12:00 | EDI |
| flight O£346 | 13:25 | EDI | 17:00 | Vienna Intl |
| city airport train | 18:37 | Vienna Intl | 19:00 | Wien Mitte |
| U4 to Schwedenplatz, then U1 | 19:00 | Wien Mitte | 19:30 | Nestroyplatz |
Here are the very few photos I took today:
I took a lot of photos today, trying to capture all of the exhibition. This is mostly because my memory is very poor but partly because I wanted to share the experience and learning. Until today, I had no idea that the Danube Island (Donauinsel) wasn’t a natural phenomenon. It’s not – it’s part of flood defences built in the 1970s and 1980s. Links in the captions are bold, because otherwise they’d not be seen.
This video gives an idea of why Vienna needs flood defences. Basically, the Danube channels meandered a lot. (The wee grey blob to the south-west is the city.) By the 19th century, the main channel was to the north-east of the city, with just what was to be named the Donaukanal skirting the city at Handelskai (literally ‘trade quay’). In the middle of this century, the main channel was straightened and running almost straight northwest-by-north to southeast-by-south. A loop, known as the Alte Donau (Old Danube) remained to the northeast of that.
So this, along with some dams on the main channel’s banks, regulated the Danube – but not enough. In the winter of 1850 (as had happened previously), ice-induced floods were heading towards the city. (I seem to recall reading that the river had frozen upstream, holding back water. When if thawed, it released a flood.) In any case, this year, the city received warnings thanks to Austria’s telegraph network. Despite the warnings, there was a lot of harm and danger for these floods. (You’ll see some photos later.) So ways to prevent future disasters were needed.
The idea was to dig a new channel, of course called Neue Donau (new Danube), parallel to the main channel. Normally, it would only be partially full, but when floods threatened, its gates would open so it could swallow the impending flood-water and safely deliver it south-east of the main city. I guess that this also helped smooth the flow so areas downstream had more time to prepare against floods, and so that the floods would surge less. I’d like to know what the downstream counties made of this. (Right now they are desperate for water.) The area between the main and new channels would naturally be called the Donauinsel (Danube Island).
However, this work didn’t start until quite a way through the 20th century, affected by lots of arguments over practicalities, politics, how the island (if it was created) would be used, and how it would be paid for. Here are ‘before’ and ‘after’ plans.
These photos are about the need for flood defences.
However, there was still flood-plain near the river, often used for recreation.
In this part of the exhibition, there were videos of interviews with people involved in deciding how the island was to be made and used, how habitats should be linked up, the political situation and so on. I didn’t stop to video these but we bought a book about the exhibition which may explain. (I’ve not read it yet – my German isn’t good enough to read it quickly.)
By now we were in need of a break. I’m sure you are too after looking at all the photos so far. (You did look at every one, didn’t you?)
AKA ‘and we’re back into the exhibition for more!’. These photos are about how people use the island.
After this, it was time to spend some time on the island. I swam for a few minutes from one of the pontoons, but wasn’t brave enough to swim out to the road-bridge piles, let alone try to climb them. (I’ve seen people do this.) Here are our meanderings from the museum to the island, and back to our hotel, according to cyclemeter.
Today we travelled back to Nürnberg. Officially our travel-times were
My only records from today are a photo in Köln Hauptbahnhof, some screenshots of place-names that interested me and cyclemeter’s recording part of the journey (from Nürnberg to somewhere near Amsterdam). Our official travel-times were
We took a quick visit to the Amsterdam city archives, one of Elly’s favourite places in Amsterdam. The exposition about AFC Ajax didn’t enthral me – I don’t understand a word of spoken dutch (and almost no written dutch) but I love the time-lapse cartoons about the growth of Amsterdam. I still don’t understand why these appear to show the Amstel being damed just where it flows into the sea (the Damrak). Perhaps there were bridges rather than a full blockage.
Then we took the bus to IJmuiden, and started the ferry-journey back to the UK.
Apparently I didn’t take any photos today. We simply arrived in North Shields, encountered UK bureaucracy, took the bus to Newcastle and then the train back to Edinburgh.
Readers might think the I didn’t enjoy this latest trip to the Muttiland, but that would be wrong. It’s true that I didn’t enjoy the pain that limited my walking, but it was lovely to get to understand a bit more about my maternal home-country, to enjoy long train-journeys ‘with my thumb up my bum and my mind in neutral’ (a phrase from a school history teacher), to achieve a conversation in German that enabled me to buy Guglhupf tins, to find excellent chocolates for my wonderful better half, to relax with her – and to see her relax. It’s just that the cantankerous old git in me often takes over the keyboard.
We went to the Strandbad today. I didn’t take any photos but I recall hiding from the sun because it was too hot, and going on the water slide several times. I think I slightly alarmed a staff-member because I got water up my nose when I landed, and so couldn’t immediately stagger out of the landing area.
Cyclemeter tells me we walked through Klagenfurt and then travelled by bus back to our hotel.
Today was our travel-to-another-town-in-Kärnten day. The 7-theme museum in Sankt Veit an der Glan (you just know how I want to write that word!) appealed, not least because there were good train connections from Klagenfurt. So a relatively early meander to Klagenfurt West station, followed by the S1 train to Sankt Veit. According to ‘the internet’ the museum was closed between 12 and 2, and we had arrived around 11:30, so we meandered from the station to the centre of town.
Continue readingI wimped out twice today: (1) I couldn’t bring myself to go move from the Pyramidenkogel tower‘s central lift area; (2) I didn’t dare the slide. Here are cyclemeters of today’s journeys: hotel to Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt to Keutschach, Keutschch to the Pyramidenkogel, the Pyramdenkogel to Reifnitz, and Reifnitz to Klagenfurt Strandbad. We walked back through the Strandbad park to our hotel, where I wanted to take photos of Elly on our balcony. They’re probably not very good because as soon as Elly started to go to our room, my bladder started complaining. For me, that’s physical proof that I can’t be without her.
Continue readingWe took a boat-trip on the Wörtersee to Velden and back. (Here are the outward and return cyclemeters.). My notes remind me that we tried to buy individual Guglhupf tins in a local supermarket, and as I write this I recall having coffee and Pommes in a lake-shore café.
Continue readinga back-up of https://friends-ssct.org
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