Vienna City Hike #6 – Zugberg-Maurer Wald

The sun is definitely shining down on us here in Vienna.  It may not have been out all day, but it wasn’t forecasted at all, so we were very lucky yet again.

Martin, Rachel, Nora and I met at the Hietzing subway station at 11am.  The digital display already showed 11C as we hopped on tram 60 to its end station in Rodaun.  That’s where City Hiking Path #6 starts.   It’s longer than the 5 paths I’ve done so far.

It took us 5.5 hours to complete this 12.5km hike, but that included a lunch break at the Wiener Hutte.  I ate my packed lunch outside, but then joined my friends and gratefully sampled their excellent bread dumplings in Gorgonzola sauce (overpriced at 12.50€) and crepes in chocolate sauce.  Nice!

Of the 6 trails I’ve done so far, this was the least visually stimulating for me, but I still managed to take 200 photos. The visual landscape was quite different near the beginning with all the pine trees providing a soft path to walk on. The colours may have been much more muted (although I played with some of that in Photoshop), but the concert we were privy to the whole way was amazing.  Song birds everywhere!  Near the end, the oranges and purples started appearing in the forest – so beautiful! Another highlight were the  clusters of yellow and purple wildflowers everywhere.  This is definitely a strange February for Vienna.

Although we missed the Wotruba Church, we did find the Star Garden, a planetarium that can be used by day or by night. It would have been even more interesting if we had understood it better.

Enjoy the photos.  A lot of them were created in-camera (with some of the colours saturated after the fact), like this one.

I also had a bit of fun with some of them in Photoshop afterwards -like with this mirrored image of tractor tracks in the mud – all part of how I experience nature.