Alternative, quirky Vienna
Austrian city’s hot spots combine the old with new
VIENNA, AUSTRIA— This may be a city crammed with beautiful historical buildings, but it’s also a place where people love a new take on an old formula. Take the Ugly Vienna tour, for example. Eugene Quinn, a Brit who moved here to raise a family with his Austrian wife, runs the tours. He’s a firm believer that there’s more to Vienna than the UNESCO-listed city centre.
In a peaceful riverside park, Quinn points to antiaircraft towers in the distance. The structures, built by the Nazis during the Second World War, are enormous, circular monstrosities built from stained, cracked concrete. He sees them as an important reminder of the darker periods in Vienna’s history and one which is often airbrushed from view.
While Quinn believes the historic buildings in the city centre hog an unfair share of the limelight, he also feels their beauty should be protected.
In Karmelitermarkt, a bustling marketplace, he points to a pretty, pastel-hued townhouse that’s part of a bizarre renovation. A hideous penthouse is being built on its roof. The metal and glass structure includes an enormous golden sculpture which resembles a two-legged dog.
Quinn’s tours are popular now, but success came slowly because the government initially banned them. After numerous meetings, Quinn was allowed to offer tours if he wore orange pants to distinguish himself from official guides and was deliberately provocative.
Now, businesses are delighted to become Ugly Vienna tour spots.
When a hotel manager found out that her hotel — a sprawling, clumsy attempt at art deco, complete with a plastic rockery in the lobby — was a highlight, she invited Quinn for coffee and told him that she was honoured that her workplace had made the cut.
Proof that beauty can be found in the strangest of subjects comes next at the Funeral Museum in Vienna’s Central Cemetery.
More than 250 exhibits explore the Austrians’ approach to death. They’re all truly weird and wonderful, and include a rescue alarm that could be attached to the bodies of those who feared being buried alive.
There’s a foldaway coffin dating back to 1784 and an ornate horsedrawn funeral carriage from the 1900s, as well as an electronic jukebox full of popular funeral songs.
The Vollpension café is another must-do in Vienna.
The brainchild of two designers (Mike Lanner and Moriz Piffl) who love cakes baked by their grannies, the Vollpension started as a pop-up to help seniors top up their pensions while providing a place where they could socialize.
Twenty-two of the 32 staff are grannies or granddads, managing director Hannah Lux reveals over tea and cake. “We always have two grannies baking and one serving customers.”
The place is cosy with fantastically garish ornaments shoehorned into every nook and cranny.
There are vintage magazines to read and the walls heave with kitsch family photos. The furniture and wall art come from flea markets and kind-hearted locals.
One of Lux’s favourite grannies hosts erotic fairy tale readings here in between baking her cakes.
The Vollpension’s regular drag act apparently goes down especially well with regulars. So do parties.
Over at the Magdas Hotel, there’s a good reason the rooms don’t have telephones.
“We want guests to interact with staff as much as possible,” explains hotel manager Natalia Pszczolkowska.
The stylist, 88-room hotel was set up in 2015 by the charity Caritas to help refugees integrate into society. Twenty out of the 30 staff are former asylum seekers.
The hotel can only employ people with permission to work.
“We recently employed one former asylum seeker from Africa who’d waited 13 years for her working papers to come through,” Pszczolkowska reveals. “She wouldn’t tell us what she did during that time, which means she probably worked in the sex trade.”
Another of the hotel’s employees walked for six months to escape the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Their stories are stark reminders why the world needs more places like the Magdas Hotel — and why it’s wonderful that Vienna is increasingly keen to push its lesser-known attractions. Tamara Hinson’s trip was sponsored by the Magdas Hotel and the Vienna Tourist Board, which didn’t review or approve this story.