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We all know Vienna, the lake district, Salzburg, Innsbruck so let me show you some undervalued places in the country! My aim is to boost the popularity of little known tonws and areas in my favorite countries so that they thrive instead of fall in despair.
While I'm not overly familiar with Austria , the best underrated place worth visiting there which springs to mind in my case would be Castle Kreuzenstein in Leobendorf : Home » Burg Kreuzenstein
It's regrettably not a completely " authentic " castle in that a good bit of it had to be reconstructed in the nineteenth century due to being destroyed during the Thirty Years War , however it's still very much worth seeing in my opinion .
As an aside the Mario Bava film " Baron Blood " was actually filmed in the castle , along with some other films I'm forgetting to mention , which is part of the reason why I decided to visit it .
^Thank you for that tip!
I really like Eisenstadt in Burgenland, it's not far from Vienna and also the big like lake on the border with Hungary (Neusiedler See, I saw it and I can reccomend it, it's very sea-like for me) https://www.carpediem.life/a/eisenst...swuerdigkeiten
Wow. Austria is amazing, and you're right, OP: it's under-explored. I think a good tour of the Alpine region would be to make a list of places, that Rick Steves left out of his books. That would be an interesting itinerary.
It's my pleasure. I used to live in Bratislava and visited Vienna and Neusiedler See a lot but one year wasn't enough to visit enough places. This region (Austria, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary) has always been one of my most favorite ones in Europe.
I was surprised how nice Graz looks like. It has Renaissance and Baroque styles, and some even remind of Italy (woodne window shutters for example). It's really overlooked by foreign tourists compared to Vienna and Salzburg, esp. considering it's the 2nd largest city in Austria after Vienna. Trivia: One Arnold Schwarzenegger was born and lived in a village just 2 miles out of Graz, where his childhood home is now a museum. It's a matter of taste but when I add up the nature, Austria really offers great variety for its small size. And being close to both "the East" and Italy for trips is a unique offering few Western European countries can match.
I think Graz is way more beautiful than Vienna actually. And while the contemporary architecture leaves a lot to be desired like in Vienna, at least they almost never put extra floors in a contemporary design on the top of a classical architecture, which is the de jour thing in Vienna. Also for 1,3 million EUR you can buy a whole small chateau (500 m2, 7 bedrooms) in the countryside around Graz. Even in the countryside of Vienna at most that buys you a tiny bungalow/cabin with 2-3 bedrooms at most.
^When one passes trough they often use the highways/major roads around the city or in the suburbs/industrial areas. I mean I've never really seen Plovdiv, stated to be more beautiful than Sofia, just passed several times with a bus on the way to the Black sea coast or back. The buses pass trough some extremely ugly residential and industrial areas so I haven't been impressed with Plovdiv. I bet if I go to the old town I'd be impressed. So maybe that's what happened to you and Graz?
I find it more impressing than Vienna. Vienna felt too spread-out, the best parts of the river and Danube canal were surrouned by huge roads and traffic, most old architecture has been destroyed by removal of ornaments and too many old buildings were painted in white. Graz is more colorful and varied in this. But of course, I just visited the cathedral and the along the Danube Channel, I'm sure south of the cathedral the city is nicer. Still, it striked me as very American-like in layout and its many wide boulevards.
This thread has peaked my interest in Austria. I have only been to a few towns near the border with Bavaria/Germany such as Innsbruck. I would like to do a bike tour along the Danube from Passau, Germany to Vienna and onto Bratislava and maybe Budapest.
One thing that interests me about Austria is their health insurance system. They cover 99% of residents under the state health insurance system, whereas Germany is split with 70% state vs. 30% private. Since I am a non-EU, non-working person, I am forced to search for a (very expensive) private health plan in Germany. Trouble is, Germany allows private health insurance companies to exclude whoever they want to exclude. I am over 67, and am finding that most private health insurance cos here in Germany want to exclude me, even if the premiums are very high. I'm running out of options - I thought I had a health plan lined up until they gave me a big fat "no" on approving my application.
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I used to live in Bratislava and visited Vienna and Neusiedler See a lot but one year wasn't enough to visit enough places. This region (Austria, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary) has always been one of my most favorite ones in Europe.
