Vienna Woods (Conde Nast Traveler)

   The Vienna woods are part of what remains of the primeval forest that once covered most of Europe. Stretching in a gentle arc westward from the Kahlenberg Heights in the north overlooking the Danube, they curve around through the Föhrenberge (Fir Mountains) towards Baden in the south, covering about 540 square miles. Geographically, the woods are the northenmost salient of the Alps, and the terrain is mostly hilly, if not mountainous, and deeply wooded. This greenbelt is protected by a number of zoning laws, so that although there has been some encroachment, the overall picture is an optimistic one. The City of Vienna and the various local administrations control all building and development and are careful to protect what is, after all, an enormous asset.
   Not surprisingly, the farther you travel from Vienna, the more beautiful both the villages and the countryside become. Some of the more famous wine villages, such as Grinzing, Nussdorf, and Neustift am Walde, are now dangerously close to becoming Vienna suburbs. You can still catch a tram from one of the stops on the Ringstrasse and take it to the end of the line, but when you get there you may find yourself surrounded by a gaggle of polite Japanese sitting somewhat uncertainly on wooden benches in the <Heurigen> gardens  sipping glasses of cloudy white wine. Tourism has turned these old wine taverns, known as <Heurigen> in Viennese dialect, into year-round restaurants. The taverns are now largely commercial enterprises that cater to tourists as well as to the local Viennese. But not all of the Wienerwald has gone this way. There are, I discovered, still huge stretches of forest where you can walk all day and not meet another person, and villages where the <Heurigen> are no bigger than cottages, with gardens covered in peonies and wild rambling roses that stretch back up the hillsides until they seem to merge with the ancient vineyards beyond.

   Both Lotte and my publisher friend had told me about the village of Perchtoldsdorf. It was far enough away from Vienna, about eight miles from the city center, to have escaped suburbanization and mass tourism. It was also surrounded by some of the most beautiful countryside in the area. This was, I decided, the place to begin my wanderings in the Wienerwald.
   The first thing I did was to search out the local museum, which was in the mayor's office. Herr Heiduschka, the mayor, was only too happy to show me around, and we started with the painting on the wall behind his desk. There were headless corpses sprawled on the ground, blood spurting out of their necks like ghoulish fountains designed by Dracula. Women on their knees begged for mercy from swarthy turbaned men on horseback with scimitars whose blades were crimson and dripping. I couldn't appreciate his village, the mayor declared, until I understood that picture. "Here you see the massacre of the people of Perchtoldsdorf by the Osmanli in 1683," he told me. "They killed everybody - men, women, and children. Only a single family, who had managed to hide deep in a cellar, survived." The mayor pointed to the very wall where they had hidden. "And their descendants, by the name of Rabl, still live here even today," he concluded with deep pride.
   I felt almost guilty that I'd wandered around the village that morning in brilliant sunshine enjoying the physical beauty of what was once the site of so much suffering. I had passed the crumbling ruins of the walls, now overgrown with wildflowers, that had failed to protect the villagers from the Turks. I'd gone into the medieval church where they had taken refuge, and I'd seen doves nestling in the castle's narrow slit windows where arrows had once rained down on the attackers.
   Back out in the town's market square, I wondered why the mayor had said "Osmanli" instead of "Turk." It seemed curiously old-fashioned until I realized he had probably used the word out of politesse toward the Turkish guest workers who have become so much a part of Austrian life. As in Germany, there are, sadly, some Austrians who don't need to be reminded of Turkish atrocities. Even more striking was how vividly this three-hundred-year-old trauma lived on in the collective memory of the Viennese. Perchtoldsdorf fell, but Vienna was saved by the heavily fortified walls that surrounded the inner city and which were only torn down in the mid nineteenth century when the emperor Franz Joseph decidedd to build the Ringstrasse in their place. The destruction of this ancient straitjacket was such a seminal event that Strauss was inspired to compose a piece known as the "Demolition Polka" in its honor, which became an instant hit in the city's ballrooms. Before the walls came tumbling down, old Vienna must have been truly claustrophobic, with no gardens or parks to relieve the urban pressure. Hence the passion the Viennese felt for their woods.
   The Vier Jahreszeiten restaurant in Perchtoldsdorf had all the cozy complacency that you associate with provincial prosperity. The walls were wood-paneled, the banquettes tapestried. There was even a wedding party, complete with <Heidi> bridesmaids, at the next table. The bride's thick blond sausage braids were fastened on top of her head,a nd her beaming groom was in his best green-suede <Tracht> (traditional costume), his reasurringly rotund tummy only partially hidden by his loden jacket. I ordered trout, imagining gurgling streams and Schubert: the fish arrived with some roly-poly dumplings, flecked with parsley and ham, and some wild mushrooms. When I got up to leave, the bride and groom were wielding a huge knife, giggly after too many glasses of champagne, and poised to cut into their whipped cream pyramid of a wedding cake.

   The Helenental, a valley eight miles south of Perchtoldsdorf, is one of those places that seem, miraculously, to have excaped all the ravages of the late twentieth century. A small river wiggles its way along the valley floor, and steep, forested hills climb either side of the gorge. Driving along the road that follows the course of the river, I looked up and saw two ruined Gothic castles perched high on rocky crags. They were so bleak that I half expected to see swarms of shrieking bats circled around them. It was landscapes like this that fueled the Romantic imagination, and you can instantly understand why both Schubert and Beethoven loved this valley - named after the Church of St. Helena - and why even Napoleon thought it was so beautiful that he wished that he could end his life there. His wish was granted, of course, but it was the wrong Saint Helena.
   I drove on, until there were no houses in sight - just the forest, the rocks, and the river. But then I started to feel a twinge of guilt. Can you really be said to be communing with nature if you are hurtling along at fifty miles an hour in air-conditioned comfort? Is listening to Beethoven's Sixth Symphony on CD in a BMW as fulfilling as treading the same path he took when he composed it? I thought not. And so I found myself turning off the road and climbing up a narrow dirt track, determined to set off on foot.
   I consulted my invaluable Kompass map. The red footpaths crisscrossed the Wienerwald's body like a network of arteries, and I found one called the Konprinz Rudolf Gedëchtnisweg, which led, of course, to Mayerling. This was clearly the path for me. I set off full of unexpected energy and enthusiasm. The ground was cushioned with pine needles soft as the thickest pile carpet, and the absolute, stunning silence, broken only by the distant sound of rushing water, subdued the troubled psyche every bit as efficiently as a dry martini or several years on the couch with one of the good Doctor's disciples. I was beginning to see what Beethoven meant when he wrote in a letterin 1810: "How delighted I shall be to ramble for a while through brushes, woods, under trees, through grass and around rocks. No one can love the country as much as I do. For surely woods, trees and rocks produce the echo which man desires to hear.
   I had been told that the woods were still full of wildlife, that there were boars, and fallow deer, and delicately spotted salamanders that preferred the early evening for their <paseo>, but the only other living creature I encountered was a deep brown snail who must have been so alarmed by my appearance that as I approached, he actually <hurried> across the path and disappeared into the undergrowth.

   In stark contrast to Mayerling, Heiigenkreuz is one of the oldest - and most beautiful - Benedictine monasteries in Austria. Here, you feel the ancient stones, the gently rounded Romanesque archways, the cool marble floor of the Cloister, and the soaring Gothic of the Presbytery bringing you into communion with nine hundred years of history. This is not a "dead" place; there are still more than fifty monks living and working here, and all visitors will be asked very politely, as I was, to leave when they are called to prayer.
   I walked through the pink-and-white painted Cloister and gazed up at the gilded onion dome on top of the church (another reminder, along with croissants and coffee, of the proximity of the Ottoman empire). As I left, I could hear the first chords of a Pachelbel fuge being played by one of the monks on the same organ that Schubert had used a few months before his death.
   Any last doubts I may have had about whether the original charm of the Vienna Woods could survive into the late twentieth century were dispelled by the simple lunch I had in Gumpoldskirchen, that small village to the south of the city . . . It must have been around midday when I started walking up the gently sloping main street of the village. Just ahead of me was a yellow dog with a busybody look about him. Here was a dog who knew precisely where he was going - and so I followed him. Halfway down the street, he turned sharply to the right and went through a doorway between two old houses that led along an alleyway, then finally into a magical, hidden garden. Here was the stream full of carp and baby trout, the wooden tables and chairs set up under the pear trees, the neat little vegetable garden, the lilac bushes, and the vine-covered pergola. A pitcher of wine arrived a moment later, followed by a plate of rosy pink local ham, a loaf of warm bread, and a translucent green cucumber salad flavored with fresh dill. This was it. This was just as I had hoped and imagined it would be.
   Somebody once told me that the woods are the lungs of Vienna, and at that precise . . .

BOX:
Arboreal Ecstasy
   There are several ways to approach the Vienna Woods: You can either make day-trips from Vienna, or you can stay in one of the villages and exploring the surrounding countryside. The third option is to split your time between Vienna and the Woods, which is what I would suggest.
   The first essential is a good map. Although you may have to wait to buy it in Austria, I would recommend the Wienerwald map from the Kompass series. Footpaths are marked in red, and it shows all the smaller roads that are way off the beaten path.
   Villages, such as Grinzing and Neustift am Walde, are famous for their <Heurigen> (wine taverns), but they are so close to the city that they have lost a lot of their rural feel. The vine-covered hillsides are still there, and the sound of birdsong hasn't been totally drowned by the busloads of tourists, but be prepared to share your semibucolic bliss, at least in the summer, with quite a few travelers. The Landhaus Fuhrgassl-Huber (1-440-30-33; doubles, $136; restaurant, 1-440-14-05) and Wolff (1-440-30-33; buffet, $14-$17), both on Rathstrasse, are the two most attractive <Heurigen> in Neustift am Walde. But I would still advise venturing farther away . . .

(20-minute walk from end of D tram line (up Zahnradbahnstrasse to the Beethovengang to the Wildgrubgasse, following the "Wanderweg" signs) puts you into the vineyards, dotted with Heuriger tavern