Vienna's Hausberge (German : Wiener Hausberge) are the mountains of Raxalpe, Schneeberg and Hohe Wand in the south of the state of Lower Austria. These mountains may be reached from Vienna in about an hour and are therefore a popular recreation area for the Viennese.
The Viennese Hausberge - a Hausberg is a local mountain associated with a town or city - may be reached by car on the Southern Autobahn (A2). There are also good public transport links between Vienna and the mountains. For the Raxalpe, the visitor can catch a train on the Southern Railway to Payerbach-Reichenau, then a Retter bus to Hirschwang, Hinternaßwald or the Preiner Gscheid. For the Schneeberg, Southern Railway trains run to Wr. Neustadt, then the visitor can catch a diesel railcar on the Schneebergbahn to Puchberg and continue on the rack railway up the Hochschneeberg or catch a train to Neunkirchen and the Retter bus to Losenheim. For the Hohe Wand, visitors may also take the train to Wr. Neustadt and continue by bus (operated by Partsch) to Maiersdorf or Stollhof.
With the construction of the Semmering Railway this region became popular with day trippers from Vienna. Tourist traffic initially flocked to the Rax and Schneeberg mountains which were easier to get to and were accessible by a cable car and a rack railway. Before mass tourism arrived, many of the visitors were botanists, mineralogists, geographers and agronomists, who took to wandering in the mountains because of their specialism, their reports fascinating citizens of the Biedermeier period, who hitherto had been restricted to day trips in the immediate vicinity of Vienna, to places like the Vienna Woods. The first record of an unofficial climb of the Hohe Wand dates to the year 1862. Alpine clubs were founded and built refuge huts on the high plateau.
The Rax, Schneeberg and Hohe Wand are still the most popular mountains in the Gutenstein Alps and the Rax-Schneeberg Group, and they are very well served, with easy access, good viewing points and numerous waymarked footpaths. By contrast, other mountains such as the Dürre Wand or Schneealpe are less often climbed.
Lower Austria is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt Pölten, replacing Vienna which became a separate state in 1921. With a land area of 19,186 km2 (7,408 sq mi) and a population of 1.685 million people, Lower Austria is the second most populous federal state. Other large cities are Amstetten, Krems an der Donau and Wiener Neustadt.
The Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) is a 1,000 mmmetre gauge railway in Tamil Nadu, India, built by the British in 1908. The railway is operated by the Southern Railway and is the only rack railway in India.
Puchberg am Schneeberg is a town in the south-eastern part of Lower Austria with approximately 2650 inhabitants. It is situated about 80 Kilometres from Vienna. The highest point of Puchberg is the Schneeberg with 2076 m, the highest mountain of Lower Austria.
The Schneeberg, with its 2,076-metre (6,811 ft) high summit Klosterwappen, is the highest mountain of Lower Austria, and the easternmost and northernmost mountain in the Alps to exceed 2000 m. It is a distinctive limestone massif with steep slopes on three sides.
Ellmau is a municipality in the district of Kufstein in the Austrian region of Sölllandl. It lies 12 km southeast of Kufstein and 9 km west of Sankt Johann in Tirol. It is located at an elevation of 820 m above sea level. It was mentioned for the first time in the records in 1155 and is nowadays part of the Ski Welt skiing area.
The Schneeberg Railway is one of three rack railways in Austria still operating, and runs from the small town of Puchberg am Schneeberg in Lower Austria up to a plateau beneath the Schneeberg summit. At 2,076 metres (6,811 ft), the Schneeberg is the highest mountain in Lower Austria. The other two working cog railways in Austria are the Schafberg Railway and the Achensee Railway.
Gloggnitz is a mountain town in the Neunkirchen district of Lower Austria, Austria.
The Rax is a mountain range in the Northern Limestone Alps on the border of the Austrian federal provinces of Lower Austria and Styria. Its highest peak is the Heukuppe. The Rax, together with the nearby Schneeberg, are a traditional mountaineering and mountain walking area, and are called the Wiener Hausberge. They are separated by the deep Höllental.
The Gaisberg is, at 1,288 meters (4,226 ft) above sea level, a mountain to the east of Salzburg, Austria. It belongs to Salzkammergut Mountains, a range of the Northern Limestone Alps. The mountain is one of the Salzburg Hausberge, a popular recreational area offering picturesque views over the city and the Berchtesgaden Alps in the west. On the top of the mountain is the widely visible Gaisberg Transmitter.
Reichenau an der Rax is a market town in the Austrian state of Lower Austria, situated at the foot of the Rax mountain range on the Schwarza river, a headstream of the Leitha.
Wiener Neustadt Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in Wiener Neustadt, in the federal state of Lower Austria, south of Vienna. With over 700 trains and 25,000 passengers each day, the station is the busiest in Lower Austria.
The Gutenstein Alps are a mountain range in the Eastern Alps in Central Europe, and the northeasternmost part of the Northern Limestone Alps, reaching heights over 1,000 m.
The Rax-Schneeberg Group is a mountain range in the Northern Limestone Alps on the Styrian-Lower Austrian border in Austria.
The Schwarza is a river in Lower Austria. It is a headstream of the Leitha.
The Unterberg is a prominent summit, 1,342 m above sea level (AA) high, in the Gutenstein Alps in southern Lower Austria. It is located about 10 km south of Hainfeld and is the westernmost and highest summit of a loose chain of mountains that include the Hocheck (1,037 m) and the Kieneck (1,106 m). Its crest continues towards the southwest, albeit less high, to the Brunntaler Höhe (1,090 m) and the Leitermauern (1,025 m).
The Hohe Wand is a mountain ridge in Lower Austria and is part of the Gutenstein Alps. It lies west of Steinfeld in the Vienna Basin; its highest peak attains a height of 1,132 m. It is one of Vienna's Hausberge.
The Höllental in Lower Austria is a narrow valley between the steep limestone massifs of the Schneeberg and Rax through which the River Schwarza flows.
The Schneeberg Railway is a local railway line in Lower Austria running from Wiener Neustadt to the Hochschneeberg mountain. From Wiener Neustadt to Puchberg am Schneeberg it runs as a standard gauge, adhesion railway and from Puchberg am Schneeberg to the Hochschneeberg as a narrow-gauge, cog railway (extension). The main section from Wiener Neustadt to Puchberg am Schneeberg had a branch to Wöllersdorf from the outset. The section built later from Sollenau to Feuerwerksanstalt (extension) is now closed and renaturalised.
The Wendelstein Rack Railway, sometimes just referred to as the Wendelstein Railway, is an electrically-driven metre gauge rack railway that runs up the Wendelstein in the Upper Bavarian Limestone Alps. Together with the Wendelstein Cable Car (Wendelstein-Seilbahn) it is operated by the Wendelsteinbahn GmbH. The mountain railway climbs through a total height of 1,217.27 metres. The Wendelstein Railway is one of only four working rack railways in Germany, the others being the Bavarian Zugspitze Railway, the Drachenfels Railway and the Stuttgart Rack Railway.
Hausberg is German for a prominent mountain or hill in the immediate vicinity of a village, town or city, usually located on its municipal territory, but outside the built up area. It means something like the "local mountain" or "local hill" closely associated with a settlement by its population. The Hausberg forms a backdrop to its home settlement and also offers a prominent viewing point looking over the settlement. As a result, many Hausberge have cable cars or gondola lifts to transport visitors to the top. "Hausberg" is also the proper name of numerous local mountains and hills in German-speaking countries.
