Flower Power

If you should find yourself in the Inner Stadt some afternoon with an hour or so to spare, I highly recommend taking a stroll in one of Wien’s numerous public parks and gardens.

Natually the Volksgarden is always highly ranked on the list of attractions in the city thanks to its beautiful flowerbeds, rose-arches and superbly maintained box-hedging, aided as it is by ease of access and central location. The rose collection is particularly spectactular and if you should find yourself there in the spring, you can expect to be greeted by over 400 various species of rose.  Yet this is only one option amongst many. Not too far away, the Botanical Gardens of the University of Wien in the Belvedere are probably one of the oldest public flower gardens in the city, having been established in 1754 by Kaiserin Maria Theresia.  Approximately 12,000 different species of plant are to be found there and the grounds are beautifully maintained.  Moving a little west, the Rose Gardens of the Schönbrunn, accompanied by the Botanical Gardens of Schönbrunn, are to be found all situated within the parkgrouds of Schönbrunn Palace itself. Out in the 12th District there is the Hirschstetten Botanical Gardens, along with the Austrian Horticultural Museum. There I learned that, though it is the national symbol of the Netherlands, it was in fact Vienna which was noted for cultivating the first tulips! A vast wealth of various blooms can be found here, palm-houses, as well as Wedding, Mexican and Indian themed-gardens. Then we have the Palmenhaus major located in the Imperial Palace, a well-preserved Art Nouveau construction, home to a wide myriad of exotic and tropical plants as well as a wine-and-cocktail bar. Even along the side of the streets, on traffic-islands and edging car-parks neat little patches of sunny blooms are to be found, enlivening an otherwise grey space.  To continue to detail here all the various parks and gardens would be a bit overly ambitious and beyond the scope of our blog, given that there are over 280 such gardens in the capital.  In total, there are approximately 2,000 parks in the city of Vienna and over half of the metropolitan is given over to green areas.  As the Mercer Study this year voted Vienna the world’s most liveable city for the ninth year running, it is no small wonder given the astounding variety of green spaces which make this international city a wonderful place to call home.