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Austria
Salzburg
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Vienna
Overview:
It's the spectacular, snowcapped mountains of
regions like the Tyrol that provide the most
familiar images of Austria - a landscape
of jagged peaks and rampaging rivers, giving way
to green pastures studded with onion-domed
churches. Yet Austria is by no means all alpine
vistas: the country stretches across central
Europe for some 700km, from the shores of the Bodensee in the west to the edge of the flat
Hungarian plain in the east. Far removed from
the archetype are the wetlands and reed beds of
Burgenland, and the dramatic sequence of stops
that carve their way up the Erzberg in Styria.
In Upper and Lower Austria in particular, a
predominantly low-key landscape of gentle
rolling hills and vineyards can come as
something of a surprise to first-time visitors.
Yet this fertile, low-lying northern half of the
country is, in fact, where the majority of
Austrians live and work, many of them within
commuting distance of the capital, Vienna
- the country's chief tourist destination after
the alpine regions.
For all its bucolic charm and fondness for the
days of empire, when Vienna sat at the centre of
the vast, multinational Habsburg dynasty,
Austria today is thoroughly modern, clean,
efficient and eminently civilized, with
uniformly excellent tourist facilities. Like
neighbouring Switzerland, it's also a supremely
law-abiding nation, where no one jaywalks or
drops litter, and the trains and trams run on
time. Whether you're staying in one of the
popular skiing, hiking or spa resorts, or in an
out-of-the-way Gasthof, you're likely to
experience " Gemütlichkeit " - a
typically Austrian term expressing a mixture of
cosines and hospitality - at some point during
your visit.
Looking at the country at the close of the
twentieth century - stable, conservative and
wealthy - you wouldn't think that Austria had
spent the first half of the century struggling
to find a national identity. After all, it was
only in 1918, when the Habsburg Empire
disintegrated, that the idea of a modern
Austrian nation was born. The new republic, with
a population of just eight million reluctant
citizens, was riven by left- and right-wing
political violence and, as a result, the
majority of Austrians were wildly enthusiastic
about the Anschluss with Nazi Germany in 1938.
The price of Austria's participation, and
ultimately defeat, in World War II, however, was
Allied occupation. For ten years the country was
split, like Germany, into Soviet, American,
British and French zones. As a gesture of
détente, the Soviets finally agreed to withdraw
their troops, in return for Austria's "permanent
neutrality". At this point, Austria turned over
a new leaf, and recast itself as a model of
consensus politics, with an almost Scandinavian
emphasis on social policy as the guiding
principle of national life. Postwar stability
saw the growth of a genuine patriotism, while
the end of the Cold War put the country, and its
capital, back at the heart of Europe.
In 1995, Austria became a full member of the
European Union, a move that for many was a sign
that the country had finally entered the
mainstream of European politics. From time to
time, Austria's more reactionary elements have
attracted widespread media attention, most
notably during the Waldheim affair, when the
wartime record of the president was called into
question, and in the recent rise of the Far
Right under the charismatic Jörg Haider. But the
reality is that the Socialist party retains the
strongest influence in government, as it has for
much of the postwar period, and the country's
political stability, for the most part,
continues intact
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