Vienna

Vienna Travel Guide

One of the great capitals of Europe, Vienna was for centuries the main stamping grounds for the Habsburg rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The empire is long gone, but many reminders of the city’s imperial heyday remain, carefully preserved by the tradition-loving Viennese. When it comes to the arts, the glories of the past are particularly evergreen,…

Salzburg

Salzburg Travel Guide

“All Salzburg is a stage,” Count Ferdinand Czernin once wrote. “Its beauty, its tradition, its history enshrined in the grey stone of which its buildings are made, its round of music, its crowd of fancy-dressed people, all combine to lift you out of everyday life, to make you forget that somewhere far off, life hides another, drearier,…

HISTORY OF THE HABSBURGS

Hawk’s castle: AD 1020

Count Radbot builds himself a castle, in 1020, on a promontory overlooking the river Aar to the west of Zürich. Perhaps because of its high position, it becomes known as Habichtsburg – ‘hawk’s castle’. From this fortress Radbot’s family later acquire their name, as the Habsburgs.

Two centuries later Radbot’s descendants are counts of Zürich, with extensive…

HISTORY OF AUSTRIA

Austria and the Babenbergs: AD 976-1246

The heavily forested regions to the east of Bavaria are colonized and converted to Christianity, from the 8th century, by German pressure eastwards. Salzburg becomes a base for missionary activities. From 797 the city has its own archbishop.

In the early 10th century the region is under constant threat from Hungarians…