Wien - Vienna - Austria 3 Nights in Vienna - The Capital of Austria
General information about the city 1.500.000 habitants - Like many other cities of Continental Europe, Vienna originated in ancient Roman times. In the first century AD, the Romans set up a military camp, called Vindobona, which formed part of the large number of similar facilities along the Limes frontier. Vienna´s present name was first mentioned in 881, was to see turbulent times in the wake of the Magyar expansion, in the 9th and 10th centuries. Until the first half of the 12th century, the centre of Babenberg power lay west of Vienna. Around 1150 the Austrian margraves, who were also dukes of Bavaria at the time, transferred their residence to Vienna and founded Vienna's oldest monastery, Sankt Maria zu den Schotten (St Mary of the Scots). Then, in 1529, the city was conquistered by the Turks. The battles against the Turks again affected the physical and building structure of the city drastically, although the combination of modern fortifications and valour on the part of the city's defenders had allowed the city to withstand the onslaught. What little protection they could actually provide was shown in the early 19th century when Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte occupied Vienna in 1805 and 1809 and had large parts of the fortifications blasted away upon his departure in autumn 1809 to demonstrate his military prowess.Particularly during the decades of the so-called "Pre-March Period", i.e. from the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) to the revolution in March 1848, modernisation of the building stock and infrastructure began to be more and more urgent. Vienna's very nature as the metropolis of a huge empire proved somewhat problematic during WW I (1914-18), as far as living conditions in the city were concerned. Although not directly confronted with military threats and outright fighting - contrary to WW II -, the city suffered terribly and was virtually starved of all supplies. When the war was over -- and the monarchy had ended in the late autumn of 1918 --, the former imperial capital of the Habsburg empire had shrunk to the status of the capital of a tiny new country. During WWII In the urban area, more than 3,000 bomb craters were counted, many bridges were in shambles, sewers, gas and water pipes had suffered severe damage. Approval by the Allied Occupation Forces was withheld for eight years, however, since the Soviet forces in particular baulked, so that it did not come into effect until 1954.A year later, in May 1955, the country was restored to freedom through the conclusion of the "Austrian State Treaty". With the inauguration of the UN building on the northern bank in 1979 and the International Conference Centre a little later, Vienna established itself as one of the three UN headquarters, alongside New York and Geneva.On the other hand, membership in the European Union since 1994-95 has flung open a new gate, namely the embracing of the country and the city in what was originally an economic and is now an increasingly political community.
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