Another busy, fun day in Vienna. After a relaxed morning, our group split in two with some going on the subway to the Schonbruun Palace and some (including me) heading off to the Donau Auer national wetland park. Martin Leitner of the ICPDR led our group, picking us up at the hotel and driving with us out into the farming country to the east of the city. At the park headquarters, we had a guided tour of the park exhibits, including stations focused on native species, wetland processes, and the social, geographic and political hitory of the park. The park runs along the Danube downstream of Vienna almost all the way to Bratislava, the largest intact wetlands remaining in the watershed. The value of these wetlands for flood storage, water quality and habitat was obvious, and we could see clearly the 3 meter height the water had reached in early June this year when the region had its largest flood in 500 years. But this system of wetlands was almost wiped out in the 1980s. Only a months long occupation of the wetlands by over 5000 people - the "Hainburger wetlands sit in" in 1984 - saved the area from inundation by the proposed construction of a hydrpower plant. We met one of the 'warriors' from the occupation, Peter, now a guide in the park.
On the way back to Vienna we stopped at the Freudenau hydropower station, at the upstream end of the park, where a natural channel for fish passage was constructed bypassing the locks. The dam and locks were surprisingly attractive structures, and the whole time we were there cyclists rode back and forth across the bridge between the mainland and Danube Island.
So much more too... the opera, the brew pub, the massive bike tour wheeling through the city at 10:30 pm, the Beatles tribute band in a bar that had taken over the entire street, wonderful coffee... a fine visit. Tomorrow we board the boat!
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