Austria. Media News.

Dear friends of Austria and fellow travelers,

To celebrate the start of summer, we have a few fun and exciting items in store for you. First off, a short update on the popular Vollpension cafes in Vienna, where grannies delight patrons with their secret recipes for strudel and cake: As of now, they offer baking classes for everyone in a new Baking Studio in Vienna’s Mariahilferstrasse. Check it out here.

Then we have exciting news from Vienna, where a new Rosewood Hotel is set to open in July, and the glamorous Heidi-Horten Collection offers insights into the last 100 years of art history as well as the museum founder’s approach to art collecting.

Last but by no means least, we hop into the Hotel Trattlerhof’s own EV to tour the Nockberge region, a spectacular outdoor and wellness destination with its own UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

With warmest regards,
Sigrid Pichler

Manager of Public Relations
Austrian Tourist Office New York City
sigrid.pichler@austria.info
tel 212 575 7723 x 119

www.austria.info 

Already brimming with an eclectic selection of luxury hotels, Vienna is adding more Five-Star properties to its roster. After the Leo Grand, which opened this April, the Rosewood Vienna is scheduled to welcome its first guests in July of 2022. In addition, a Mandarin Oriental will open its doors in 2023.

The Rosewood Vienna is the first Rosewood hotel in a German speaking country. It is located in a former bank building from the 1830s right in the heart of the city, only steps away from St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the Hofburg Palace and the city’s top luxury shopping destinations. Designs by BEHF Corporate Architects in Austria and London studio Alexander Waterworth Interiors preserved the historic charm of the lavish building. Guests can choose to stay in one of 99 rooms and suites, while various function rooms are available for meetings, conferences and gatherings of all kinds. The hotel features various bars and restaurants including a rooftop bar with fantastic views of the city and an intimate garden restaurant serving European cuisine. Sense, A Rosewood Spa is a haven for relaxation in the heart of the city.

Vienna’s art world just celebrated a grand opening of a different kind. The long awaited Heidi Horten Collection features the extensive private art collection of Heidi Goëss-Horten, one of only a handful of female museum founders worldwide who opened a new space for public engagement with art by making her collection available for general viewing. The selection of several hundred paintings, sculptures and graphic works offers a profound overview of the development of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Highlights include works by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Marc Chagall and Gerhard Richter.

Her outstanding collection took up residence in the Stöckl building – a venerable Palais in the old town – at the Hanuschhof, which is hidden between the Vienna State Opera, Albertina and Burggarten. Visitors have to reserve time slot tickets in advance to be admitted to the museum. Guided tours are available upon request.

Imagine the perfect wellness vacation destination: Remote, yet not hard to reach, with amazing natural beauty, intact fauna and flora, superior spa and wellness facilities, gourmet restaurants, local culture and centuries of history you can trace throughout the region. We have found one such spot for you: The Nockberge Biosphere Park in the province of Carinthia.

Can you picture yourself taking your hotel’s own Tesla for a drive through a picturesque Biosphere Park in the Alps? Can you see yourself coming back to your hotel after having toured the visitor center’s unique Alpine fossil collection and having enjoyed tremendous views over the gentle Alpine peaks, to relax in the heated outdoor pool of the hotel or enjoy a soothing massage? Then it’s off to a gourmet dinner at the hotel, or a trip to one of the nearby villages for some local gourmet cuisine.

This is what you’ll experience at the Hotel Trattlerhof, which has been family-owned for five generations and boasts a 347-year history. The hotel is located in Bad Kleinkirchheim, a town known for its two thermal spas in the heart of the Nockberge region. Today’s owners have turned the four-star hotel into a modern property with state of the art wellness and fitness facilities and alpine charm. As a designated “Genusswirt,” the Hotel’s restaurant only uses regional and seasonal ingredients for its menu. On top of it all, the owners care deeply for the environment and have been awared the Austrian and European Ecolabels, have EVs available for rent and a small fleet of e-bikes which guests can borrow.

It seems like caring for the environment is something people in the entire region are passionate about. The gentle Nockberge mountain range - sometimes also lovingly called the “Nocky Mountains” in reference to the Rocky Mountains in the US - as a destination are less well known than Salzburg or Innsbruck, but definitely deserve more attention, not only because of the spectacular scenery.

Back in 1980, plans to turn the Nockalm into a major skiing area were shelved after an outcry by the local public, which almost unanimously voted against the development. Instead, it was decided to preserve the diverse fauna and flora of the region for future generations in the form of a National Park. Because existing farmlands and cultivated areas made this designation difficult, it was changed when, in 2012, UNESCO officially recognized these efforts and made it a Biosphere Reserve. Around the world, Biosphere Reserves represent unique regions with a focus on a combination of natural biodiversity, cultural characteristics, sustainable farming and international research.

In the Nockberge region, which, by the way, has been awarded a 2021 Traveller’s Chois Award by Tripadvior, Alpine pasture farming helps to preserve vast meadows with their characteristic biodiversity. 69 species of bird, 13 of which are on the “red list” of species in danger of extinction, are bred in the Biosphere Reserve Nockberge. More than 100 species of mushroom and countless mammals, amphibians, fish and insects inhabit the uniquely beautiful region in the Austrian Alps. The modern park center is located along the Nockalmstrasse, a scenic road that leads right through the reserve, and features the unique fossil exhibition “Fossilized Worlds,” as well as interesting insights into this unique alpine habitat. Children love the interactive bat exhibition and the playground. A restaurant and shop complete the Biosphere Reserve Nockberge experience. The center is open daily from 10:30 am to 4:30 pm with free admission. Tip: Discover the Nockberge with a Biosphere Reserve ranger!

To get to Bad Kleinkirchheim from the US (New York and Chicago), take a one-stop flight into Klagenfurt International Airport. The Hotel Trattlerhof organizes transportation to and from the airport.