Vienna Away

Hi all. Going to Vienna for what could be a massive game in December and just wondering if many are planning to stay over the weekend?? I think I will as I heard its a good spot around Christmas..also a mate of mine told me theres a few good Irish bars too!! Just need to make sure we hammer the clowns

 

Hi,

I am from Vienna and living there of course as well and would be happy to answer any questions you might have regarding an away-trip ! I have done this previously for the travelling fans of the Welsh, English and Irish national teams in cooperation with their fan organisations and web-forums, and it was always great fun and a good experience, so if you want to know anything, let me know and I will do my best to answer your questions !

Yes, Vienna has some great Pubs, and a very active Irish / Scottish going out scene, so you will defeintly not be bored, plus its the season of the famous Vienna christmas markets, so you can try our local winter-specialty, "Punsch", a sort of spiced warm mulled wine which is sold at little stands all over the city then ! It would be a wonderfull season to come to Vienna, also for bringing somebody with you e.g. for some last-minute christmas shopping !

Let me know if you need help !

Greetings from Vienna, Fritz

P.S.: Good luck against Rapid next week !

 

Thanks for the offer of advice mate

Would there be any areas of the city you would recommend the Celtic supporters avoid?

 

Thanks Fritz

Sounds good. Where do you think would be the best gathering places for the fans? when the Welsh and Irish were here where did they base themselves?? It has to be some place that alows a lot of singing!!
Cant imagine staying out in that cold for too long..even though the mulled wine sounds tasty and warming!

 

Thank you for your questions, regarding places to avoid there is just one place coming into my mind, ahuge beer-bar called "goleador" right next to the Hanappi-stadium, thats normally a gathering place for hardcore fans, but it will be well-surrounded by the coppers on the match-day and I doubt any of you will be let near the place. There is also a few dodgy small bars onthe side of the stadium opposite the underground-station which might not be too recommendable, but for the rest the city is normally very safe even on match days.
Should the match venue be chnaged to our national stadium, Ernst Happel stadium, you might want to avoid the uge beer-houses in the "Prater" amousement park near the stadium, but that park is crap during the winter anyway ....

You are right about not wanting to stay outside too much during that time of the year, England played here as well during the winter, and thei suporters federation had organised a fan-embassy bus right on one of Vienna big squares, * we were freezing our arses off there ....

The English fans all went to a big brewing-pub in that going out district in the center, the place is called "Bermudä-Bräu", they were very fan-friendly, the German fans also camped and sang there the night before the European championship finals.
The welsh supporters federation had its official fan-ffice in the rooms of "Charlie P´s Irishpub", my regular, a big Irish pub stretching over two floors and very central as well, its e.g. home to Viennas expat-soccer team and the Vienna GAA, this would be my personal recommendation, pictures from those nights can be found at their webpage Charlie P's Irish Pub - Irish pub vienna austria in the galery starting from page 2.
Charlie P´s is part of Viennas "Pub triangle": Within 5 minutes walk, you have Charlie P´s, Molly Darcys and Billys Bones, all worth a try.
Good places for a beer and some Austrian food for a good price are the restaurants of the "Centimeter" group, and most of them are quite big as well and don´t mind some party atmosphere: cold bread                  1 cm

Hope this answered your questions, feel free to ask for anything else you might want to know !

CU´s, Fritz

 

Where to go after

Hi, fritz

Am goin to the game probaly staying in veinna the night then goin ski-ing could you recomend the best way to get to (drive,train,plane) and where to go (alp's, itallian? austrian?)

Cheer's pal

 

I am much more patriotic when it comes to skiing then in soccer, I never skied outside my own country, so I cannot say much about Italy or somewere else in the alps.
There are some ski resorts near Vienna, around 90 min. drive, search the web for places like Lackenhof or Semmering, but they are only good for day-trip to the slopes, if you want to get "real" skiing, you will have to go at least 3 hours drive from Vienna, I always liked Kitzbühel a lot, but there are lots of other good resorts as well, Zell am See is very popular with English speaking guests, but e.g. Sölden or Ischgl can be good as well.
You can get to some resorts by train from Vienna quite well, like e.g. Zell am See, but for most of them, renting a car would be my recommendation, its just more comfortable and flexible ! But I am acar-person, don´t know if I am objective in this matter ... You can check train connections at www.oebb.at !

Greetings, Fritz

 

Unlike some hostile comments in this forum I consider this to be a good thread. Despite harsh rivalry between Rapid and Celtic, visiting fans should always be welcome and treated with hospitality! Especially those who are friendly, peaceful and generally nice people.

If Fritz were not hopelessly ill-informed about football at all, he would probably be arrested for wishing Celtic good luck against Rapid!



The match will certainly be played in the Ernst Happel Stadium; therefore any details about the Hanappi Stadium (Rapid’s usual home ground) are obsolete. Should you end up there, you got completely lost as that stadium is located at the western outskirts of Vienna.

Like in every city we have better and worse locations but basically I cannot think of an area Celtic supporters in particular should avoid. Friendly people should have no problems.

I think you can split visiting supporters in two groups:

First Group:
The larger group will probably come only for the sake of attending the game. They will arrive at the airport on December 17 sometime in the morning and leave at night after the match. Due to the short time they will spend in Vienna there is little advice one can give them. Your very commendable DanniGhirl already stated useful practical info at the thread “European Travel Advice”. Best is to take the CAT-train for €16 return which will take you to station “Landstrasse”, quite in the centre of the city. There you will have to buy a ticket for the Vienna Public Transport. Best is to buy a ticket for the time of your entire stay in advance. Always keep the ticket with you. Buses and tramways might be a bit difficult to explain but the underground system is easy. Best is to have a street map with you where you can find all underground stations. At Landstrasse, where you usually arrive when coming from the airport, you find two underground lines: U3 and U4. You can also simply walk into the city centre. Apart from the mentioned Charlie P’s Pub I can also recommend Flanagan’s at quite a good location near the City Park (U4 station Stadtpark).

http://www.flanagans.at/html/pub/1.html

Also the stadium can easily be reached by underground. It is at the terminal stop of U2: Stadion. Well, simply follow all the other green-whites….

After the match: U2 to Schottenring (German for Scotch Ring….), change to U4, go to Landstrasse and from there back to the airport.

Second Group:
The smaller group of supporters might want to stay longer. After all Finner, who started the thread, is considering staying over the weekend. I believe there is additional info necessary for those people.

Basically the same when arriving at Vienna. Also: buy a ticket for the public transport which is valid for your entire stay.

In addition: Vienna is extremely bustling in the pre-Christmas period. It is by all means advisable to book any accommodation way in advance. I noticed especially in recent years Vienna has been flooded by Italian tourists in December. Also a lot of people are celebrating in restaurants; consequently places are usually more packed than in other seasons and it might be difficult finding a table, especially if you come in larger groups. Try to make reservations. This is the season of glittering lights, Christmas decorations, long shopping hours when everyone is out on the street, locals and tourists alike. You will find a large number of Christmas markets, most notable the one in front of the City Hall (U2 underground station Rathaus) where there even is an open air ice rink with music where you can watch people skate. Lots of little huts where mentioned Puntsch, the (often very sweet) mulled wine is sold. As to the question about singing: I think Christmas carols will be most appropriate…. But there is no law that prohibits singing in public. There will be a lot of singing inside the stadium. However you will be outnumbered by some 47,500 Rapid supporters...

It amazes me that Viennese cuisine and coffeehouses are not a topic yet. Do you really want to be in Irish bars only even if you stay over the weekend? Try Wiener Schnitzel with potato salad and some of the great pastries and coffee at some coffee houses!

The weather might be cold. But it only gets really uncomfortable if that chilly wind starts blowing. Then you might want to stay indoors most of the time. In such case even a ski cap is recommendable. But at home you don’t live under palm trees either… On the other hand we already had Decembers with 15 degrees Celsius so you can never predict anything. Also there is no guarantee at all one can ski in December. You might have to travel some place at a high altitude to get enough snow for skiing.

Vienna is a large city with a lot of culture to offer. those who stay longer might consider visiting the Schönbrunn Castle (underground U4, station Schönbrunn)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6nbrunn_Palace

or the Belvedere Castle or the Hofburg Imperial Palace where the Treasury is a good place to visit, especially in case of cold weather as it is entirely indoors. You might consider strolling along the Ring Street, passing museums, the house of parliament, the town hall (with the famous Christmas market), etc… Or you might even consider going to a “Heuriger”, a typical eastern Austrian wine bar/restaurant with usually hearty buffet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuriger

Those places can usually be found at the outskirts of Vienna and are therefore not easily accessible by public transport. but a place called “10er Marie” is just 5 minutes walking distance from U3 terminal station Ottakring. Not all Heurigens are open all year and reservations are a must anyway.

So you see, there are several possibilities. It just depends what people want. There is a large spectrum between Irish pubs only and typical Viennese places.

 

Thanks for all the advice, some very useful information there for anyone travelling over for the game.

 

Excellent advice already given by Vienna-Fritz and MartinVienna, just one remark: if you're not part of an organised trip but arrive on your own, do NOT take the CAT train from the airport to the city centre. As MartinVienna said a ticket costs you around 16 Euros, and frankly that's a rip-off.

Instead, board Vienna S-Bahn line 8 bound for Wien Floridsdorf. Takes you 28 instead of 16 mins to Landstrasse-Wien Mitte, but only costs 2 Euros or so.

Luke

 

thanks for that piece of info.fella

 

Thanks for the support Martin, and you caught me on me weak foot, Austrian pro-soccer is not my strongest point, I will concentrate more on the touristic questions now ...
I second the above posts about not using the cat, its really a rip off, but when you are travelling in company, I would like to recommend another alternative: You can pre-order a kind of hackney cab to take you from the airport to your accomodation for a discounted price compared to just taking a cab from the rank at the airport, up to 4 people in a car can travel into town for € 35 / GBP 32, if you calculate down to the per head costs, its a good compromise between price and comfort, as it takes you right to your place. I always use this company: http://www.airportdriver.at/index.php?lang=en&id=1

Greetings, Fritz

 

Fair play lads for the great advice, as much as tensions are running between the clubs that should not affect how the fans treat each other especially as most travelling fasn just want a it of banter and to watch the game.

keep the hatred within the stadium.

 

I think thats the most important point, I was very angry about some of my countrymen´s postings here in the forums during the last days, obviously they just tried to wind thing up, so don´t feed the trolls and just try to ignore them as best as you can, which of course can be hard. But the best place to fight back is the pitch itself, win against them in a good game and you will have your sweet revenge for this much-discussed match from the 80´s !

Greetings, Fritz

 

Ovbcorse alot of the older members will be * off about what happened. My father was at the home game & that day at Old Trafford and he said it was absolute chaos. It was always going to be a hostile build up when our two teams would come around to face each other again. My view is that we were robbed that night but the Vienna players & The bottle thrower (although no where near the player) puts both teams in the wrong.

Hopefully the clash will be a great one and we win again.

I also have alot of respect for Your ultras.

 

For 2 euro from the airport to the city centre? Where else in the world do you get that? Nevertheless the S-Bahn has disadvantages also. Especially when travelling from Vienna centre to the airport. There are many different lines and it is not always easy to catch the right one, especially if you are not a local and there are no loudspeaker announcements in English (at least I never noted one…). Also service has been poor lately. Anyway, people will be able to make their way to the city and back to the airport somehow.

I agree that too much negative posting here just adds up to the hostile atmosphere. Well, a football clash is not a children’s birthday party, there is always a certain tension. But I believe it is important to be fair and friendly towards everyone and to respect the opponent’s supporters, especially considering that most of them are visiting the various cities (Vienna, Hamburg) for the first time. So some advice might always be useful.

 

Madrid

 

Touche.:icon_mrgreen:

 

don´t mean to be nerdy, but actually, to go by the S-Bahn will cost you € 3,60, if you plan to go INTO the city and don´t hop off right at the city border.

 

Cheers frit