From U4 Heiligenstadt the walk starts at the most famous Gemeindebau of Red Vienna, 1.2 km of council flats from 1927-1930, then climbs into the old wine village of Heiligenstadt, where Beethoven wrote the Heiligenstadt Testament in 1802 and spent his summers. It ends on the stream-side path he liked to walk.
Best time: Late morning or afternoon; carry on along the Beethovengang to Nussdorf, where the city lists Heurigen on Stadtwanderweg 1.
The route, stop by stop
- 1Karl-Marx-Hof
Heiligenstädter Straße 82-92, facing the 12.-Februar-Platz. Karl Ehn's superblock (1927-1930, opened 12 October 1930), with a frontage of almost 1,200 m but only 18% of the plot built on, and six towers over the central arches as a heroic sign of Red Vienna. It had two central laundries, two bathhouses and kindergartens. Fighting began here on the afternoon of 12 February 1934 and the army used artillery. 25 min
- 2Beethoven Museum Heiligenstadt
The house where Beethoven lived in autumn 1802 and wrote the Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter to his brother that he never sent, after realising he was losing his hearing for good. Now a Wien Museum site (opened 1970). 40 min
- 3Pfarrplatz
The village square of Heiligenstadt. No. 2 is a 17th-century house with a courtyard where Beethoven lived in 1817 (plaque). No. 3 is St. Jakob, one of the oldest churches in Vienna, a Romanesque building over Roman remains with unrendered rubble walls, a nave six steps below the street and 1955 windows by Margret Bilger. 15 min
- 4Beethovengang
A path along the Schreiberbach from the Zahnradbahnstraße to the Kahlenberger Straße, named around 1864/1869 because it was one of Beethoven's favourite walks during his summers in Heiligenstadt. It is part of Stadtwanderweg 1; tram D leaves from Nussdorf at its lower end. 20 min
More walks in Vienna
- Imperial Vienna: cathedral to crypt
- Ringstraße: Opera to Votivkirche
- Otto Wagner and the Secession around Karlsplatz
- Roman and Jewish Vienna to Otto Wagner's bank
- Landstraße: Stadtpark to the Belvedere
- Schönbrunn: palace, Gloriette and Palm House
- Red Vienna: the council superblocks of the Margaretengürtel
- Nussdorf vineyards to the Kahlenberg (Stadtwanderweg 1)
- Leopoldstadt: Jewish Vienna to the Augarten
- Along the Danube Canal: Urania to Otto Wagner's weir