Rails and Trails
April 3-6, 2026
Now that we’re properly settled in Austria, we’re particularly interested in exploring what our new home country has to offer. The public transportation here is excellent - especially comparted to Germany, where the rail system is in shambles - so we can quickly reach all sorts of beautiful places without a car. When an opportunity presents itself to explore, we take it. This was the case in February when Mazz attended a science conference in the mountainous town of Bad Aussee. Apparently, it is totally normal for family members to come to this type of conference, so Kirb happily tagged along. Long breaks were built into the conference scheduling, giving the participants ample time to enjoy the region’s alpine pleasures.
When we arrived in Bad Aussee at the end of February, the town was already covered in snow, and more was coming down steadily. But as soon as Kirb made it up to the mountain to ski, the skies cleared and the temperatures jumped significantly. His down coat was soaked in sweat by the end of his first run. From that day onward, the cold and snowy weather we had endured all winter was officially over and an early spring had arrived. Weeks of warm, sunny skies followed, so we spent our free time exploring different outdoor areas in and around Vienna. There weren’t any leaves on the trees yet, but it felt good to already be walking around in t-shirts in March.
By the time the 4-day Easter weekend came around, we were ready for a dedicated hiking trip. We chose to explore the Viennese Alps, which lie only an hour or so outside of the city by high-speed train. With such a reasonable commute, day trips from home were certainly an option, but we decided it would be more fun and convenient to stay the weekend in the town of Payerbach as a base for hiking.
The most notable hike in this area is the Semmering Bahnwanderweg, a trail that follows the tracks and tunnels of “the world’s first true mountain railway,” which was completed in 1854. We started the hike in Semmering and found that the first section of trail that leads alongside the town was completely closed off, sending hikers on a detour over the high road that passes the magnificent Südbahnhotel. Built in 1882, this establishment was once a hub for arts and culture in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Though it stopped hosting overnight guests in 1976, it still stands imposingly on the Semmering hillside like a real-life Grand Budapest Hotel.
Once we finally reached the trail, we had to double back to catch the best view on the Bahnwanderweg, known as the “20-Schilling View.” Here you can perfectly see the snow-covered peaks in the distance, tree-lined rocky cliffs, and the elevated railway tracks entering the first mountain tunnels ever bored for trains. The Bahnwanderweg (literally “train hiking trail”) continues to follow the railway up and down through the hills, starting in Semmering and ending in Payerbach. From the Wiener Alpen website:
In the beginning, it was a path leading over the Semmering Pass – evidence of which dates back to the Middle Ages. Then, in the early 18th century, Emperor Charles VI commissioned the construction of a road with gradients of up to 17 percent, which horses laboriously traversed with their loads. Finally, in 1841, the order was given to build a railway line from Vienna to Trieste to meet the transport needs of the burgeoning industrialization. By 1844, the only remaining task was to close the gap between Gloggnitz and Mürzzuschlag via the Semmering Pass. Under the direction of Carl Ritter von Ghega, 20,000 workers ultimately built the first standard-gauge mountain railway in Europe, which has undergone only minor modifications to this day. On the 41-kilometer route, trains travel over 16 viaducts, 100 bridges, and through 15 tunnels. Since 1998, this "outstanding technical solution to a major physical problem in the construction of early railways" has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
There was fantastic signage all along the route that gave the history of its construction, including some grisly details about the thousands of workers who died due to illnesses and safety mishaps.
The entire Bahnwanderweg was a bit longer than we wanted for the first of several days of hiking, so we finished our walk in the town of Breitenstein. The regional train here was under construction, but eventually a van showed up and ushered a handful of people waiting at the station to Payerbach. Here, the Payerbachhof Hotel acts as the only hotel and only restaurant in the immediate area. When we arrived, the place was bustling with guests for Easter weekend festivities.
We were excited to find seasonal dishes at the restaurant made with bärlauch, also known as ramps or wild garlic in English. Mazz got bärlauch risotto and Kirb got a deer schnitzel coated in a rustic breading of nuts and seeds. The grüner veltliner was crisp and delicious. We would have no issue eating at this restaurant three nights in a row, which was good, because it was quite literally the only game in town. After dinner, we walked along the river to a wine bar called Vinoduct that only opens on Fridays and is housed inside of a giant aqueduct pillar, but they unfortunately decided not to open that weekend due to the holiday. When we took a different route back to hotel through the neighborhood, the timeworn, once-opulent houses strangely reminded us of Buffalo, New York.
Though there is no shortage of trails in this area, picking the right one to fit our wants and needs proved somewhat difficult. We’ve been at this hiking thing long enough now to know pretty definitively from a trail description whether or not we’re going to enjoy it, and for us, the fun pretty much stops once the elevation gain exceeds 700 meters/2100 feet, especially early in the hiking season. Neither of us particularly enjoy walking directly uphill for several hours, and Kirb’s poor knees really don’t enjoy walking back down steep grades. But virtually every hike we found in the area had an elevation map that looked like this: Λ. Straight up, then straight back down. Apparently, it wasn’t an option to walk pleasantly through the Viennese Alps without going all the way up to the goddamn top of them. Our preferred maximum of 700 meters was the minimum for any multi-hour trek in this area. So it goes.
On the advice of the guy at the front desk of the hotel, we decided to hike up to a mountain hut called the Speckbacher hütte. The trail took us from the edge of Payerbach up through a wooded hillside and into a clearing where we could clearly see the surrounding mountain ranges. After a few hours of steady climbing, we reached the hut and found it filled with lazy people who had driven there in their cars. The restaurant was serving gluten-free cake, which was a nice surprise, so we got coffee and dessert instead of a sit-down lunch. The trail up hinted at some spectacular views just on the other side of the hill we were hiking on, but there wasn’t any payoff once you reached the hut, which was surrounded by trees. There weren’t any particularly great views on the way down either, which was long and steep. By the end, we were happy to be done with that hike, and particularly happy that our hotel had a spa and hot tub to soothe our weary bodies.
The weather cleared up the next morning and we hopped on a crowded bus that went through the Höllental Valley. Most people got off at the Rax Cable Car, and we were originally tempted to do so ourselves due to the sunny skies. But it was still winter on the mountain, and the top was still covered in snow and not ideal for hiking. We were the only people still remaining on the bus when we disembarked in Schwarzau im Gebirge at the end of the line. This area is home to the Falkenstein Nature Park, where the titular “Falkenstein” protrudes clearly from the top of the forested hillside. We were ready for another substantial elevation gain, but unlike the day before, this hike promised some great views at the top.
The way up followed a wide gravel road for several hours, occasionally offering updated views of the Falkenstein peak. As we ascended, we began to see more and more snow, which seemed particularly out of place based on how warm we felt in the direct sun. Eventually, the wide road ended and the final stretch up the summit was covered in a thick and slippery blanket of leaves and slush. The final trudge up the hill was well worth it though, as at the top we were greeted with panoramic views of the entire valley and a perfectly placed picnic table to enjoy lunch. If you’re going to spend all morning walking uphill, this is the sort of payoff you hope is waiting at the end.
The trail back down was much more pleasant than the one we took up, with proper dirt paths through the evergreen forest replacing boring gravel roads. At the bottom, we killed time waiting for the next bus back to Payerbach drinking wine spritzers in Schwarzau im Gebirge’s only restaurant, which played a particularly excellent selection of classic rock. Only minutes after getting on the bus, traffic came to a complete stop, and people were getting out of their cars and walking up to the bend in the road, including our bus driver. We had no idea what was going on until traffic was finally allowed to move through. Someone had crashed their motorcycle and their lifeless body was lying on the side of the road in a pool of blood, with two police officers holding up a piece of fabric to try and conceal the grizzly scene. Mere moments after we drove past, a stream of motorcycles whizzed by from behind and passed the bus in the oncoming traffic lane, clearly unphased by what they too must have just witnessed on the side of the road.
The final hike of the weekend started in Payerbach and led us up through a nature park on Grillenberg, where giant boulders had been placed with signs educating interested parties (Mazz) on what kind of rocks they were. A bit further up, there was a mine dug deep into the mountainside, where machines had been placed to send seismographic information directly to the universities in Vienna. At the top of the nature park, the trail passed by a cute inn and restaurant called Gasthaus Schweighofer, but unfortunately it was closed for the holiday. Every mountain restaurant in this part of the world looks like a place we want to stop and have a meal. It is literally impossible for us to pass a rustic, wooden mountain establishment and not want to go inside and see what they’re serving up.
Like all of the hikes in the Viennese Alps, this trail went straight up for the first half and then steeply down for the second. Our tired legs were happy to make it to the bottom and find a train en route to Vienna already waiting for us on the tracks. A mere hour later we were already back home, genuinely impressed by how little time it took to get from the side of a mountain to the hauptbanhof. Turns out, Austria is really good at trains, and has been for hundreds of years. We will certainly be riding the rails to all sorts of beautiful hikes in the future.