Featured writer: austriakat

When I moved to Vienna, one of the first things someone told me was, “The Viennese are very proud of their water.”  Viennese water comes from springs in the mountains, apparently, and is very clean. I filed that under, “Check. Can drink the tap water.” Maybe for this reason, servers in Vienna don’t look at you too strangely if you ask for “Leitungswasser” in a restaurant, and actually serve you a glass of tap water whenever you order a coffee or a glass of wine.

Last weekend, I inadvertently ended up hiking around the magical alpine landscape where Viennese water comes from. I took the train down to the Rax mountain about an hour outside Vienna, to do some hiking and climb some klettersteig with a friend from work. Turns out besides the hiking and the giant cable car (the Raxseilbahn) the Water Main Museum is one of the main attractions. I did not actually go to the museum, so instead I will have to use my incomplete information and powers of deduction to explain to you how Viennese water gets its amazing flavors.*

High up on top of the Rax and Schneeberg mountains, mist condenses onto the alpine meadows and filters slowly into the earth.

In the alpine meadows, the water picks up some of the scent of these wildflowers. All over the meadows are signs warning “Wasserschutzgebiet!” (Water Protection Area). However they do not say what you are allowed/not allowed to do. (You should probably know)

Cows in the meadows eat the buttercups (keeping that nasty buttercup flavor out of the water).

Water then flows into this valley between the Schneeberg (to the left) and the Rax (right). We saw some water marks along the cliffs, so presumably the water is flowing through caves in the mountains where elves in lederhosen purify the water with their magical powers.

From a sparklingly cold blue river where Austrian hikers wash off the sweat of a day’s mountain-climbing (I swear we didn’t see any no-swimming signs), the water flows into this canal that heads off towards Vienna.