University of California - Davis: Vienna - Crossroads of Central Europe

Vienna, one of Europe’s most magnificent capitals, is our home base. We hike the Austrian Alps and take a boat trip along the Danube River through the stunningly beautiful Wachau winegrowing region, a UNESCO world heritage site. Gateway to eastern Europe, Vienna saw epic battles between Christians and Muslims, as Ottoman Turks advanced west. Mozart and Beethoven composed in Vienna, a musical capital home to more classical composers than any other city. Sigmund Freud and Gustav Klimt made Vienna the birthplace of “modernity” around 1900. For centuries a center of Jewish culture, Vienna saw the destruction of its flourishing Jewish community after Nazi annexation in 1938. We visit Austria’s most notorious concentration camp, Mauthausen. In the Cold War, Vienna, officially “neutral,” became a United Nations headquarter — and a hotbed of international espionage. With the fall of the iron curtain, it is again a meeting point between East and West.