Lainzer Tiergarten – Where the wild pigs roam

Want to leave the city and go for a walk, combined with a little thrill? Lainzer Tiergarten, a huge forest, part of the Wiener Wald, on the outskirts of Vienna might be the right thing.

Here you can walk for hours and – depending on which gate you take to enter the park – on weekdays sometimes you won’t meet any human beings, but: wild pigs! Chances are big when you go for a longer walk in this forest that you will see a few of the around 800 wild pigs living here. Boars are social animals, but only when thinking about their own group… We human beings should keep a respectful distance, especially when there are young boars and their caring “mothers”, but that’s only in spring time.

But even if you don’t encounter any game, the forest is worth visiting at any time of the year. And if you are fond of empress “Sissi”, then you should visit the beautiful Hermes Villa. Even the empress Elisabeth of Austria quite often preferred the countryside to downtown Vienna and had a little villa out here. A guided tour is really recommended as you will learn many details about the empress and her strange lifestyle and marriage. And there is a cafe as well to treat yourself after a walk or a tour.