Laaer Wald

The Laaer Berg’s peak was originally covered with mixed downy oak woods, which were gradually destroyed in the late 17th and 18th century to make space for brickworks.Some brick ponds developed from the clay pits throughout the process.The Sascha film business (thus the name Filmteich ) filmed epic pictures (silent films) such as “Sodom and Gomorrah” and “The Slave Queen” on the southern slope of the Laaer Berg in the early 1920s.

The majority of the Laaer Berg was formerly forest-free and home to a Pannonian flora peculiar to Vienna.There was an incredible wealth of species due to the contrast of dry grassland and damp regions.When Vienna’s green belt was designed in 1905, the objective was to reforest 234 hectares of forest on the Laaer Berg.However, this project was finally launched in 1953, after a 50-year wait, on a 40-hectare plot.However, due to the geological situation and dryness of the gravel soil, there were serious failures, and after three years, only one-tenth of the trees grown were still alive.As a result, the city, unwilling to abandon the project, had big excavated ditches filled with dirt and the trees planted there artificially irrigated at tremendous expense.Over 270,000 trees and plants were planted here between 1956 and 1970.It wasn’t until 1982 that the now-mature woodland was opened to the public.

Hiking routes and a bird sanctuary were built as part of the reforestation of the two old brick ponds Butterteich and Blauer Teich, which are now home to over 50 bird species.The Laa Forest has been open to the public as a leisure area since 1982.The approximately 40-hectare area has been walled in and will be closed at midnight.Access to the Bohemian Prater is available via Laaer-Wald-Strasse, Klemens-Dorn-Gasse, and Laaer-Berg-Strasse.Visitors may enjoy a children’s playground, seating areas, and an observation platform at the butter pond.Since 2006, the city of Vienna has had a big, traditional, wood-carved gate from the Romanian Maramures (under the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, part of the Máramures County, in German then sometimes called Marmarosh) in the north.