A Walk through the Woods

Hiking outside Vienna

Kahlenberg is a mountain——some might say a glorified hill——that promises travelers beautiful views of Vienna and of its surroundings if they can only complete a moderate hike to the mountain-hill’s peak. I did this hike on an overcast day, a slight chill in the air, taking a tram to its last stop to find the path to the summit.

The path was strewn with fallen leaves that had been trodden into a brown pulp, so that following the path was like walking over wilted spinach. The path was bordered by trees planted so closely together that their branches blotted out the sun, which already needed to fight through the mass of gray clouds above. The beginning of the path takes hikers past a graveyard, where a tall brick wall had been erected to keep people from thinking about death.

Ahead of me, a crow landed on a telephone wire. A moment later, it released a glob of white excrement.

Snaking through the shadows of the trees along the path was an artificial stream, dug to dispose of runoff water. This stream was choked with leaves and twigs and mud that congealed into a paste so thick that the water could sometimes only trickle by in rivulets on either side of the glutinous mass.

At one point, the path ran past a vineyard. The branches were, by this late season, barren of fruit, and the few leaves that remained were yellow and festering. It looked more like a graveyard than a vineyard. The trees lining the path here stood like soldiers at attention, their bark as white as bone. They could have been set dressing for a Halloween movie. Fittingly, a stone’s throw up the slope sat a little white cottage that had been swallowed by trees and bushes, seemingly the home of a cloistered witch.

At some point, the lines of trees abated, and the sun fought its way through clouds enough to shine. Although the leaves in the vineyard were dying, in the light, the yellow looked almost happy.

Another crow fluttered overhead and landed on a branch, holding a nut in its beak. As I watched, the bird let its prize fall to the ground with a crack. The bird fluttered down and nosed the shell to check whether it had cracked. It had not. But the bird, undeterred, reassumed the nut and flew off to try again.

This far into the hike, the runoff stream still slithered alongside the path. But it was now deeper into the hill, and you could hardly see it, so buried was it amidst the shadows of the trees. Sometimes it was so quiet that you could almost forget it was there. Almost.

Eventually, I reached the top of the mountain-hill. Vienna lay in the distance, gray and red and green and yellow. A bird flitted across the sky. The Danube coursed alongside the city, a gray-blue ribbon. The view was obscured somewhat by a mist that had settled over the city, making everything less clear, even with the sun having fought through the clouds. But despite all that, it was beautiful.