Address
Strombucht Vienna
GPS
48.220555424445, 16.430912017822
Level of difficulty 2 paddles | Gastronomy 3 pitchers | Length 6.4 km | Time 1.5 - 2 hours
The Danube metropolis offers a spacious paddling paradise around the famous Gänsehäufel, which offers a lot of different charms between the skyline and the bathing lake idyll.
General information
Navigation rules
In summer there is often a lot going on by the water. While many swimming areas are demarcated, there are a variety of watercraft to keep in mind. Paddle on sight, avoid the banks on busy midsummer days and avoid other water sports enthusiasts on a large scale.
Dangers and risks
Vienna can be very windy, especially in summer, and it's the same on the Old Danube. Especially in the high season you should check the wind first, because winds from the north, the west and in between can quickly reach 30 km/h (16 kts). Then paddling becomes torture or even impossible.
On hot and beautiful days, the water is crowded here. All kinds of hand-operated and motor-powered watercrafts share the water with countless bathers. So you have to be careful when you're out and about.
Directions
Coming from the south, take the Südwesttangente A 23 and take the exit onto the A 22 in the direction of Praha (Prague)/Vienna Int. Center. After approx. 1.6 km, take the Kaisermühlen exit and follow the road for 450 m to the next crossing on the right. Here you make a sharp right onto Kaisermühlendamm Street and follow it for 600 m until you reach the entrance to Dampfschiffhaufen Street. After about 400 more meters you will find the Strombucht Bay on the left.
You can also take public transport to get to the Strombucht.
The current timetables for public transport (Wiener Linien) can be found online.
Optimal bus, train and flight connections to Vienna can be found on the comparison portals Omio and RailEurope.
Parking
You can park your car on Dampfschiffhaufen Street in front of the Strombucht Bay for a fee (free on Sundays and public holidays). When the weather is nice, however, you should be here before 9 a.m. so that you can even get a parking space.
Swimming
As a city on the water, Vienna offers countless bathing opportunities. The Gänsehäufel public bath on the Old Danube is Vienna's top address when it comes to bathing in nature. But besides the Old Danube there are numerous others possibilities to enjoy and relax in the water.
If it is too cold to swim outside, you can always take a dip in the Therme Wien Spa in Oberlaa (10th district).
Tour
From the Strombucht Bay once around the Gänsehäufel and into the Kaiserwasser and back again.
Length
6,4 km
Time
1.5 - 2 hours
Start and landing
Strombucht Bay on the Old Danube.
SUP rental
SUP Center Vienna – Gänsehäufelbad
Moissigasse 21, 1220 Vienna
Phone +43 (0)660 8343759
Boats2Sail
Am Kaisermühlendamm 106, 1220 Vienna
Phone +43 (0)660 6151 204
Sailing school Hofbauer Alte Donau
An der Oberen Alten Donau 186, 1220 Wien
Phone +43 (0)660 6151 204
Flotus - Stand Up Paddling
Labellweg 19, 1220 Vienna
Snowboard – Surf – Shop
Favoritenstrasse 28 1040 Vienna
Phone +43 (1) 606 79 88
Between skyline and beach hut
The area around the Alte Donau (Old Danube) is a popular local recreation area in Vienna and is accordingly in great demand and overcrowded, especially on nice days. From this point of view, we are lucky today, because despite the rainy weather upon our arrival, soon the sun will appear and shine on us and the deserted water.
The access to the Strombucht Bay which was opend in 2016 is free of charge. It is also very easy to find for people who are not familiar with the area and as you drive into Dampfschiffhaufenstraße street, you inevitably ask yourself whether you are really in Vienna or at a bathing lake somewhere in the country. Here in the north-east of the Austrian capital, beach and holiday cottages line up next to each other and are surrounded by bathing lawns. Only when you step out onto the water does the skyline of the Donaucity appear on the left over the cottages and boat docks in the reeds.
Although this tributary of the Danube is known as the Old Danube, it no longer has much in common with the original course of the river up to the 18th century, which was constantly altered by floods and ran through the city with countless canals. Today the Danube is tamed and regulated, so that the Old Danube no longer has direct access to the main arm of the river. It feeds mainly on groundwater.
We enter this body of water by the Venedig Steg (Venice Jetty) at the Strombucht sunbathing lawn. The bathing place is accessible free of charge and spacious, but pay particular attention to duck and swan excrement lying in the meadow. If you don't like the Venice jetty, you can also embark at the two flat water accesses between the bushes.
We paddle the Lower Old Danube first to the right towards the Polizeisteg (police jetty) and enjoy the shore vegetation and the cute little houses as well as the small boat docks on the shore. The wind blows against us with about 3 Bft, but we enjoy free travel on the empty Danube water.
There is a small barrier in the water directly below the police jetty, apparently so that unwelcome sea plants do not multiply uncontrollably in this basin of the Old Danube. However, you can easily paddle through the sticks sticking out of the water by pushing them aside with the nose of your board. Even for seasoned paddlers like us there is always something new to discover - we have never seen such a construction before.
After the jetty we turn right and pass colorful small lake houses. We imagine being in southern Italy or Greece, but it's hard to believe that we're in a big city. Our goal is to circumnavigate the Gänsehäufel public bath and that's why we soon turn left again, where we are again greeted by the headwind. For the next kilometer we paddle past the east bank of the city's largest bathing island and occasionally meet an oncoming electric boat while the terrace of the bar Das Bootshaus (The Boat House) slowly fills up with guests. Here you can not only have breakfast by the water, but also enjoy yoga on the jetty.
Unfortunately, we won't enjoy much relaxation today, because the wind produces enough waves and forces us to paddle hard at times. But in front of the Kagran Bridge we will be rewarded with a great view of the towers of the Donaucity from the open water. We already know the Austria Center, the United Nations Building as well as the Danube Tower from photos anyway. Now we paddle past them and under the Kagran Bridge and into the Upper Old Danube. Here you can not only SUP, but also sail in the middle of the city. A little further ahead, the Hofbauer sailing school even offers trial courses and back again.
Although you could paddle on three more kilometers to the Floridsdorf Water Park, today we are satisfied with the half-distance, so to speak, and turn back under the subway bridge.
We pass the small marinas and direct our SUP boards towards the Kaiserwasser ahead of us. Today, this small tributary forms the northern edge of the district Kaisermühlen, which some German speaking readers will surely recognize from the television series Kaisermühlen Blues from the 1990ies.
First we glide between the reed banks and under the small footbridge and after about 100 m we end up in the large basin. Directly in front of and under the skyscrapers you quickly feel quite small and the gathering clouds set up a mystical background. Unfortunately, we have to turn back, because the Kaiserwasser is more like a lake than a side arm with entrance and exit at different points. So we paddle back to the pedestrian bridge and turn right to continue the circumnavigation of the Gänsehäufel again, which will therefore be completed in a few minutes.
Here, too, there are countless boat docks, water sports clubs, rental stations and pubs between the private homes of well-heeled Viennese. We had hoped that our initial headwind would now turn into a tailwind. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and we paddle back to the Strombucht without any wind.
In about an hour and a half we got a good impression of this spacious paddling paradise in the middle of Vienna and will definitely stop by again and explore the Upper Old Danube.
Alternative: After the Kagran Bridge, the tour can be continued three kilometers west to the Floridsdorf Water Park. So for a round trip you have to reckon with about 6 km and over an hour more on the water.
