Heatwave in Vienna, Austria

Prior to coming to Vienna, I was visiting Berlin, Germany for 11 days, where 75% of the days, the weather was cloudy and  rainy. Majority of temperatures was always around 18 to 22C, so for the middle of July, that's quite cold, especially for someone like me who's used to Hawaii temperatures.

I guess after complaining that much, I got my wish and instead of cooler weather, I got extremely hot weather in Vienna for the entire week that I stayed in the city. Amazingly, the temperatures during the week would be anywhere from 35 to 38C (which is around 90 to 99 degrees F).

I spoke with some Austrians, and they tell me that it doesn't usually get that hot, that summers in Austria should be average around 29C with maybe a day or two at 32C. But to have a stretch of 6 days at around 37C is quite hot for the city, as there was not much wind as well. 

Since Vienna is not located next to a sea or ocean, how do the Viennese cool off?

Luckily, the Danube River runs across the city.

And so like a local Viennese, I spent most of my days going to the river, instead of doing tourist activities in the city center (where the air was still and hot).

The Danube River is clean enough to jump in and swim and you can enter into the river anywhere you'd like along the river, however there are areas where there is steps to easily let you get in and out of the river.

Most people will take the U-bahn metro up to Donauinsel on the red line. Another way to get there is taking the purple line to Donaustadtbrücke. Also from Donaustadtbrücke metro, many people will take Bus 92B down to Raffineriestraße / Biberhaufenweg stop and walk across the bridge to go to another part of the river where it's okay to be nudist along the river there (FKK in the local term).

What I Did in Evening While It was Hot?

So naturally, when I returned to my Airbnb in Vienna when it was hot, luckily my host was also a Game of Thrones fan, so I caught up with the first 3 episodes that I had missed while traveling.

Couple with that, my host also set-up some servers to mine for cryptocurrencies ... of course, those servers running all the time generate heat, so that explains why the kitchen and apartment ended up being hot as well!

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Have you experienced a heat wave before in an European city?

Let me know below!

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