Travel Blog Planet

Interior and exterior view of the rooms

If you’re looking for an original place to stay, want to save some money or perhaps you just appreciate the minimalist approach to accommodation, how about bedding down in a drainage pipe? With all the amenities of course! Situated in a small campsite next to the Danube River in Ottensheim, Austria, art school graduate Andreas Strauss has created a series of basic rooms, made from (thankfully new) concrete drainage pipes.
While the rooms are basic, these concrete tubes offer all the conveniences of a budget hotel room: a double bed with storage, power and 24 hour check in (via a key pad safety code sent by email). Bathrooms and cold showers are available just in front of the rooms, which (keeping in the same style) have also been made out of concrete tubes.  While there is no onsite restaurant, there is a small café just a few hundred meters from the rooms, in addition to many restaurants available in the town centre.
Rooms are rented on an honesty system, with visitors paying what they wish. The result is a not only a bargain priced, simple lodging, but also one with a low environmental impact. 
Plans are already underway to create more, similar lodgings across the country; an idea that could spread around the world. 

DasPark Hotel
Donaulände 21
4100 Ottensheim, Austria 

Related Posts: 

Five Favourites in Vienna, Austria 

Do it Yourself Sound of Music Tour in Saltzburg, Austria 

Innsbruck,  Autsria 

Photo Credit: DasPark Hotel

From Anne-Sophie Redisch of Sophie’s World

Whenever I’m in Vienna, I try to stay at Pension Nossek, one of my favourite B&Bs anywhere. On elegant pedestrianised Graben Street, just metres away from Stephansplatz and the Imperial Palaces at Hofburg, it’s in the heart of the Austrian capital. You would be hard pressed to find a more central location in Vienna.

At this family-run pension, it’s easy to feel transported back in time – from 2010 to 1910, perhaps? Or even as far back as 1781. That’s when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived in this building, walked the hallways, slept, worked, lived, loved. From September 1781 to July 1782, Graben Street 17 was his home. It gives me a great thrill to open the heavy wooden door with my own key (which you must after 9 pm) and walk up the narrow, winding stairway, knowing that he must have done the same, almost 230 years ago.

Back in the present, Pension Nossek offers several types of rooms, from simple single rooms with a shower (but with toilets in the hallway) for EUR 62, to double ensuite rooms for EUR 115. There’s also a suite for EUR 150. The bright, airy rooms are high-ceilinged and the long hallways have wooden floors and colourful Persian carpets. All rooms have TVs and wifi. Breakfast (included in the price) is continental – and ample, with the delicious, hard-crusted rolls known as semmeln, jams, meats and cheeses, coffee, tea and hot chocolate.

Pension Nossek does not accept credit cards. However, there are plenty of ATMs just out the door.

For other hotels in the centre of Vienna, have a look at this post.

Pension Nossek
Graben 17
1010 WIEN – Austria
tel + 43 (0) 1 533 70 41 – 0 
reservations@pension-nossek.at

Photos courtesy of Anne-Sophie Redisch