Let's travel together #336 - Historical Flak Tower Exhibition (Haus des Meeres, Vienna)

Last time when I made a post about one of the biggest discoveries during my trip to Vienna, Austria, I mentioned Haus des Meeres that was a true delight to our eyes for a couple of hours.

Even if we sort of knew of this aquarium before from the popular posts we've seen shared on social media with cool places from around the globe, we did not know that there is a lot more to be seen than lots of aquariums representing homes for thousands of species.

The first surprise came when we ran into a temporary exhibition showing the endless fight against pollution, making my hopes reduce drastically after the enormous records broke yearly with even more plastic and garbage thrown in the nature or waters.

However, today's post is about a different exhibition discovered still within the same building, so in case you are interested in the one about pollution, make sure to check my older post about it.

We were already on the tenth floor of the building slowly having our adventure coming to an end since the last floor is some sort of restaurant for which you need a booking in advance to make sure you will have a free table from where to enjoy a hot drink and admire the view over the city.
But just when we were ready to turn around and look for the elevator, we saw these stairs seeming like they were never really finished so my curious instinct was activated in a blink, wanting to see what I could find at the end of the path.
The posters accompanying the stairs were the first thing that influenced my thoughts making me think that we could possibly still find something and that it's not a place under renovation as it currently seems.
The posters were showing how the whole building looked in the past which represented a completely different thing than what it currently serves as.
As soon as I finished making my way to the top and noticed what was right around the corner, I made sure to first announce the group of friends I was travelling with, so they wouldn't miss this beautiful room that comes with exhibits from he World War II illustrating the original use of the flak tower that in the 21st century represent one of the most popular aquariums from Europe.

Still, within this room, we figured out that the panels accompanying the stairs show the construction phases of the Esterhazypark flak tower and that the way the stairs look is on purpose as it represents the single part of the tower that was preserved in its original condition.

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Genuine air surveillance and air defence artefacts such as an all-wave receiver, a distance measuring device, an air-raid siren, air-raid helmets and shooting reports are just a few of the elements that caught my attention from the start.

However, the exhibition is a lot more than that as every single item has its own story for those who have time to listen. Such as, after doing my research on the internet I figured out that this exhibition is meant to be visited only by guided tours so the stories won't be lost on the way. Either way, there was no one at the entrance not allowing us to visit it so I'm still happy I got to admire everything with my own eyes even if I had to complete my information by reading on the internet afterwards.

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The actual name of the exhibition is "Erinnern im Innern" (Remembering Inside) and it dates since 2019 when it was first arranged. Every single item within the exhibition was collected from the fields of airspace which surely come with lots of emotion along their stories.

In order to present a comprehensive and authentic picture of the time, tools from the civil society of that time are also included within the exhibition, remembering about gas masks, medical cutlery, children's toys, and Winter Relief Organization badges to name a few.

Some exhibits that seem less like belonging to the same scenery are the defused military equipment that bring to life pieces of the overall horror times, including a US aerial bomb, anti-aircraft grenades, a bazooka, bomb detonators, and hand grenades.

And if this is not enough, keep in mind that the whole building used to represent a shelter for civilians during World War II so keeping the walls in their original shape after seeing and listening to so many things, makes it an even more authentic experience. Who would have thought that you get a new history lesson during your Aquarium expedition? It sure was a beautiful surprise!

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Historical Flak Tower Exhibition can be found within Haus des Meeres which is located in Esterhazy Park in the centre of Mariahilf district, one block south of the busy Mariahilfer Straße and it is open daily from 9 AM to 8 PM. In order to reach it, you can use either Subway U3 (Neubaugasse station) or one of the busses 13A, 14A, 57A until Haus des Meeres station.

Other places I've seen during my stay in Vienna:

• The Austrian Parliament Building
• Capuchin Church (Katholische Kapuzinerkirche "Hl. Maria von den Engeln")
• The tour of the Christmas Markets from Vienna, Austria
• Stadtpark
• Shop Windows of Vienna, Austria
• Hundertwasser House (Hundertwasserhaus)
• The Imperial Crypt
• Column of Pest (The Plague Column, Vienna, Austria)
• St. Charles's Church (Karlskirche)
• Schonbrunn Palace
• The Donauturm (Danube Tower)
• Café Gloriette, Schloss Schoenbrunn (Wien, Austria)
• Wurstelprater Vergnügungspark Amusement Park
• Schönbrunn Zoo (The World´s Oldest Zoo)
• St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom Cathedral)
• The Never-Ending Fight Against Pollution at Haus des Meeres (Vienna, Austria)
• Haus des Meeres (Aquarium in Vienna, Austria)
• Historical Flak Tower Exhibition (Haus des Meeres, Vienna)

more coming soon...

^{Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences. At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe. Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (300+ articles written on this field), but also approaching other topics as well, like game reviews, lets plays, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 750+ blog posts. Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, owning a YouTube channel for each of the two.}

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[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 48.19757 lat 16.35292 long History within an aquarium! d3scr))