The Lainzer Tiergarten is the wildest thing inside Vienna's reach: a vast walled wood in the south-western corner of the Wienerwald, fenced since imperial times as a hunting ground, now a nature reserve where wild boar and deer move through old oaks. The city ends at the wall. Through the Lainzer Tor, it's gone.
The first practical thing: check the closing hour on the board at the gate. The Tiergarten opens and shuts with the daylight, and the walls are real. Then walk in — ancient oaks and beeches, marked paths, a quiet that the city doesn't otherwise offer. The middle of the walk is the Hermesvilla, the house Franz Joseph built for the Empress Elisabeth, his Sisi, hoping to keep her near Vienna; he called it her palace of dreams and she came rarely. Near the centre, the boar and deer in their enclosures stop everyone in their tracks.
Climb the Hubertuswarte on the Kaltbründlberg for the view over the treetops — the walk's one real ascent — then loop back through the forest to the gate, watching the posted closing time. The bus to Hietzing waits outside the wall.
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