Austria

Becki Enright has left London behind to move to the sizeable European city, which was once known for its grumpiness but has just been named the friendliest on the Continent

A Brit who swapped London for a European capital once known for grumpiness has explained why the city is actually one of the friendliest in the world.

In Vienna, the grizzly mood of locals is so renowned that there is not one, but two special words to describe it. One is ‘raunzen’, which means to grouch, crab, gripe, grouse or whimper fretfully, according to Langenscheidt.

The other is ‘Wiener Schmäh’ – what Brit Becki Enright describes as the unique kind of Viennese sarcasm and humour. “It can be hard to grasp and come across as blunt if you don’t quite get it,” the travel writer and guide explained.

According to Becki, the dark cloud that once hung over the Austrian capital has lifted, and its reputation as Europe’s grumpiest city is outdated. So much so, Vienna was just named the friendliest city in Europe by CNTraveller, which canvassed the opinions of half a million readers.

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Becki swapped London for Vienna ten years ago and has fallen in love with the city of two million. She argues that it deserves the top spot because of how welcoming it is as a place to live in general, rather than specifically how the Viennese treat tourists and one another.

“The general sense of friendliness comes from how clean, accessible, safe and culturally rich the city is,” she explained.

“Every city has its highlights, so it’s hard to compare. But Vienna’s quality of life is a stand-out factor. Rents are typically cheaper, with an emphasis on being outdoors and enjoying nature that’s on your doorstep. There’s great infrastructure and an affordable public transport system. The cuisine is based on farm-fresh and locally harvested ingredients, supporting local producers. The arts and music are a way of life; you are never short of cultural events to attend.”

Despite being home to over a fifth of Austria’s nine million-person population, Becki has found the pace of life in Vienna to be calm. “It’s not a chaotic metropolis; things move at a much slower pace here. This slower pace is a blessing in some aspects of life, though it may require patience in others.”

The city is also green – both in the environmental and literal sense. The public transport system is extensive and cheap for all. Children under six travel for free, as do youth up to 15 years old during the school holidays and on Sundays. A raft of similar other initiatives has seen Vienna ranked as the “greenest” metropolis in the world.

It’s also covered in parks, which may be the secret to the city’s new friendly reputation. Studies have shown that access to vegetation-rich parks and increases both happiness and productivity, especially following the coronavirus pandemic.

“Half of Vienna is green space,” Becki continued.

“There are free-to-enter palace gardens (Schönbrunn and Belvedere). In the centre, you have the Hofburg castle lawns and the city’s first public park, Stadtpark (which opened in 1862). Across the Danube, you have the largest recreational park, Prater (a former imperial hunting ground), best known for its Würstelprater fairground.

“Vienna is also the only European city growing significant amounts of wine in its city limits, so you can easily jump on public transport and be at a vineyard, or take one of the city’s 14 hiking trails, many of which track through the circumambient Vienna Woods.”

When it comes to hanging out in the sunnier months, such as July, when the average daily high is 27 °C, the riverbank is the place to go.

“While you can’t swim in the Danube, Vienna makes the most of its waterside hangouts. The Danube Canal is lined with bars and boat restaurants and the beach bar (Strandbar Herrmann). The banks of the Danube tributaries are the warmer-weather recreational hangouts,” Becki continued.

“The Neue Donau (New Danube) riverfront has a sand bank recreational hangout Copa Beach. The Alte Donau (Old Danube) is where you can hire pedal and motor boats or SUP on the waters. It’s also home to the recreational island, Strandbad Gänsehäufel, with swimming pools, bathing lawns, a little beach area and restaurants. Then you have the Donauinsel (Danube Island), which hosts a free music festival each June, the Donauinselfest.”

As pleasant as relaxing by the water and in the parks may be, come the evening, it’s time to head inside for a bite and a drink. Becki recommends Leopoldstadt, especially the area of the Karmeliterviertel that spills around the food market, for “casual-cool and indie hangouts” and the recently trendy Beisl pub, contemporary restaurant Skopik and Lohn for schnitzel.

“The districts that spread from the well-known Naschmarkt are what I would say are the grungy-trendy downtown areas, with boutique, upcycled and second-hand stores and a great spread of nightlife. The most well-known neighbourhood here is the Freihausviertel in the 4th (next to the Karlskirche) – home to the city’s generational cafe concept, Vollpension,” she continued.

“The 7th district is the most bougie and creative – one of my favourite bars is Atlas, a Beisl- turned-gastropub spalshed with art, and which features an art-gallery space at the back. In the 9th district, the Servitenviertel neighbourhood is dubbed ‘Little Paris’ and is lined with food outlets – I’d start at the converted pharmacy turned bakery, La Mercerie for a coffee and pastry.”

There are two main ways to get to Vienna from the UK. A train from London to the city typically takes 13 to 17 hours and requires two changes, as there are, unfortunately, no direct services. The journey involves operators like Eurostar, TGV, and ICE or ÖBB, with services running from London St Pancras International to Vienna Hbf.

There are direct flights from airports in Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, London, Liverpool and Edinburgh, which take between two and two and a half hours, and are available for from £15 this month.

I took to the slopes for the first time in the glorious Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Austria, and was left wondering why I’d waited so long to try skiing – but one piece of advice was useless

When I excitedly told friends I was off to Austria to ski for the very first time, nearly 30 years into my life, the seasoned skiers among them looked a little nervous. “It’s definitely easier to learn when you’re younger,” they warned me.

So I immediately did what any late millennial would do, and took to TikTok in the hope of becoming a pro skier without ever having set foot on the slopes. In the weeks leading up to the trip, I spent every spare minute watching ski instructors share their tips for beginners, before practising the techniques – static – in my living room.

However, it all began to feel very real when we arrived in Saalbach-Hinterglemm in the heart of the Austrian Alps, where the Alpine Ski World Championships were held back in February

We checked in to the uber-modern Wiesergut, a ski in, ski out hotel built on the site of a 14th-century manor, which looks like something straight out of Architectural Digest.

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My spacious bedroom exuded understated urban chic, with a soaring double-height ceiling, floor-to-ceiling windows and a sophisticated mix of natural materials like wood, stone and linen. Luxurious Aesop toiletries lined the bathroom shelves and, to my delight, there was even a Dyson Airwrap for fixing up soggy helmet hair. The room also came with its own fireplace and a hot tub.

I couldn’t get my skiwear on fast enough but, once dressed, I took one look in the mirror and felt like an imposter. Staring back at me was the definition of “all the gear, no idea”. Luckily, there was another newbie in the group and the pair of us headed out for a lesson on the baby slopes, just a stone’s throw away from Weisergut.

I quickly discovered that my TikTok ski lessons had taught me next to nothing, but soon got to grips with finding my balance, turning and slowing down – very important in order to avoid any Paltrow-esque ski crashes.

After two hours of “pizza and French frying” our way down the baby slopes, we’d certainly worked up an appetite, and 1,500 metres up Reiterkogel mountain, Wieseralm provided the perfect location to refuel. A sister to the Weisergut, the mountain restaurant offers alpine classics such as Kaiserschmarrn, cheese dumplings and Viennese schnitzel. We were treated to a host of other decadent delights including truffle carbonara, buttery mash, fillet steak and king prawns.

Each time we thought we were done, the servers brought out another course, each as impressive as the last, and they made sure our wine glasses were never empty. Forget skiing backdown the mountain – we could have just rolled down.

Some 30km away, nestled in the beautiful Leoganger mountain range, sits Priesteregg, a five-star eco resort with its own picturesque mountain village.

Sixteen charming chalets are dotted on a steep hillside, each adorned with scarlet geraniums in the window boxes, wooden deckchairs softened with sheepskin throws, flickering candles and log fires waiting to be lit.

Smiling girls in floral dirndls welcomed me with a hot coffee before I headed to the Priesteregg BAD (spa) for wellness treatments.

I went for a swim in the Himmelbecken, an outdoor infinity pool that offers a magnificent view of the Hochkönig mountain, before taking part in a yoga class on the terrace over looking it. The yoga instructor then took us through an incredible guided breathing session using the Wim Hof method in preparation for a cold plunge at the Naturbecken pool.

To my surprise, I enjoyed every second of the dip, and barely noticed the cold even as I climbed out into the rain. I don’t know if this was the effect of the breathwork, or if the breathtaking scenery simply offered the perfect distraction from the discomfort.

I’ve never slept more soundly than I did in my bedroom at the chalet. Situated on a high plateau facing the mountains, the chalets offer stunning views, including a glimpse of the nearby luminescent man-made glacial lake.

It’s hard to imagine a more indulgent start to the day than the Priesteregg breakfast, served in your chalet. You wake to the soft sounds of quiet preparation, and when you step into the living space, it has all been laid out – candles lit, coffee brewing and the table laden with platters of local ham and cheese, fresh fruit, yoghurt and still-warm breads and pastries. All that’s left for you to do is cook the eggs and bacon, if you fancy it.

The nearby town of Leogang is worth exploring, including Mama Thresl – Priesteregg’s cooler, more casual sister hotel – which provides easy access to the gondola for those wanting to ski or snowboard. But given Priesteregg’s panoramic mountain views, one-of-a-kind wellness area, incredible on-site cuisine and warm Austrian hospitality, it’s a wonder anyone would leave.

How to book

Rooms at Priesteregg Premium Eco Resort (priesteregg.at/en)start from £296 B&B per person, per night in a Berg MountainChalet (based on two sharing).

Rooms at Wiesergut (wiesergut.com) start from £332B&B per room, per night in a Manor Suite Bliss.

Rooms at MamaThresl (mama-thresl.com) start from £170B&B per room, for two people in a Wooden style double room.

‘You’re mad!” Caroline the greengrocer said cheerfully when I told her I was going skiing. A reasonable reaction since not so long ago I was shopping on crutches following a hip replacement. My sister’s friends were more concerned: “How old are you? 80? I don’t think this is a good idea. You’ll fall and break something.” My brother, Andrew, 86, decided it was better not to tell anyone.

For at least two decades I’d had a half-buried wish to experience one more ski trip. A final fix of blue sky, frosty air and the exhilaration that comes with finding yourself still intact at the bottom of a snow-covered slope. I was never much good, and hadn’t skied for decades, but that wasn’t the point. At 83, I needed to see if I could still do it. And if I could do it, how about inviting my sister, Kate, one-third of our Old Crones group who encourage each other to do parkrun each week? Then I remembered that, as teenagers, Andrew had joined me on my first ski holiday. That was 67 years ago, but Andrew used to be quite good, so I invited him too. My friend Penny, who is so absurdly young (67, so she says) that she doesn’t really count, was also allowed to come and try her luck with the oldies and practise her German. We all made an effort to get as fit as possible, but none of us had skied for at least 40 years.

Vienna, the capital of Austria, and Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, are just 31 miles apart and both have a lot to offer tourists

Europe’s two nearest capital cities are both stunning and merely 31 miles apart.

Vienna, Austria’s capital, and Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital are practically neighbours. Must-see spots in the Austrian capital feature Schönbrunn Palace, the former summer retreat of the Hapsburg dynasty; the gothic St Stephen’s Cathedral – and the Hofburg, which served as the Hapsburg’s main imperial residence and now houses the Spanish Riding School.

Additional draws include the magnificent St Stephen’s Cathedral, the Sigmund Freud Museum and the Staatsoper opera and ballet venue. Vienna boasts its own gastronomic treasures such as scrumptious chocolate and mouth-watering Wiener Schnitzels to satisfy food lovers. It’s also regularly listed amongst Europe’s most liveable destinations.

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One study conducted by the Economist found that Vienna possessed “an unsurpassed combination of stability, good infrastructure, strong education, and healthcare services, and plenty of culture and entertainment”.

The metropolis is also considered amongst the world’s cleanest and most environmentally-friendly, featuring numerous public gardens situated along the River Danube’s shores.

Just over an hour’s journey downstream lies Bratislava, which rivals Prague or Budapest whilst offering fewer tourists and lower costs, reports the Express.

The destination showcases aspects of medieval, Rococo, Baroque and 20th-century modernism, typical of most former communist capitals. The Old Town is a picture-perfect spot, with its pastel-coloured buildings and cobbled streets lined with cafes and restaurants.

OPINION

This is where you’ll find the majority of the city’s historic architecture. Bratislava Castle, perched on an isolated hill of the Little Carpathians, is arguably the city’s most significant landmark. Its size and location have made it a dominant feature of the landscape since it was first built in the 9th century.

The Town Hall, constructed in the 14th century, is another notable building. Michael’s Gate, the only remaining gate from the medieval fortifications, is one of the city’s oldest structures.

A more unusual landmark is Bratislava’s UFO Tower, which sits on the riverbank offering panoramic views of the city. It also houses a restaurant at the top.

Other capital cities that are close to each other include Rome and Vatican City in Italy, Pyong in North Korea and Seoul in South Korea, and Buenos Aires in Argentina and Montevideo in Uruguay.

ATHENS — The end of an exemption on tariff duties for low-value packages coming into the United States is causing multiple international postal services to pause shipping to the U.S. as they await more clarity on the rule.

The exemption, known as the “de minimis” exemption, allows packages worth less than $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free. A total of 1.36 billion packages were sent in 2024 under this exemption, for goods worth $64.6 billion, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Agency.

It is set to expire Friday. On Saturday, postal services around Europe announced that they are suspending the shipment of many packages to the United States amid confusion over new import duties.

Postal services in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Italy said they will stop shipping most merchandise to the U.S. effective immediately. France and Austria will follow Monday.

The U.K.’s Royal Mail said it would halt shipments to the U.S. on Tuesday to allow time for those packages to arrive before duties kick in. Items originating in the U.K. worth over $100 — including gifts to friends and family — will incur a 10% duty, it said.

“Key questions remain unresolved, particularly regarding how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future, what additional data will be required, and how the data transmission to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be carried out,” DHL, the largest shipping provider in Europe, said in a statement.

The company said that starting Saturday it “will no longer be able to accept and transport parcels and postal items containing goods from business customers destined for the U.S.”

A trade framework agreed on by the U.S. and the European Union last month set a 15% tariff on the vast majority of products shipped from the EU. Packages under $800 will now also be subject to the tariff.

The U.S. duty-free exemption for goods originating from China ended in May as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to curb American shoppers from ordering low-value Chinese goods. The exemption is being extended to shipments from around the world.

Many European postal services say they are pausing deliveries now because they cannot guarantee the goods will enter the U.S. before Aug. 29. They cite ambiguity about what kind of goods are covered by the new rules, and the lack of time to process their implications.

Postnord, the Nordic logistics company, and Italy’s postal service announced similar suspensions effective Saturday.

“In the absence of different instructions from US authorities … Poste Italiane will be forced, like other European postal operators, to temporarily suspend acceptance of all shipments containing goods destined for the United States, starting August 23. Mail shipments not containing merchandise will continue to be accepted,” Poste Italiane said in a statement Friday.

Shipping by services such as DHL Express remains possible, it added.

Bjorn Bergman, head of PostNord’s Group Brand and Communication, said the pause was “unfortunate but necessary to ensure full compliance of the newly implemented rules.”

In the Netherlands, PostNL spokesperson Wout Witteveen said the Trump administration is pressing ahead with the new duties despite U.S. authorities lacking a system to collect them. He said that PostNL is working closely with its U.S. counterparts to find a solution.

“If you have something to send to America, you should do it today,” Witteveen told the Associated Press.

Austrian Post, Austria’s leading logistics and postal service provider, stated that the last acceptance of commercial shipments to the U.S., including Puerto Rico, will take place Tuesday.

France’s national postal service, La Poste, said the U.S. did not provide full details or allow enough time for the French postal service to prepare for new customs procedures.

″Despite discussions with U.S. customs services, no time was provided to postal operators to re-organize and assure the necessary computer updates to conform to the new rules,″ it said in a statement.

PostEurop, an association of 51 European public postal operators, said that if no solution can be found by Aug. 29, all its members will probably follow suit.

Nellas and Anderson write for the Associated Press and reported from Athens and New York, respectively. AP writers Angela Charlton in Paris; Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki, Greece; Stephanie Lichtenstein in Vienna; Brian Melley in London and Molly Quell in Amsterdam contributed to this report.

Iran and European countries agree to resume nuclear talks next week despite threats of unilateral sanctions.

Iran and three major European powers have agreed to resume nuclear talks next week, even as the threat of revived sanctions looms.

Iranian state media reported on Friday that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a call with his French, British and German counterparts, during which they agreed deputy ministers would meet on Tuesday.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul confirmed the talks, warning that Europe was prepared to re-impose United Nations sanctions under the so-called “snapback” mechanism unless Iran committed to a verifiable and lasting deal. “Time is very short and Iran needs to engage substantively,” he said.

According to Iranian outlets, Araghchi rejected the threat, accusing the European trio of lacking “legal and moral competence” to trigger snapback sanctions and warning of consequences if they did so.

The three European governments, backed by the United States, have accused Tehran of advancing uranium enrichment in violation of international commitments and say its programme could be used to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran has said its work is strictly for civilian purposes, and Western governments have not provided any evidence that Tehran is weaponising its nuclear programme.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has said Iran remains far from building a nuclear weapon. In March, US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard testified that intelligence agencies had found no evidence of Iran moving towards a bomb.

Talks between Iran and the US collapsed in June after Washington and Israel attacked Iranian nuclear sites during a 12-day conflict.

Since then, IAEA inspectors have not been allowed into Iran’s facilities, despite the agency’s chief, Rafael Grossi, stressing that inspections are essential.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned the IAEA to abandon its “double standards” if it hopes to restore cooperation over the country’s nuclear programme, amid an acute mistrust following Israeli and US attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, and the UN nuclear watchdog’s refusal to condemn the strikes.

In July, Pezeshkian signed a law suspending Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA, with Tehran making it clear that it no longer trusts the agency to act impartially.

Negotiations between Tehran and the Europeans last took place in Geneva on June 20, while the fighting was still under way. Little progress was reported at the time.

Iran’s state broadcaster said an Iranian delegation would travel to Vienna on Friday to meet IAEA officials, but offered no further details.

Marquez continues his dominance of the 2025 season with a first Austrian GP crown as he closes in on the riders title.

Six-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez has marked the 1,000th premier class race in history by winning the Austrian Grand Prix for the first time in his career to take a mammoth 142-point lead over his brother Alex in the championship.

Having won Saturday’s sprint from the second row, Marquez claimed the sprint-race double on Sunday for the sixth Grand Prix in a row. The Spaniard has been unbeaten since the British Grand Prix in May.

Not since 2014 had Marquez claimed six consecutive Grand Prix wins as he moves closer to a seventh MotoGP crown with nine rounds remaining in the 2025 season.

Gresini Racing rookie Fermin Aldeguer found late race pace to finish second while Aprilia’s pole sitter Marco Bezzecchi, who kept Marquez at bay for as long as he could, finished third. Alex Marquez finished 10th after serving a long-lap penalty.

“Super, super happy to finally take the first victory here in Austria,” Marc Marquez said.

“I’m happy with six victories in a row, but [I need to] keep focus. Next week, we have another race.”

Bezzecchi had claimed his first pole with Aprilia on Saturday, and despite finishing fourth in the sprint, this time he had the perfect launch to lead Francesco Bagnaia and Marc Marquez into turn one.

The two Ducatis went side by side on lap one when Marc Marquez briefly overtook his teammate, but Bagnaia did not relent and took the place back to stay in second.

However, Marc Marquez made the same move on the next lap to take second and set his sights on Bezzecchi, waiting for the right opportunity to pounce.

“In the first part he [Bezzecchi] was super strong, but then I just waited. I tried in the beginning, but it was too risky. Then I preferred to wait and attack in the end,” the winner added.

Alex Marquez had a poor start, and with a long-lap penalty to serve for causing a crash at the Czech Grand Prix, the younger Marquez sibling fell out of the top 10 when he rejoined the field.

Marquez pressure

Bezzecchi soaked up the pressure, but the Aprilia rider was unable to shake off the red Ducati hunting him down.

Bagnaia was struggling with his bike, and he eventually faded, giving way to KTM’s Pedro Acosta and Aldeguer as the two youngsters fought for third.

Bagnaia had been undefeated in Austria for three years, but he was a shadow of the ringmaster who had dominated at the Red Bull Ring since 2022 as he was bumped down to eighth.

Marquez finally attacked on lap 19 and squeezed past the Aprilia, but Bezzecchi put his head down and took first place back from the Spaniard, eager to deny him a first victory at the Red Bull Ring.

But Marquez was on the ascendancy, and he finally broke Bezzecchi’s resistance on the next lap, using the Aprilia’s slipstream to dive into turn one and take the lead.

As Bezzecchi made a futile attempt to reel Marquez in, Aldeguer made a play for second place, and the Gresini rookie made his move with five laps to go on turn one to slot in behind Marquez.

Marquez responded to the challenge and kept Aldeguer at bay to take the chequered flag, but the rookie was over the moon with his best result in MotoGP.

“I’m super happy because at the end, Austria is not one of my favourite tracks like Le Mans,” he said. “Making two podiums on bad tracks for me is incredible.”

The 14th round of the MotoGP world championship will be held at Balaton Park in Hungary next weekend.

In the late 1950s, Norwegian toymaker Asmund Laerdal received an unusual brief: to design a life-like mannequin that resembled an unconscious patient.

Peter Safar, an Austrian doctor, had just developed the basics of CPR, a lifesaving technique that keeps blood and oxygen flowing to the brain and vital organs after the heart has stopped beating.

He was eager to teach it to the public, but had a problem – the deep chest compressions often resulted in fractured ribs, which meant practical demonstrations were impossible.

It was in his search for a solution that he was introduced to Laerdal, an intrepid innovator then in his forties who possessed extensive knowledge of soft plastics, honed through years of work with children’s toys and model cars. He had even begun to collaborate with the Norwegian Civil Defence to develop imitation wounds for training purposes.

Laerdal, who had rescued his son from drowning by applying pressure to his ribcage and pushing water out of his lungs just a few years earlier, was eager to help, and the two decided to create a training model.

The Norwegian toymaker had a vision: It needed to look unthreatening, and assuming that men would not want to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a male dummy, it should be a woman.

So he went looking for a face.

The unknown woman of the Seine

It was on the wall of his parents-in-law’s home in the picturesque Norwegian city of Stavanger that he found it.

It was an oil painting of a young woman, her hair parted and gathered at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were closed peacefully, her lashes matted, and her lips curled in a faint, sorrowful smile.

This was a face which, in the form of a plaster cast, had adorned homes across Europe for decades.

There are many rumours as to how the original mask was created, but one story that has cemented itself as urban legend is that it was of a woman who had supposedly drowned in the Seine River in 19th-century Paris.

In the French capital at the time, it was common for the bodies of the deceased who could not be identified to be placed on black marble slabs and displayed in the window of the city’s morgue situated near Notre Dame Cathedral.

The purpose of this practice was to see if any members of the public would recognise the deceased and be able to provide information about them. Yet, in reality, it became a morbid attraction for Parisians.

As the story goes, a pathologist, struck by her beauty and serene expression, commissioned a sculptor to produce a death mask of her face, a plaster or wax mould of a person made shortly after death.

No documents survive in the Paris police archives, and it is impossible to verify the truth of this story.

However, a sculpture of the supposed death mask captured the public’s imagination, and reproductions of it began to circulate in the early 20th century.

Her face soon decorated Parisian salons and wealthy people’s homes.

The visage was known as L’Inconnue de la Seine – the Unknown Woman of the Seine – and it became a muse for writers, poets, and artists.

The French writer Albert Camus called her the “drowned Mona Lisa”, while the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke said of her serene expression, “It was beautiful, because it smiled, because it smiled so deceptively, as if it knew.”

Resusci Anne

It is not known whether Laderdal was aware of the legend behind the painting in Stavanger, but in 1960, he gave it new life when the first CPR doll was officially launched with the subject’s face.

The doll was given a soft plastic torso – a compressible chest for practising CPR – and open lips for mouth-to-mouth rescue.

She travelled around the world, appearing in fire stations, schools, hospitals, scout groups, and airline training centres, where she was used for CPR training.

She was also finally given a name, “Resusci Anne,” by Laerdal, a shortening of the word “resuscitation”. Anne is a common female name in Norway and France, which suggests that by this stage, the toymaker was aware of the legend behind the face. In the English-speaking world, she became known as “CPR Annie”.

“Annie, are you OK?” became the go-to training phrase as people simulated how to check for responsiveness in the event of a cardiac arrest.

In the 1980s, about a century after Annie was reported to have been found in the Seine, Michael Jackson immortalised her in pop culture.

As the story goes, the superstar heard the phrase during a first aid training session and, struck by the rhythm and urgency of it, worked it into the chart-topping song, Smooth Criminal, repeating it like a heartbeat: “Annie, are you OK? So, Annie, are you OK? Are you OK, Annie?”

‘She would be proud’

Laerdal died in 1981, but the company he founded, Laerdal Medical, continues to be a juggernaut in emergency medical training and the development of cutting-edge healthcare technology.

Annie herself has received technological upgrades, including flashing lights, lung feedback, and sensors that indicated if compressions were off-rhythm.

But her face stayed the same.

Pal Oftedal, director of Corporate Communications at Laerdal Medical, says that regardless of whether the story behind Annie is true, she has had a positive impact on engaging people worldwide in the lifesaving practice of CPR.

He said that one in 20 people would witness a cardiac arrest in their lifetime, with 70 percent occurring outside the home.

The American Heart Association says that immediate CPR can double or even triple a person’s chance of survival after a cardiac arrest.

Annie has been joined by a new selection of mannequins featuring a range of ethnicities, ages, body types, and facial features as Laderdal seeks to diversify its product offerings.

Laerdal Medical estimates that Annie and her fellow resuscitation mannequins have been used to train more than 500 million people worldwide.

Oftedal says that he believes whoever Annie was, he is sure “she would be proud of the important contribution she has made to the world”.

This article is part of ‘Ordinary items, extraordinary stories’, a series about the surprising stories behind well-known items. 

Read more from the series:

How the inventor of the bouncy castle saved lives

How a popular Peruvian soft drink went ‘toe-to-toe’ with Coca-Cola

Felix Baumgartner’s fatal paragliding crash was preceded by large boom as it spun to the ground, according to witnesses.

Beachgoers knew something was wrong when they heard a loud boom ring out as a paraglider spun out of control, before killing its only occupant, extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner, when it crashed next to a swimming pool near the Adriatic Sea.

A 30-year-old mother watched the deadly descent unfold Thursday afternoon from nearby with her two young children, who were entranced by the constant traffic of paragliders above the beach town of Porto Sant’Elipido in central Italy’s Marche region.

“Everything was normal, then it started to spin like a top,’’ Mirella Ivanov said on Friday. “It went down and we heard a roar. In fact, I turned around because I thought it crashed on the rocks. Then I saw two lifeguards running, people who were running toward” the crash site.

When she saw people trying to revive the occupant, she hustled her two children away.

The city’s mayor confirmed the death of 56-year-old Baumgartner, who was renowned as the first skydiver to fall faster than the speed of sound. The cause of the paragliding accident was under investigation. Police did not return calls asking for comment.

“It is a destiny that is very hard to comprehend for a man who has broken all kinds of records, who has been an icon of flight, and who travelled through space,” Mayor Massimiliano Ciarpella told The Associated Press.

Ciarpella said that Baumgartner had been in the area on vacation, and that investigators believed he may have fallen ill during the fatal flight.

Baumgartner’s social media feed features videos of him in recent days flying on a motorised paraglider – known as paramotoring – above seaside towns, and taking off from a nearby airfield surrounded by cornfields.

The Clube de Sole Le Mimose beachside resort where the crash occurred said in a statement that an employee who was “slightly injured” in the accident was in good condition. No guests were injured, and the pool has been reopened.

In 2012, Baumgartner, known as “Fearless Felix,” became the first human to break the sound barrier with only his body. He wore a pressurised suit and jumped from a capsule hoisted more than 24 miles (39 kilometres) above Earth by a giant helium balloon over New Mexico.

The Austrian, who was part of the Red Bull Stratos team, topped out at 843.6 mph (1,357.6km/h) – the equivalent of 1.25 times the speed of sound – during a nine-minute descent. At one point, he went into a potentially dangerous flat spin while still supersonic, spinning for 13 seconds, his crew later said.

In 2012, millions watched YouTube’s livestream as Baumgartner coolly flashed a thumbs-up when he came out of the capsule high above Earth and then activated his parachute as he neared the ground, lifting his arms in victory after he landed.

Baumgartner’s altitude record stood for two years until Google executive Alan Eustace set new marks for the highest free-fall jump and greatest free-fall distance.

Baumgartner, a former Austrian military parachutist, made thousands of jumps from planes, bridges, skyscrapers and famed landmarks, including the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil.

In 2003, he flew across the English Channel in a carbon fibre wing after being dropped from a plane.

In recent years, he performed with The Flying Bulls, an aviation team owned and operated by Red Bull, as a helicopter stunt pilot in shows across Europe.

Red Bull paid Baumgartner tribute in a post Friday, calling him “precise, demanding and critical. With others, but above all toward yourself.”

The statement underlined the research and courage with which Baumgartner confronted “the greatest challenges.”

“No detail was too small, no risk too great, because you were capable of calculating it,’’ Red Bull said.

The legendary daredevil, best known for his record-breaking jump from the stratosphere, lost control of his paraglider and crashed into a hotel pool.

Renowned extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner, most famous for jumping from a record 39 kilometres (24 miles) at the edge of space in the 2012 Red Bull Stratos project, has died in a paragliding accident in Italy on Thursday.

The 56-year-old Austrian crashed his paraglider in Porto Sant’Elpidio, situated on the Italian Adriatic coast, after losing control and plunged into a wooden structure next to a swimming pool of the Le Mimose Family Camping Village, according to Italian media reports.

A female hotel employee was injured by a piece of debris and taken to hospital with neck injuries.

Baumgartner died at the scene of the accident, and investigations into the circumstances of the accident are under way.

Italian media reported that Baumgartner had already lost consciousness in the air.

The city’s mayor, Massimiliano Ciarpella, confirmed Baumgartner’s death in a social media post.

“Our community is deeply affected by the tragic disappearance of Felix Baumgartner, a figure of global prominence, a symbol of courage and passion for extreme flight,” the mayor said.

Just two hours before his deadly crash, he posted on the social media platform Instagram with the foreboding caption “too much wind”.

From skydiving to the stratosphere

Born in Salzburg, Baumgartner completed his first parachute jump at the age of 16 and later became a parachutist in the Austrian military.

Baumgartner’s reputation as an extreme sports athlete grew exponentially when he turned his hand to the sport of base jumping in the 1990s.

He set a new world record for the highest base jump from a building with his leap from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1999. Later that year, he completed a base jump from the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

On July 31, 2003, Baumgartner again made global headlines for his base jumping feats when he became the first person to cross the English Channel in free fall after jumping out of a plane equipped with specially developed wings made of carbon.

But it was Baumgartner’s record-breaking free fall from space in 2012 that shot the Austrian to worldwide fame.

Over the desert of New Mexico, he jumped from a helium balloon almost 39km (24 miles) above the planet and became the first person to break the sound barrier in free fall.

Baumgartner set three world records for his jump: He reached a maximum speed of 1,357.6 kilometres per hour (834mph), or Mach 1.25; completed the highest jump at 38,969 metres; and recorded the longest free fall with a length of 36,402 metres.

His death was confirmed late on Thursday by the energy drink company Red Bull, which sponsored many of Baumgartner’s stunts.

Christian Horner has been sacked as Red Bull team principal with immediate effect after 20 years, the Red Bull Racing Formula One team announced on Wednesday.

The 51-year-old oversaw a period of dominance by the team, winning the drivers’ championship eight times – including the past four titles with Max Verstappen  – and adding six constructors’ crowns.

Who will replace Horner at Red Bull Racing?

Horner, who has been in charge of Red Bull since the team was formed in 2005, will be replaced by the principal of sister team Racing Bulls, Laurent Mekies.

A motorsport aerodynamics specialist, the French-born Mekies entered Formula One in the early 2000s and had stints working with Arrows, Minardi, Toro Rosso and Ferrari before joining Racing Bulls as team principal in 2024.

“I think he has a very, very good understanding of the business, having started as an engineer and then worked at the FIA,” said Fred Vasseur, current F1 team principal at Ferrari, when Mekies left the famous Italian team in July 2023.

No reason given for Horner sacking

Horner was sacked as Red Bull’s team principal with immediate effect.

The team’s official media statement, released on Wednesday, reads:

“Red Bull has released Christian Horner from his operational duties with effect from today [Wednesday, July 9, 2025] and has appointed Laurent Mekies as CEO of Red Bull Racing. Oliver Mintzlaff, CEO Corporate Projects and Investments, thanked Christian Horner for his exceptional work over the last 20 years.”

“We would like to thank Christian Horner for his exceptional work over the last 20 years,” said Mintzlaff. “With his tireless commitment, experience, expertise and innovative thinking, he has been instrumental in establishing Red Bull Racing as one of the most successful and attractive teams in Formula 1. Thank you for everything, Christian, and you will forever remain an important part of our team history.”

Martin Brundle, an ex-F1 driver, current race commentator and friend of Horner, told Sky Sports News:

“I am due to speak to Christian later. I put a message to him saying, ‘I am sorry to read this, can we have a chat before I am due to go on TV because I want to know more about it from his point of view’.

“He wasn’t able to do that. What he did say was that no reason was given to him as to why he is being released.”

A difficult 18 months for Horner

Horner’s dismissal follows a challenging period on several fronts for the team principal.

His exit from the team comes nearly a year-and-a-half after it was leaked that a female employee had accused Horner of sexual harassment and coercive, controlling behaviour. Horner was twice cleared of the claims by Red Bull headquarters, situated in Austria.

At the same time, Max Verstappen’s father, Jos, called for Horner to leave his position and claimed that the Briton’s presence could tear the team apart in a March 4, 2024, interview.

Jos told The Daily Mail that “there is tension while he remains in position”, referring to Horner.

He added, “The team is in danger of being torn apart. It can’t go on the way it is. It will explode. He is playing the victim when he is the one causing the problems.”

The early-2025 departure of Adrian Newey – the former chief technology officer of Red Bull Racing and widely considered one of the greatest motorsport designers in F1 – to rival team Aston Martin was a huge loss to the Milton Keynes-based team and to Horner personally.

Newey had joined Red Bull in 2006, just months after Horner’s appointment, with the pair forming one of the most successful F1 management partnerships in history.

How successful was Horner as Red Bull boss?

Under Horner’s leadership, Red Bull won their first world championship in 2010, with German driver Sebastian Vettel taking the first of four consecutive drivers’ titles.

Following a multiyear period of dominance by archrival Mercedes, Red Bull, this time with Max Verstappen of the Netherlands as their star driver, entered a second championship window, winning four more drivers’ titles consecutively from 2021 to 2024.

In 2023, Horner presided over the most dominant season in Formula One history, with the team winning 21 of 22 races, and Verstappen setting a new F1 record with 10 consecutive victories.

Will Max Verstappen stay at Red Bull Racing?

At the midway point of the 2025 season, Verstappen trails McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in the drivers’ standings and has all but conceded the drivers’ title for this season.

As far back as April 13, Verstappen was already pessimistic about the prospects of winning a fifth straight drivers’ championship.

“McLaren are not my rivals right now. I am just taking part in this world championship,” Verstappen said, as quoted by nl.motorsport.com.

When pressed further if he meant he doesn’t see himself competing for the 2025 drivers’ title, he replied: “No, I don’t.”

In recent days, and not for the first time, Verstappen has been linked with a move to rival Mercedes, possibly as soon as next season.

Brundle told Sky Sports News that Horner’s exit from Red Bull may defuse tensions, resulting in Verstappen re-signing with the only F1 team he has ever driven for.

“It makes it more likely that Verstappen will stay,” Martin Brundle said. “It became personal in Team Verstappen.”

Lando Norris’s seventh career GP victory cuts Oscar Piastri’s championship lead from 22 to 15 points after 11 rounds.

Lando Norris has held off a race-long challenge from his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri to win the Austrian Grand Prix and lift his Formula 1 title hopes.

Norris and Piastri battled for the lead in the early stages of the race on Sunday with the Australian briefly in the lead before Norris took the position back. A rash lunge by Piastri nearly caused a collision soon after.

Piastri lost ground at the pit stops and was run wide onto the grass by Alpine’s Franco Colapinto while cutting through traffic. He soon made up ground on Norris but wasn’t quite close enough to try overtaking.

Over the radio, Norris called it a “beautiful one-two” finish for the team.

“We had a great battle, that’s for sure,” he added later. “A lot of stress but a lot of fun. A nice battle, so well done to Oscar.”

A two-horse race at the top

More than ever this season, the title fight focuses on the two McLarens after defending champion Max Verstappen was hit by Kimi Antonelli on the opening lap, ending his race. Antonelli was later handed a three-place grid penalty for the next race.

Overall leader Piastri leads second-placed Norris by 15 points with Verstappen still third but now 61 off the lead.

Piastri apologised to McLaren for the near-collision between the two, which came one race after Norris collided with him in Canada. The Australian said he regretted not making more of his few seconds in the lead earlier in the race.

“I hope it was good watching because it was pretty hard work from the car,” Piastri said. “I tried my absolute best and probably could have done a better job when I just got ahead momentarily. It was a good battle, a bit on the edge at times.”

Ferrari strong with third and fourth

Charles Leclerc was third for his third podium finish in four races, and his Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton was fourth.

George Russell, who won the last race in Canada, was fifth for Mercedes and Liam Lawson sixth for Racing Bulls in his best result of the season.

Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin held off Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto for seventh. The second Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg was ninth, and Esteban Ocon finished 10th for Haas.

McLaren are 207 points clear of Ferrari – who moved back up to second in the absence of team boss Fred Vasseur, who had to return home for personal reasons – in the constructors championship.

Round 12 of the F1 World Championship takes place next weekend at the British Grand Prix.

On April 15, Austrian Nobel laureate Peter Handke was supposed to appear on Austria’s national broadcaster ORF to talk about his new writings. Instead, he proceeded to once again deny that the Srebrenica genocide happened, calling it Brudermord – biblical fratricide and framing it as a spiritual tragedy rather than a crime against humanity.

ORF stood by its decision to interview Handke when it faced criticism. It claimed that it had done nothing wrong since the interviewer acknowledged the genocide in a question.

That a European broadcaster would choose to platform genocide denial at this time is hardly surprising.

Europe faces a crisis not only of memory but of dangerous continuity. From the Holocaust to Srebrenica to Gaza, denial of state violence against marginalised groups seeks to erase past atrocities, normalise present ones, and pave the way for future ones.

Fratricide as ‘the worst crime’

The Bosnian genocide was the first genocide broadcast on television. In 1995, distressing images from Srebrenica filled living rooms worldwide, exposing the failure of international protection. Despite a lengthy process of prosecuting war crimes through the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and court decisions implicating the complicity of European peacekeepers in the massacres, denial of the Bosnian genocide continues to be well tolerated in Europe.

While Handke is by far not the only prominent public figure who engages in it, his rhetoric makes clear how this crime has come to be weaponised in minimising German and Austrian guilt for the Holocaust.

Handke portrays the Bosnian genocide as a tragic civil war between “brothers” – Brudermord. He romanticises war criminals as victims and embeds genocide denial in a fascist narrative of redemption through ethnic violence.

According to him, fratricide is “much worse” than genocide – ie, those who kill their “brothers” must be deemed worse criminals than the Nazis who killed “the other”. By framing atrocities this way, Handke effectively minimises the responsibility of Germans and Austrians for the Holocaust.

In this twisted narrative, the descendants of the Nazis can claim moral superiority, insisting they did not commit the “worst crime of all”- Brudermord. The chilling implication is that Jews were never truly “brothers” to Europeans like Handke.

Serb nationalists may see Handke as an ally in genocide denial, but he doesn’t defend them – he uses them. Through them, white Europe cleans its hands of its bloody crimes – from Auschwitz to Algeria, from Congo to Rwanda. Handke’s theological language is an alchemy of European conscience, shifting guilt onto the Muslims, the Jews, and the “Balkan savages”.

Transplanting anti-Semitism

Handke’s logic parallels and reinforces the broader campaign to shift the blame for anti-Semitism – and even the Holocaust – onto Arabs and Muslims. In Germany, this trend has been fully embraced by the state and various public institutions, which – against all evidence – have begun to claim that the immigrant Muslim community in the country is responsible for rising anti-Semitic sentiment.

In 2024, the German parliament, the Bundestag, passed a resolution stating that “the alarming extent of anti-Semitism” is “driven by immigration from North African and Middle Eastern countries”.

German media continues to fabricate a “Muslim Nazi past”, with one article claiming: “Unlike Germany, the Middle East has never come to terms with its Nazi past.” Meanwhile, state-funded NGOs have branded the Palestinian keffiyeh a Nazi symbol and echoed the discredited Israeli claim that the grand mufti of Palestine “inspired” the Final Solution.

Germany’s political establishment is now constructing a revisionist moral alibi: one in which Nazis are reimagined as reluctant, remorseful perpetrators, while Palestinians and their Muslim and Arab allies are vilified as more evil than the Nazis themselves.

For many years, this used to be a fringe idea adopted by far-right parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD). But now, the AfD’s core ideas, not just on Germany’s Nazi past, but also on immigration and Islam, have been widely adopted by the political centre.

This shift reflects a longstanding strategy of displacing guilt. Historian Ernst Nolte, celebrated by the conservative Konrad Adenauer Foundation with a major award in 2000, argued the Holocaust was a reaction to Soviet “barbarism”, relativising Nazi crimes by equating Auschwitz with the Gulag.

Nolte argued that Hitler had “rational” reasons for targeting the Jews and rejected the “collective guilt” attributed to Germany since 1945. Today, AfD leader Alice Weidel echoes this stance, dismissing Germany’s remembrance culture as a “guilt cult”.

Where Nolte blamed the Soviets, today’s political establishment blames Muslims. The goal is the same: to erase German responsibility from history.

From denial to enabling

Genocide denial is not a passive act of forgetting but an active, harmful process that perpetuates violence. Genocide scholar Gregory Stanton recognises denial as the final stage of genocide, one that is also a critical sign that the next one is coming.

For survivors and their descendants, denial deepens trauma by invalidating suffering, distorting truth, and stripping victims of dignity, memory and justice. These wounds extend beyond individuals, affecting entire communities across generations.

Meanwhile, genocide denial shields perpetrators, delays reparations and blocks reconciliation, deepening social divisions. It also undermines international law and human rights frameworks, signalling that even crimes against humanity can be ignored.

Genocide denial, thus, directly prepares the ground for the next genocide to take place and be accepted. We see this clearly in how Europeans are reacting to the genocide in Gaza, denying that it is happening at all, despite repeated pronouncements by United Nations experts and genocide scholars, and continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover.

The playbook developed in Bosnia is now applied to Gaza. It follows a familiar pattern: blame “both sides”, portray victims as aggressors, and assign responsibility to a few individuals – thus hiding systematic violence. This blueprint is perhaps most clearly echoed in the claim that it is only Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his two far-right ministers who are responsible for the “violence” happening in Gaza, thus separating policy from structure and evading deeper accountability.

In the narrative denying the Bosnian genocide, responsibility is also reduced to a few “bad apples” within the Serb state apparatus – as if genocide were a spontaneous aberration rather than a meticulously planned, state-executed crime requiring widespread coordination and intent.

Preparing for a future genocide in Europe

Europe today faces a profound crisis as far-right nationalism surges and a vanishing middle class struggles amid growing social and economic precarity. In many Western countries, the middle class is shrinking while what the right calls “surplus population” – disproportionately composed of Muslims – is increasingly marginalised and scapegoated.

In a time like this, recasting a past genocide against an othered population as a misunderstanding contributes to creating the environment for the next genocide to come. And there are already clear indications that segments of the political class are pushing for removing this “surplus population” under various guises.

The Nazi euphemism “Umsiedlung nach Osten” (resettlement to the East) was a grotesque excuse to deport Jews to gas chambers. Today, European actors like Austrian far-right activist Martin Sellner openly advocate for “remigration”, a sinister echo of this deadly logic aimed at uprooting Muslim communities.

European political elites may not have embraced this term yet, but they are busy putting into practice various policies that have the same ultimate goal – limit or decrease the Muslim presence in Europe. They have been building a legal regime for exclusion through the 2024 EU Migration Pact, plans to offshore asylum seekers to Albania or other countries, and a big injection of cash into Frontex, the EU’s border agency accused of – among other things – illegal pushbacks.

These are not neutral measures but ideological tools of racialised removal, cloaked in liberal rhetoric. And they will only get more violent with time.

This is not alarmism. It’s a pattern. The erosion of rights always begins with those deemed to be “the other”.

If genocide denial is not urgently addressed, if the Gaza genocide is not recognised and immediate action taken to stop it, Europe risks coming full circle. With genocide denial expanding and the urge to renounce responsibility for the Holocaust growing, the ground is being prepared for these horrific atrocities to repeat.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Police found a pipe bomb, bombing plans, and a farewell note at the home of the alleged Graz school shooter. Police say the ex-student who killed 9 teens and a teacher before killing himself. Austria held a nationwide moment of silence Wednesday.

A former student opened fire at a high school in Graz, killing at least nine people in the deadliest shooting in Austria’s modern history. The gunman, who acted alone, died by suicide, officials said. Victims include teens, a teacher, and school staff.

Several people have been killed in a suspected shooting at a school in the Austrian city of Graz, according to Austrian media reports.

Police said on Tuesday morning that they had deployed to the BORG Dreierschützengasse school and secured the premises after shots were heard. “No further danger is expected”, the police said in a post on X. 

The Interior Ministry said there were several fatalities but did not specify the number. Austrian media suggested at least eight people were killed.

Graz Mayor Elke Kahr said the shooter was among the dead, the Austria Press Agency reported.

Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reported that shots were first heard in the facility starting around 10am (8:00 GMT), with the attack taking place in two classrooms.

The media described the attack as one of the country’s worst-ever mass shootings.

More to come…

Head of nuclear watchdog warns Israeli strike may harden Iran’s resolve on nuclear arms as diplomacy stalls.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has warned that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could push Tehran closer to developing nuclear weapons as indirect talks between the United States and Iran continue through Omani mediation.

Speaking to i24 News and The Jerusalem Post, Grossi said Iranian officials had cautioned him about the potential consequences of a strike.

“A strike could potentially have an amalgamating effect, solidifying Iran’s determination – I will say it plainly – to pursue a nuclear weapon or withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” he said in an interview that was published on Monday.

Grossi added that he did not believe Israel would launch such an operation.

“But one thing is certain,” he said, “The [Iranian] programme runs wide and deep. And when I say ‘deep’, I mean it. Many of these facilities are extremely well-protected. Disrupting them would require overwhelming and devastating force.”

He made his comments as Iran prepares a counteroffer to a US proposal for a new nuclear deal.

Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that the US offer lacked key elements and failed to address sanctions relief – a longstanding demand from Tehran.

“We will soon submit our own proposed plan to the other side through Oman once it is finalised,” Baghaei said without elaborating on the details.

He also criticised the IAEA’s latest report on Iran’s nuclear programme as “unbalanced”, accusing it of relying on “forged documents” from Israel. The IAEA had recently described Iran’s cooperation as “less than satisfactory”, particularly in clarifying past nuclear activities at undeclared locations.

The US and Iran are trying to strike a new nuclear deal after a 2015 agreement was abandoned by US President Donald Trump in 2018 during his first term.

In a surprise comment last week, Trump said he had warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to jeopardise the fragile negotiations.

“I told him this would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution,” Trump said.

It remains unclear when the next round of indirect negotiations will take place. Baghaei said talks are ongoing but did not give a date for the next meeting

Research has revealed that there is one country in Europe where tourists outnumber locals three to one, and surprisingly, it’s none of the summer hotspots that Brits tend to frequent

When you think of crowded European tourist destinations, Spain and Greece are probably top of mind. But another European country has scooped the title of the most overcrowded tourist destination in the world.

Despite the fact that protestors reclaimed the beaches in Spain to fight overtourism and housing shortages, the country with the most visitors per local is actually Austria. Research conducted by the team at MoneyTransfers.com reveals that the country in central Europe is the most crowded.

The study found that for every local resident in Austria, there are 3.6 tourists. Despite having a population of just 8.9 million, the country welcomes around 32 million visitors each year, as previously reported by the Express. But where exactly are all these tourists heading? Vienna, the culturally rich capital city of Austria, is the country’s top tourist draw.

Known as the ‘City of Dreams’, it’s not hard to understand Vienna’s mass appeal. The capital is home to top-rate attractions including the Schonbrunn Palace, the Vienna Opera House, and the Museum of Natural History. The city is also famous for its delicious namesake cake and baroque architecture.

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But while Vienna may be equipped to welcome hordes of tourists, some of Austria’s smaller locations are struggling with the task. Hallstatt, a stunning village located on the shores of Lake Hallstatt, has seen locals taking to the streets to protest against the surge in tourism.

The small village of Hallstatt sits on southwestern shore of Lake Hallstatt in Austria’s Salzkammergut mountain region. If you’re trying to conjure an idea of the little hamlet, think Austrian postcard: 16th-century Alpine houses on the lake’s edge with snow-capped mountains in the background. But it might be a bit too picturesque.

Hallstatt was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997 for its well preserved architecture and its ancient traditions that can be traced back to the Iron Age. But the village has become well-known among tourists recently for its famous free-floating skywalk. Tourists often gather at the village’s famous viewpoint to snap selfies.

In 2024, village officials put up a fence to obstruct the view in an effort to deter tourists from taking excessive photos. Locals have even taken to the streets to protest against the traffic jams and congestion caused by the influx of visitors to their small village.

But if you are keen on a trip to Austria and want to avoid the worst of the crowds then Graz might be a better option, according to the research by MoneyTransfers.com. Austria’s second largest city it may not be as popular with tourists, but it’s renowned as the ‘Capital of Culinary Delights’.

As the historic heart of the Stygia region, Graz has two world heritage sites; the old town, reputedly the largest medieval district in Europe, and Eggenberg Palace.

A trip to Graz during the winter months promises to be particularly exciting during the winter months when the Christmas market opens up. Graz’s Advent Market kicks off the festive season and is hosted right in front of the impressive City Hall at Hauptplaz.

For those keen on adding a historic element to their holiday, Graz’s oldest yule market awaits outside the Franciscan church in Old Town. Christmas markets typically run from mid-November until Christmas Eve.

Austria have now won the Eurovision Song Contest three times after victory in 1966 and 2014. Vienna hosted the event following both victories.

On Saturday, Australian opera singer JJ won the hearts and minds of the European public with the surging, storming song ‘Wasted Love’.

In doing so, he beat Israel’s Yuval Raphael into second place and saved the ESC organisers a huge potential headache of whether or not to host a song contest in a warzone.

Austria have now won the Eurovision Song Contest three times after victory in 1966 and 2014. Vienna hosted the event following both victories. In the coming weeks, conversations will take place with potential host cities across Austria.

While it will come as no surprise that Vienna and Innsbruck have officially put themselves forward to host next year’s final, other, smaller settlements are vying to get in on the act. An Austrian travel colleague (who does admittedly live in Vienna so may be a little biased) tells me that others in the running are “the smallest and most charmless towns” the country has to offer.

While one of the bigger players is likely to be given the nod, it is not out of the question that the Austrian committee award it to one of the outside runners. Indeed, after Ireland won the 1992 finals, they decided to host the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest in Millstreet, a town with a population of 1,500 in West County Cork.

Given Eurovision fans will splash out on pairs of glittery lederhosen and make their way to whichever host city gets the nod, a destination guide to the hopefuls may come in handy.

Oberwart

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It would be a real turn-up for the books if Oberwart’s bid were successful. Located in Burgenland, it is a small town famed for its ethnic Hungarian minority and a population of 8,000 including JJ’s singing teacher. The Mayor of Oberwart, Georg Rosner has put the town forward, despite it lacking the capacity to accommodate the travelling eurofans. What it does have are four main attractions, according to Tripadvisor at least: The Baumwipfelweg Althodis observation deck, the AK-Bücherei Oberwart library, a mini-golf course and a cinema. Also, handily, a large concert venue is due to open later this year.

Graz

While it may not be in pole position, it would not be a total shock if Graz got the nod. Not only is it Austria’s second largest city with 250,000 people, it seems quite charming. Graz used to be known as “Austria’s secret love” and “small town at the river Mur”, due to the quiet, calm pace of life there.

In the heart of the city, there’s Schlossberg mountain, on top of which a fortress used to perch in the 11th century. Looking down from there over the city roofs, you will be able to spy buildings from the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Historism and Art Nouveau eras.

Hidden between the buildings are romantic lanes and hidden courtyards of the Italian-style palazzi. It is recommended to walk up and down the Gothic double spiral staircase that forms the backbone of the Burg to appreciate its unique construction. Graz was once a residence city of the Habsburgs, and the royal legacy is apparent through the likes of Eggenberg Palace, which has public museums, gardens and a magnificent park

Wels

“Wels, the jewel in the central region of Upper Austria, is a city grown out of history in the middle of nature,” claims the Upper Austria tourist board. Wels is best known for its conventions, trade fairs and shops. With a population of 60,000 people, it would be similar to Bangor or Margate hosting the ESC if it were to win. Notable landmarks include the Lederer Tower on the picturesque town square; the town hall, the late Gothic parish church with magnificent 14th-century stained-glass windows; and the former imperial castle where the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian I died in 1519.