Town

All around the town
Coming from West, the visitor can see already from a distance the striking silhouetto of the two towers, rising above the little town. Along the houses in Zwettler Straße, the modern elementary and the secondary school, you come to a narrow passage marking the place, where in former times one of the town-gates gave way to the market place. Nowadays you find here the restaurant Kratochvil and the Café Legner. (The “Cremschnitten” are the best in the world.)
Having arrived at the main square in the middle of the town, called Hauptplatz, you are standing not only in front of buildings and closed-down shops giving evidence of the economic crisis that Allentsteig has been facing, you can also study a few striking facades: The curved gable of the Edelbacher-House was built in the Baroque, the "Anniversary House" with its classicistic facade reminds the visitor of the 60th throne anniversary of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph in the year 1908. His bust is still to be found on the top of the facade. The buildings around the main square are much older. The Heilhirsch-house opposite the Sparkasse-bank dates back to the time around 1050, when the town was founded. Here tourists receive information in the little tourist-office (open in summer). Until the end of the 19th century the Eastern gate here marked the end of the Mediaeval town - it was broken down just like some houses named "Grätzel" in the middle of the main square. The impressive building of the "Amtshaus", originally a brewery, is the office of the Lord Mayor and the administration.

After lunch in the hotel "Golden Stag" or in the retaurant "Stadbeisl", well known for its big portions, the way leads from the upper main square with its Floriani-column and the mediaeval "Metzen" along an alley up to the church. The golden double cross and the dial twinkle impressively in the sunlight. From the top of the church tower (after climbing ladders in the dark) you might have a wonderful view over the town and the beautiful villages. Around the church until the end of the 19th century the grave yard was placed. Inside the church you will be impressed by the plain form of the high altar - the big cross with the statue of Jesus crucified and a magnificent flower decoration any time of the year.

Next to the church the old school is to be found, neighboured by the clergyman´s office. Opposite of them the hospital - one biulding built in the 60s, the other in the 20s of the 20th century - offers medical care for the inhabitants of the region. The old tradition of this institution is additionally testified by the "Citizen hospital" from the 17th century, the St. Ulrich foundation founded 100 years ago and the Red Cross building.
The castle, situated near the church, originates from the 11th and 12th centuries, when the Kuenringer cultivated the region named Waldviertel. The magnificent arcade courtyard, which was built in the Renaissance, documents the meaning, taste and economic strength of the Hager family, who were protectors of the protestant faith in Austria.
The coat of arms above the entry remembers to the family Pereira-Arnstein, who owned the castles Schwarzenau, Waldreichs, Krumau, Dobra Wetzlas and Neudegg togehter with Allentsteig. The strange-coloured cars and the soldier at the door reminds the visitor of the tragic history of the country around Allentsteig: when in 1938 requisitions the German Armed Forces started erecting the large shooting range, the owner of the castle, baroness Preuschen-Lenz, had to give way to the German general. Since then the castle serves for the military, since 1957 for the Austrian.

The monument in the park nearby the castle reminds of the war victims and the inhabitants of the villages depopulated by the NAZI-regime. From here it is just a few steps to the mortuary and the cemetery. Next to it there is a second one, surrounded by trees, for the soldiers of the Soviet occupying power after World War II. Even the houses of Wiener Straße remind of World War II: having been accomodations for the soldiers of the German Wehrmacht, today they are residential homes for soldiers of the Austrian Armed Forces.

If the visitor now desires an intermezzo walking through green meadows, he may go the way with a beautiful view from the cemetery towards East to Oberndorf. In less than 1 km distance up on the plain in 1981 another cemetery was built - for the soldiers, who were killed in action in the European killings fields between 1938 and 1945. From the hill of the waterworks you may locate the spare ruins of Groß Poppen, one of the village evacuated in 1938 and still lying in the military training area. The old cemetery of Groß Poppen, dating back to the Middle Ages, is still hit by shells every now and then.

Walking the way through the fields, passing by Leutmezer chapel, you will arrive at the hill with the closed-down hotel "Schaich" and a few villas, which document that Allentsteig had been a very popular summer resort in the beginning of the 20th century. The open air swimming pool nearby is especially crowded when the summer camp named "Waldviertler Jugenddorf" is populated by some dozens of children every summer. From the kindergarden and the former cinema, which is now used as "Cultural Centre Avalon", you get look at the opposite hill with the church and the castle. The small theatre of the "Allentsteiger Antiprofis" is situated in Dr. Ernst Krenn-Straße.

A few steps from the kindergarden the visitor can enjoy a panoramic view upon the lake, the jewel of Allentsteig. You can go along the beautiful promenade to the Lourdes-grotto and back on the other side. In the shadow of the old oak trees on the dam of the lake in 1999 the memorial place "landscape knife" by the artist Valie Export was installed, commemorating the fact that the Waldviertel landscape south of Allentsteig suffers a wound ever since the NS-German Wehrmacht evacuated 42 villages in order to establish the military training base still exising.

From here a street leads up on to "Calvary-hill", where an extensive housing estate was built within the last few decades. From Steinbachstraße you can enjoy - the probably most pittoresque view on Allentsteig.

Returning back to the centre of the town, you might have a look at the idyllic corner in front of the "Meierhof", topped by the tower of the castle. The inner courtyard contains a beautiful Renaissance-Loggia and Lower Austria´s longest roofed passage up to the castle. The neighbouring "Schüttkasten" (an old granary) accomodates the documentation of the local history (the emigration 1938 - 1942) and changing exhibitions. You are recommended to visit also the other little museum of Allentsteig presented by Lotte Henschl in the "Wolfganghof" in Oberndorf (Hauptstraße 40). Here you can plunge into daily life of the 1920s with a large number of exhibits of an household as well as agricultural tools from the time between the two wars. The third part of the museum is a collection of more than 1.000 owls in any variation.

If you now feel ardent desire for nature, you may take a walk through the oak-wood along the Thaua-brook or even from Bernschlag to the Walther-stone. This stone reminds of the village Walthers, that disappeared already in the Middle Ages. Scientist now claim that it is almost certain that the famous poet Walther von der Vogelweide, the greatest German speaking poet before Goethe, was born and spent his childhood in this little village near Allentsteig.