Anyone in Vienna?

[RuthChan]

There is a good chance that we will be moving to Vienna next year with my DH's work and I was wondering if any MNers were out there?
I would really appreciate any information you could give me about life there; schools, health care, where to live etc.
Thanks

Hi Ruth, we live just outside Vienna. The Vienna Babies Club has a great website with lots of useful information and is also a very good way of getting to meet people - I joined when we first moved here and they have a monthly meeting as well as smaller weekly groups for parents with children of the same age.

There are international schools, but I think it's quite expensive to send your DC there unless it's paid for as part of your DH's relocation package; otherwise, there are also "normal" bilingual schools.

Health care is excellent, and plenty of doctors speak good English - there's a medical section on the VBC website.

I'm sure there must be other MNers in Vienna (I don't know any, but there are lots of expats) who would be able to recommend areas to live. We're about 30 minutes south of Vienna (DH commutes to the 1st district to work) so I don't really know the individual districts that well.

Good luck, and just ask if you have any more questions!

Hi Ruth
Yes, we are in Vienna. We moved here a year ago. We have a nearly 5 yo DD in Kindergarten and a baby DS too.

I would repeat all that Linzertorte has said. The medical care is excellent (actually better than London?) - we have used it more than anticipated as DS was born at 31 weeks.

The Vienna Babies Club is a fantastic way of meeting people and finding out info. Vienna is a lovely city with lots of things for families, especially in summer. I found the some of the winter hard - felt a bit endless!

Must go - baby waking up. Ask more questions!

Sticki - hello I remember chatting to you before you moved - glad you've settled in.

To OP I was in Wien for nearly nine years and second all the othe rposters have said, if you search you may find the info I gave to sticki.

How old re your dc and how long will you be staying as that really affects the schooling issue?

Hi everyone. Thank you so much for your replies.
I am very interested to hear about the VBC.
We currently live near Brussels and I have made most of my friends here through the Brussels Childbirth Trust.
I guess that the VBC is a fairly similar organisation. I will certainly take a look at the website.

My DD is 3.5 and my DS is 18 months. So they would both need kindergarten and then into primary schooling.
DD currently goes to a bilingual French/English montessori pre-school here. It suits her well, but I am flexible about what type of school to put them into next.
We have no idea how long we might stay in Vienna, but it might well be long term, so we have to prepare for the chance of them going all the way through the school system there.
There is a good chance that DH's company would help with school fees, so the international schools may be possible options if they are the right choice.

Where abouts do most people/foreigners live?
Do most people live in apartments or houses? All the websites I've seen show apartments, but I can find no reference anywhere to any houses.
I wouldn't mind living in an apartment, but I love the privacy of our house at the moment and the children adore having a garden.We would really miss that.

It's great to hear that medical services are so good in Vienna.
Certainly, I have been very pleased with the services here in Belgium.
I too find them much better than those in the UK.

DH's work will mainly be south east of the city. Are there any suburbs in that direction that are nice to live in, or do most people stay closer to the centre?

Hello

We're in Vienna - moved here nearly two years ago. ds is 2y2m and is starting at a Montessori kg in September.

Have a look on immobilien.net - they have some houses on there. It's a really great city to live in with children; there really is lots to do and loads of great parks. Although I second sticki, the winter this year felt endless.

And it doesn't feel like the winter is over yet - but it's not usually this long, or at least not since I've been here (7 years now).

Most people live in apartments - it's like any major city, I suppose; there are far more apartments than houses (especially if you're looking to rent) and they're obviously more affordable too. Even if you do end up in an apartment, it's likely to be near to a park and/or playground. We live in Baden, which is a fairly small town but a really nice place to bring up a family - but the disadvantages are very few expats and so no bilingual schools or English activities for children (other than those aimed at Austrian children learning English). The advantage was that we could afford to buy a house with a (small) garden here, and DH wasn't working in Vienna when we first moved over so there didn't seem to much point paying a premium to live in the city (although it would have had its advantages).

As your DC are still quite young, they should pick up the language fairly quickly. We didn't have any choice of KiGa or school here, but as we moved over when DD1 was 18 months and DH speaks German to them, the language was never really an issue - although it would be nice if they had slightly more exposure to English.

Thanks again for your input.
Yes, I can well imagine that there are more apartments than houses and that living in the centre of the city costs a premium.
To be honest, I would probably prefer to live outside the city itself. I'm not so much a big city girl.
At the moment we live in Waterloo, about 30km south of Brussels.
There are lots of expats here and therefore a good range of English and bilignual schools.
I wouldn't mind my children going to German school so much, but we are already a bilingual family as my DH is Japanese and I don't speak a word of German (yet) so I would really prefer an English or bilingual school there too.
Would we need to live in the centre to be close to good international education, or are there any areas further out with such schools?
As DH won't be working in Vienna itself, we don't need to live in the centre for that reason either.

It's good to know that there are plenty of parks and play grounds.
We have a few here in Waterloo, but there are none within walking distance of our house so I appreciate having the garden even more.

AFAIK the international/bilingual schools are mainly in Vienna itself, although spread throughout the city so you wouldn't necessarily need to live right in the centre. There's more information about bilingual primary schools here and a list of the international schools (with links to the schools themselves) here.

A Japanese friend of mine here in Baden is bringing up her DD bilingually (Japanese/German). I know she takes her to a Japanese "school" in Vienna on a Saturday morning where she's learning to read and write in Japanese; I can ask her for more information if you like.

Hi Linzertorte
Thank you for those links. I will definitely take a look at those.
It's interesting that your Japanese friend sends her child to the Japanese school on Saturdays.
The Japanese school here in Brussels offers similar classes. Here they are available to children from 6 years and over, so I assume that the Viennese school will be the same.
We definitely intend to send our DCs there when they are big enough. Keeping up with Japanese reading and writing is really hard without going to japanese school full time.

I'm not sure whether the Japanese classes that my friend's DD goes to are connected with the Japanese school in Vienna, although it's quite likely the school runs something similar (I know the Greek school does). But yes, I assume it's for school age children; my friend's DD is 8 and has been going for a few years. I think the VBC has a Japanese group too.

Sorry I can't more of more help with where to live in Vienna. I used to go to quite a few English-language playgroups when I only had DD1 and before she started KiGa and the people I met seemed to be scattered around the city - no real concentration in one particular area, but obviously it wasn't a huge sample of expats! This seems to sum up the districts quite well. Whereabouts will your DH be working, if you don't mind me asking? Feel free to CAT me btw.

Just popping on to let you know a bit more about the districts. IME the third (and maybe 4th) are popular ex-pat districts - close to the centre and near the Embassies and the Danube IS.

I lived in the 18th and then the 19th - here you get a lot of expats, there are also 2 bi-lingual state primaries and 2 bilingual Gymnsiums (sp?), the American IS and a private bi-lingual primary. Also many 'bi-lingual' kigas. Also lots of parks and outside swimming pools. Transport into the first is a quick 20-minute at the most tram ride. A 10 minute drive out gets you into the Vienna woods. It is also a popular area with the Vienna professionals, there are many diplomats living here and several embassies. For all these reasons, rents aren't cheap and houses are scarce and expensive but there are also lots of nice apartments with some outside space. I can't recommend this area enough.

Another popular area is over the Danube in the 21st district, here you get more family houses, you are also near the International School, and also state bi-lingual primaries and 1 gymnasium.

I would avoid the 10th.

Other nice areas are the 6,7,8& 9th but these are more built up and the parks aren't as nice, but closer to the centre.

Hope this helps.

Linzertorte, thanks for the info about the Japanese classes. I will investigate them more closer to the time.
I am also really interested to hear that there is a Japanese group in the VBC. I would be very interested in joining that to keep up both the children's language and my own. I also think it's important for the DC to socialise with Japanese people from a cultural point of view. It's good for them to remember that half of their roots.

Juststrudel, thank you so much for all the information about the various districts. That is really useful and give me a much better idea.
It's a real shame that all the districts in the south east corner of the city seem to be those to avoid.
Part of our problem is that we have no idea at all where DH is likely to work. The office doesn't yet exist, as his job will be to set it up. To be honest, there's a good chance that the office will actually be in Bratislava. We were hoping that it might be possible for us to live in Vienna and for DH to work in Bratislava, but maybe that won't be practical and we will end up moving to Bratislava instead. This is made more likely if the decent places to live in Vienna are all in the north of the city and he would have a really long commute. I'm sorry to be so vague, but everything is very up in the air at the moment.

Now Bratislava has some good shops - the centre is supposed to be lovely too, but I'm embarrassed to admit we've only been to the shops and the airport so far (they've just opened a new shopping centre with a big M&S, Debenhams, Mothercare/ELC, Next etc). Although I'm sure you have other priorities when you're looking at places to live.

Wow, linzertorte, you've just made Bratislava sound like a far less exotic and much more westernised place!!!

Can I make a confession?

In all my years in Wien I never went to Bratislava I was told it wasn't worth it, in my defense.