Carl von Ghega's railway over the Semmering was a bold idea in the 1840s, when many engineers doubted that a conventional locomotive could haul a train over a mountain pass. Built between 1848 and 1854, the line climbs from Gloggnitz to the Semmering summit through fourteen tunnels and across sixteen viaducts, some with two tiers of stone arches, curving around the flanks of the mountains on ledges cut into the rock. It became the first mountain railway inscribed on the UNESCO list, in 1998, and it still carries trains between Vienna and the south, with the new Semmering Base Tunnel under construction beneath it to take over the heavy traffic.
The railway turned Semmering into a fashionable resort for Viennese society around 1900, with grand hotels and villas built on the slopes, and writers, artists and aristocrats came here for the mountain air. Some of the grand hotels still stand, a little faded, and the walking trail that follows the railway, the Bahnwanderweg, gives superb views of the viaducts, including from a famous viewpoint that once featured on the Austrian twenty-schilling banknote.
For riders, the Semmering pass, at 985 metres, is a classic outing from Vienna. The old pass road, the B306, climbs from Gloggnitz through Schottwien with curves and steady gradients, and descends on the Styrian side toward Mürzzuschlag. It is popular with motorcyclists on weekends, which means traffic, police controls and sometimes restrictions, so keep the throttle civilised. The surroundings offer more: the Höllental gorge toward Schwarzau, the Rax and Schneeberg mountains, and the Preiner Gscheid pass all offer superb riding with tighter, more technical corners. Weather on the Semmering can change quickly, and fog is common.
Semmering itself is a small village with a few cafés and hotels, and fuel is available in larger nearby places such as Gloggnitz, Payerbach or Mürzzuschlag, which is around thirteen kilometres to the south. Stop at one of the viewpoints near the railway, watch a train crawl across a viaduct, and admire what nineteenth-century engineers achieved without modern machinery. Then reward yourself with a slice of strudel or a Kaiserschmarrn at a café before continuing over the pass.