For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser. The initial reaction when you walk into a room and find 40 naked strangers staring at you is to turn the other way and run. And so that's what I did, ignoring the puzzled looks from the 40 starkers sauna goers and quickly shuffling in the other direction.
A comprehensive How-To guide for navigating naked saunas and therme culture in Austria - brought to you by a bonafide fan of this relaxing cultural tradition. By faaarrrr the question I get asked the most by newly arrived immigrants and horrified Aussie mates when we start talking about the Austrian therme culture and how amazing it is, is ' What about the whole nude sauna thing? We have a helluva lot of hangups about our bodies and can barely allow women to show a bit of nipple when literally feeding their offspring for a short time in a park or cafe. The idea of sitting calmly naked, surrounded by wrinkly, saggy, sporty, hairy, fit, everyday bodies of strangers is certainly a confronting one to most folks not familiar with sauna culture. Learning the nude sauna etiquette will make it much easier to embrace the experience in a mixed sauna. For any cultural experience though, you need a few guidelines and explanations, to ease your way into things. So if you are sitting there stressing, then you are absolutely missing the best part!
Vienna rescues forgotten women artists censored by the Nazis
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Vienna was an intellectual powerhouse in the early 20th Century and two male artists are considered the giants of Viennese modernism: Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. But Vienna's Belvedere Museum is now showcasing the long-neglected contribution of women artists in that period. City of Women displays works by about 60 female artists, covering the years Some works had been hidden away in attics and storerooms gathering dust. The Belvedere's artistic director, Stella Rollig, says these artists "were and still are a great inspiration, and their works have been wrongly ignored for almost a century".