Spittelberg

This guide to Spittelberg in Vienna opens with a two-century-old piece of gossip carved above one archway, claiming Emperor Joseph the Second once flew through it, and traces how a monarch who publicly condemned brothels is said to have visited this quarter's taverns incognito after his second wife's death. You'll hear how these cobbled lanes served as Vienna's red-light district for more than a century, packed with artisans, musicians and working women just outside the old city walls, and how the pastel Biedermeier houses standing today nearly disappeared in the 1970s. Listen for how students and artists inside the Amerlinghaus changed the city's plans for this neighborhood.