Last weekend a group of us went to Hinterbrühl to see the underground lake inside the mine. This mine used to be an important source of Gypsum for the locals, which they used as fertilizer for their farming. They mined into two levels and were working on a third when they accidentally caused this most recent level of the mine to flood, thus creating the lake.

During World War II they used this abandoned mine turned tourist destination into a satellite camp of Mauthausen Concentration Camp and used it to create fuselages. To get the fuselages out of the mine they attached them to carts that ran along tracks and were pulled by horses that had been blinded before being used in the mine. Because they used horses, they of course needed stables:

A (battered and dilapidated) example of the type of fuselages they made:

The lake. This is a sorry excuse for a photo, I know, but this was the best I could do. Use your imagination that it was eerily lit and the water was very blue, reflecting the ceiling perfectly.

 Blurry photo, but an example of the eery lighting and reflections:

The tracks they used to transport the fuselages out of the mine:

"Glück Auf!" was used by Austrian miners and means "Good Luck."

P.S. Afterwards we grabbed a delicious lunch at Vapiano's and encountered this lovely little photo:

Two mob sightings and an arrest all within a week and a half... or so. What luck! By the way, that mob I encountered was definitely an Occupy crowd. Didn't know the movement had reached Vienna... guess I do now. And if you're wondering what this whole Occupy thing is... don't worry about it. More hipster kids complaining about life. Essentially.