Neufelder See

The Neufelder See is an artificial lake and popular bathing spot about fifty kilometres south of Vienna, on the Burgenland border with Lower Austria. It formed in 1933 when groundwater flooded the exhausted brown-coal pits of the former Zillingdorf-Neufeld-Zillingtal-Pöttsching mines. Today the water is fed only by springs and rain, yet it renews itself one and a half times a year and reaches twenty-four metres at its deepest point. The lake is the only freely accessible diving site near Vienna, drawing training courses from several diving schools. Three bases serve divers: one at the public lido on the eastern shore, another on the western shore run by the Naturfreunde, and a third operated by one of the oldest Vienna diving clubs in Hornstein. Underwater, divers find orientation lines and practice platforms between five and twenty metres down, while surface water temperatures in summer often reach twenty-five degrees. Around the lake lie private plots, a public lido, and the largest mobile-home park in Burgenland with 855 pitches. A separate day-camping area offers thirty-three additional places. Each June the Neufelder Triathlon, one of Austria’s oldest, takes place here. The lake is reached by hourly trains from Vienna and by regional buses, and the A3 motorway provides easy road access.