I live a 15 mins drive from Zwentendorf and I can assure you they are used for so much. They have a "Shutdown festival" (rave party), you can go on a tour in the reactor (even go in the main boiler) and it's also often used for movies or small local productions.
Also fun fact: The plant is still producing energy but with Solar panels since they plastered the whole yard and the roof of the plant
I did that tour a few years back and it was truly impressive and mesmerising - especially standing in the reactor chamber with all the (empty) rods on top of you (they cut a hole into the wall so you can enter there - and it was never in use, so safe to be in there). Pretty crazy.
The whole tour was like entering a time capsule and felt like being in a movie or computer game. Everything looking brand new and unused, but old and outdated at the same time. Apart from all the tech and science that they showed and explained this eery time capsule part was sticking with me.
And the tour was even free, or almost free as far as I can remember, only getting a slot was hard. Can recommend a visit, if you get the chance.
Damn that sounds like a great visit. It seemed like very interesting piece of history and I wanted to share the link here. I'm driving through Europe right now and wanted to go there but nobody answered my emails and the online reservation form doesn't seem to work. Would you know if they still do it around this time of the year?
hey, I checked as well and it looks like they currently don't have any tours online. I can forward you the contact from when we booked our tour at the time if you want. sent you a linkedIn connection request (I think, connected some dots).
Also, I found this [0] post with lots of pictures [1] from the Technical University of Graz about a visit, and the pictures give a good taste of what you might see there.
btw, if you come to pass Austria (Vienna or rural Upper Austria) and want to grab a beer or something let me know - seems like we are both working as engineering managers and share some interests, might be interesting :)
