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The municipality of Semmering is situated at an altitude of 950 m just below the Semmering pass (984 m). The first path across the Semmering connecting Lower Austria and Styria was laid out in the 12th century under Margrave Otakar III of Styria. At that time, the Pitten county had just become part of Styria in 1158 (today it is part of Lower Austria). The first road across the Semmering was built under Emperor Karl VI in 1728 and was extended and improved under Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria. Since 1956/58, a new route was built.

Semmering became well-known as a climatic resort at the end of the 19th century. Many fashionable hotels were built at that time. The  Grand Hotel Erzherzog Johann [left], situated at the highest point of the pass, was built by the famous architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer in 1898/99 and replaced an earlier inn of the same name. It has been replaced by a modern building in the 20th century.

(See also list of further buildings by Fellner and Helmer that are depicted on glasses of this collection.)

The Hotel Panhans [right] is probably the best-known of all traditional hotels in Semmering. The hotel was founded in 1888 and was transformed to a Grand Hotel in 1913. With 400 rooms it was one of the largest hotels in Europe at that time. After the end of World War I and the break-up of the Austrian Empire, the hotel had to be sold off. It took until the 1930s that the hotel could regain its former position among the leading hotels in Europe. The great popularity ended after World War II. Finally, in 1969, the hotel had to close. In 1978, a joint venture of a private investment group, the municipality of Semmering and the state of Lower Austria began to revitalise the hotel, which was reopened in 1983.

The two glasses on the right show two other hotels, the  Kurhaus [far right] and the  Palace Hotel.

The parish church Heilige Familie (Holy Family) [left] was built in 1894–1895 by the architect Gustav von Neumann in Neogothic style. Originally it was a filial church of the parish of Maria Schutz. In 1934 it obtained the rank of a parish church.

The Semmering region is also well-known for it s famous railway line, built by the engineer Carl Ritter von Ghega (1802–1860) between 1848 and 1854. The Semmering railway line (41 km) is part of the Südbahn railway (1839–1857) from Vienna via Graz, Maribor and Ljubljana to Trieste. Ghega's plan was daring at that time. The line was laid out as a pure adhesion railway with a maximum gradient of 1 in 40 (25 m over a distance of 1,000 m); previous railways had a maximum gradient of only 1 in 200. Carried by 16 viaducts that are supported by several arches, the Semmering railway crosses gorges, runs through 15 tunnels and reaches its highest point at 897 metres in the main tunnel (1,430 m long, then considered the most famous building of its kind). In 1851, Ghega was promoted to the nobility (Ritter, Knight). The Semmering railway was listed as a World Cultural heritage by the UNESCO in 1998 (see also list of other UNESCO heritage sites).