Biography of Alexander Ehrlich

Last update: 12.09.2017

Alexander Ehrlich was born in Mödling on January 17th 1979 as Alexander Bachner. He spent his childhood in the historically important village of Mayerling. Very early, he received a multicultural teaching as well as a historical one thanks to his father who owned a popular hotel/restaurant and his mother Anna Ehrlich, who is one of Vienna's most renowned historians and holds a doctor's degree in both philosophy and law.

From 1985 to 1986, Alexander went to the "Pädagogische Akademie" primary school in Baden bei Wien where he skipped four years in two months, which led him to finish the whole primary school in just one year.

At that time, it was not legally possible for him to enter secondary school directly. Thus, Alexander Ehrlich spent the next two years homeschooled by his mother, Anna Ehrlich. During these years, he received natural sciences and humanities lessons but also private horse-riding, fencing, violin, and piano lessons and played children parts at the local theatre in Baden. He learnt English and Italian before entering the private high school "Theresianische Akademie" in Vienna in 1988.

During his eight years at the Theresianische Akademie boarding school, he played in national and international chess competitions and learnt both typing and the programming language Basic besides his studies. He went abroad for several months in Hungary and Italy and took French horn lessons with Roland Horvath (member of the philharmonic orchestra of Vienna and chairman of the viennese Vienna horn association) as well as dancing classes at the Elmayer dancing school. He also learnt French, Latin, Spanish, Russian and Hugarian basics.

In 1996, Alexander passed his Matura (or A-level) with honors/magna cum laude and for the Theresianische Akademie's 250th birthday, he wrote the corresponding leaflet "Pictures of Theresianum's past" published by the Academy's editions. Alongside, he wrote several French horn and other instruments arrangements published by the viennese Vienna horn association editions.

After passing his secondary education final exams, Alexander Ehrlich started his formation at the university of Vienna where he first studied Romance linguistics, evangelical theology, and law. In addition, he worked from 1996 to 2000 as a dance teacher at the Watzek dancing school.

In 1997, Alexander Ehrlich changed course to turn towards French, German and Italian translation and interpretation. Besides his studies, he organized guided tours for the Hofburg Palace Imperial Apartments of Vienna and managed a guide service for Dali exhibition at the Pallavicini Palace. In mid 1998, Alexander Ehrlich finished the first cycle of his translation and interpretation studies in only a year and a half.

The following years, Alexander Ehrlich devoted himself mainly to his touristic career. Between 1999 and 2001, he followed a training at WIFI Wien to become a registered Austria guide and he founded the guides agency AHRE Austria Guide in 2002. He learnt Bulgarian basics and created the City Tours Reisebüro Ehrlich OG company in 2005 with Radosveta Iontcheva whom he had married in 2000. Meanwhile, he had also completed the last part of his translation and interpretation studies in 2004. In that same year, Alexander became father of a daughter named Julietta.

By this time, Alexander Ehrlich was already deeply interested in bats after having incongruously met one in his bedroom in 2002. After this encounter, Alexander entered the bat association of Vienna and deeply involved himself in bat studies. He started a study trip all over Europe and visited the most acknowledged institutions and associations about bats. After having purchased a great number of specialized books and met some famous chiropterologists he constituted his own private collection of books about bats, which is significant today. Moreover, he has combined his passion and his work since 2002 in a guided tour named "Bats: Operetta vs Reality", where he explains to Viennese people and tourists in Vienna the reality of bats' life in the city.

In 2003, he created the first Vienna ghost walk as a spin-off product of the original bat tour. This visit takes place every Tuesday and on Halloween's day (in German only). It is one of Vienna's most popular guided tours and can be booked individually by groups and school classes in English anytime.

Thanks to the success of the "Vienna ghost walk" and its impact on the media, Alexander Ehrlich raised the funds that enabled him to found the tour operator City Tours together with his ex-wife Radosveta Iontcheva and his sister Felicitas Bachner. City Tours is offering various tourism and sightseeing services in Austria, Germany, Italy and elsewhere in Europe, including travel organization, event management, ticket reservation service, tourguide booking, artist management, translation and web design. The company also proposes international bus transfers and bus rental in Vienna, Linz, Graz, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Venice, Verona, Trieste, Catania, Munich, Dresden, Stuttgart and Berlin but also in Poland, Ukraine and Slovenia - for sightseeing tours, transfers and holiday by bus. In 2006, Alexander Ehrlich and Radosveta Iontcheva founded another company in Sofia, Bulgaria, called City Services OOD.

In the following years, Alexander Ehrlich was above all working as a web designer for City Design which is an autonomous business sector of City Tours OG created in 2008. He was more precisely in charge of the search engine optimization of all City Design websites and of their online marketing. He was living in Bruck an der Leitha in Lower Austria since early 2011 and regularly spending time in Krakow, Merano or other cities in relation with his business.

After having transformed the original company "City Tours Reisebüro Ehrlich OG" into a limited liability company called "City Tours GmbH", in July 2011 Alexander Ehrlich founded the two subsidiaries "City Tours Italia S.r.l." with seat in Merano (Italy) and "City Tours Polska sp. z o.o." with seat in Kraków (Poland). In January 2013, he additionally founded the German branch office "City Tours GmbH - Deutschland" which originally was seated in Coesfeld (Westphalia, Germany) and has been transferred to Duisburg (Germany) in April 2013.

In May 2013, Alexander Ehrlich welcomed the birth of his eldest son Jonas Scherler in Duisburg (Germany) and celebrated his engagement with Julia Mlinaric, whom he married in October 2014 in Mödling (Austria). In March 2014, Alexander's second son Dorian Ehrlich was born in Vienna (Austria). Since March 2015, Alexander lived in Trautmannsdorf an der Leitha (Austria), together with his wife Julia Ehrlich and his son Dorian Ehrlich. Sometimes, he visited the seats of his company in Vienna, Duisburg, Merano and Kraków as well as the many other locations where his companies deploy business activities.

The month of December 2015 saw the birth of Alexander's second daughter Elvira Ehrlich in Trautmannsdorf an der Leitha. At the same time, in the years 2015 and 2016, the the company structure was repeatedly modified. Finally, Alexander Ehrlich now holds 77,5% of the company's shares while his cousin Katarina Bachner owns the remaining 22,5%.

Unfortunately, in late autumn 2016, Alexander's second wife Julia Ehrlich decided to leave him in a very dramatic way. The following protracted court proceedings were extremely time-consuming and kept Alexander to a large extent from fulfilling his business duties. Since 16.08.2017, Alexander raises his two youngest children Dorian and Elvira alone, with the support his father Heinrich Bachner and many other family members. Therefore, his availability for professional issues is currently very restricted.

For any enquiry about Alexander Ehrlich's biography, please send an e-mail to . Either Alexander Ehrlich or one of his business partners and employees will give you an answer as quickly as possible.