Vienna #1of5

Vienna, Austria, is a most stately, magnificent, majestic city. But the most majestic? It’s certainly near the top of the list, if not at the very top. In 1857 the Emperor decreed a ring boulevard around the old town, a project equaled only by the transformation of Paris by Baron Haussmann.

The Innere Stadt (inner city) is enclosed on three sides by the Ring-Strasse, a wide “U” shaped street, identified by several names. From its southern tip, the names are: Stuben-Ring, Park-Ring, Schubert-Ring, Kärntner-Ring, Opern-Ring, Burg-Ring, Dr. K. Renner-Ring, Dr. K. Lueger-Ring, to Schotten-Ring, on the north. The Donau Kanal is the eastern border, and the Ring-Strasse reaches the Kanal, at each end of the “U.”

Located along both sides of the Ring-Strasse, the many impressive things to see include the Opera, museums, castles, the Rathaus (city hall), Beethoven-Platz, the Stadtpark (City Park), several precision-planted gardens, and a guidebook’s-worth of things to see and do. Hours and days can, and should, be spent walking and looking at this most unusual boulevard.

On the “inside” of the Burg-Ring, the Hofburg, an Imperial palace, is a town within a town, that includes churches, castles, gardens, libraries, statues and the Spanish Riding School. Across the Burg-Ring and framing the Maria-Theresien Platz, are two symmetrically domed buildings containing on one side the Natural Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum), the other side the art-historical museum (Kunsthistorisches Museum), with the Maria Theresa Memorial statue group in the center.

We have yet to visit inside these buildings (except for the Opera and the Cathedral), since the 10 or 12 days we have spent in Vienna in a couple of different years, did not give us time to see all there was to see outside the buildings. We find the street scenes, and the outside of buildings, to be far more interesting than the inside, and the contents of a building. Well, for me, the inside of any Cathedral is an exceptional tourist destination.

Vienna’s tourist map lists so very many churches, palaces, synagogues, academies, libraries, theaters, embassies, towers, and Government buildings. It shows many residences and monuments to Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, and Johann Strauss. It identifies so many Beethoven residences, monuments etc., his birthplace, Bonn, Germany, must be jealous.