Monday, August 22, 2011

Vienna: the Riesenrad

From the Belvedere, we walked to the S-bahn at Rennweg, and headed for the Prater (aka funfair where the Riesenrad is).





The Riesenrad was built in 1896 by Englishman Walter Bassett, and starred in both The Third Man and The Living Daylights. It’s nearly 65m high and the wheel itself has a diameter of almost 61m. It turns at the rate of 2.7 kmh and the ironwork weighs 430 tonnes.

Going up…


Looking at the middle...



Going over the top…

Looking out of the window…



At the amazing views…



Then it was back into Vienna central. We’d had a rather (!) large lunch, so dinner was just a snack at a very nice cafe (note the fairy lights on the right as well as the lovely chandelier).





In my case, strudel!




On the way back to our hotel, we noticed an art installation called ‘Yellow Fog’ by the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson – basically at dusk fog is created around the façade of the Verbund headquarters in Vienna. It was quite eerie when the horses and carriages came past.


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