Travelling Hopefully

Strolling along the Ringstrasse is a very Viennese thing to do.  Or at least most foreigners think its a very Viennese thing to do.  Therefore the Ringstrasse is permanently clogged with tourists kidding themselves that they are behaving like the Viennese.  The other day I was one of them.  I picked a good day, it wasn't raining even a little bit, the sky was clear and the sun was shining.  Of course it was cold, very cold actually.  My Christ it was cold!

Still stereotypical imperative demanded that I stroll along the Ringstrasse and stroll or rather shiver I did.  The Ringstrasse came into existence at the command of the emperor Franz Josef.  We seem to be hearing a lot about him but his presence is ubiquitous in Vienna.  Until 1857 the inner city of Vienna was still circled by a huge belt of fortifications designed to keep out the Turks.  By 1857 the only thing they were resisting was efficient commuter flow.  Franz Josef's orders saw the walls torn down, the moat filled in and the whole replaced by a broad boulevard circling the inner city on three sides (the Danube Canal occupies the fourth).  This new ring was liberally endowed with parks, squares, statutes and not infrequently all three.  Very soon lavish buildings began to rise there as the wealthy and the high born seized the opportunity to compete with each other to see who could build the most overblown building in the desirable new location.

The prize must be awarded to the imperial government who threw up (I use the term advisedly) a colossal building to house itself.  It was here that the two houses of the imperial parliament gathered to scream at each other.  It fulfills the same purpose today for the federal government of Austria although as far as I'm aware without the emergency clause in the constitution which allowed Franz Josef to ram legislation through while his parliament was gainfully employed hurling inkwells at each other.

A close runner up in the "Architecture that doesn't know when to stop" awards in the town hall of the city of Vienna itself.  This was another building I mistook for a church.  It is really unfair though to single out these two buildings, the entire ring is adorned with buildings, some beautiful, some elegant but all imposing. Together with the parks and squares they truly are an ornament to the city.  The Ringstrasse must count as one of Franz Josef's most enduring and valuable contributions to his people and it is a little churlish to point out that an ulterior motive behind the Ringstrasse was the fact that it is very difficult for the urban mob to build barricades across an eight lane motorway.

I walked the entire ring (not as impressive an achievement as it sounds) and strolled along the Danube canal to my starting point.  By this time the afternoon sun had warmed the air to the point where hypothermia was a mere possibility rather than a definite fate.  I loved it in Autumn, it must be amazing in Summer.