Ring Around Vienna
March 21, 2005 — -- Many great European cities keep the crowds coming because of their ancient intact monuments. But in Vienna, one of the city's best sights is a road that resulted from a remodeling job.
In the 1860s, Emperor Franz Josef had Vienna's medieval wall torn down and replaced with a grand boulevard -- the Ringstrasse. The road, 190 feet wide and nearly three miles long, circles the city's core and gives Vienna a stately air. A trip around the ring road by tram is a wunderbar way to spend an afternoon, seeing statues, museums, parks and a canal, while getting a good taste of Viennese life.
On the Ringstrasse is the huge City Park, honoring many great Viennese musicians and composers with statues. Look for the gilded statue of Waltz King and native son Johann Strauss holding a violin as he did when he conducted his orchestra. Strauss, composer of "The Blue Danube," would whip his fans into a three-quarter-time frenzy.
Just north of the park, part of the real-life Danube awaits -- the Danube Canal, an offshoot of the mightier modern-day Danube. The Danube Canal area was the site of the original Roman town, Vindobona. Nearby are the ivy-covered walls and round Romanesque arches of St. Ruprecht's, the oldest church in Vienna, built in the 11th century on a chunk of Roman ruins.
Still on the Ringstrasse, you can see what looks like a huge red-brick castle, actually a high-profile barracks. It was built at the command of a nervous Franz Josef, who found himself on the throne as an 18-year-old in 1848 -- the same year that people's revolts against autocracy were sweeping across Europe. Franz Josef's paranoia was justified, judging by the next sight on the Ringstrasse. The huge, frilly, neo-Gothic church just down the street is a "votive church," built as thanks to God when an 1853 assassination attempt on the emperor failed.
Be sure to get off the tram at the blockbuster stop on the Ringstrasse when you see two tremendous museums facing each other. The Kunsthistorisches Museum, containing the city's greatest paintings, showcases the grandeur of the Hapsburgs' collected artwork in an opulent building. The Natural History Museum has the fist-sized Venus of Willendorf -- at 30,000 years old, the world's oldest sex symbol, found in the Danube Valley. The MuseumsQuartier behind them completes the cultural ensemble with a collection of mostly modern-art museums. A hefty statue of Empress Maria Theresa (the mother of Marie Antoinette and the only woman to officially rule the Hapsburg Empire in that family's 700-year reign) squats between the museums, facing the grand gate to the Hofburg, the emperor's palace, now home to the Vienna Boys' Choir. Nearby is the Lipizzaner Museum, featuring the famous prancing horses.
A great primer on a fascinating city, Vienna's Ringstrasse offers you easy-to-enjoy sights within a reasonable distance of each other. And after you're done, you just might be tempted to try a quick waltz along the banks of the Danube yourself.
Seeing the Ringstrasse
The Ringstrasse is easily navigable using city trams that make the entire circuit. For a fun and inexpensive (1.5 euros) orientation to Vienna, catch one of two trams around the ring. Tram No. 1 goes clockwise; tram No. 2 runs counterclockwise. Most sights are on the outside, so use tram No. 2, sitting on the right, ideally in the front seat of the front car. For maximum views but minimum air, sit in the bubble-front seat of the second car. You can jump off the tram whenever it stops, or you can stay on for the circuit, catching quick glimpses of the sights as you glide by.