The Ring Road Tour
Our tour through the heart of Vienna!
By Ermeas
A little time travel by bike.
From our store you can reach the Ringstrasse in less than 15 min by bike and then you can't get out of the jam.
We move along the Ringstraße, a Städlbaulchen Gesamtkunstwerk with a length of about 5km. Away from the traffic, we cycle along cycle paths from one sight to the next.
The first highlight is a monumental building with a huge eagle on the roof, the former War Ministry of the Habsburgs, under whose regency Vienna rose to the 3 most powerful metropolises in Europe, but which also had to answer for the end of the monarchy.
Just opposite, and dating from the same period, is a pearl of Art Nouveau by Otto Wagner, the Vienna Post Office Savings Bank. The tour continues to Cafe Prückel, a legendary Ringstrasse cafe with a popular outdoor seating area, from which one has a good view of the Lueger monument. He was a popular mayor who did a lot for the modernization of the city, but today is controversial because of his political anti-Semitism.
We continue cycling along the city park, the largest green oasis in the densely built city center, past the Waltz King Monument, to Schwarzbergplatz. Here one building immediately catches the eye, the Hotel Imperial, a noble hotel for politicians, diplomats, artists and anyone with a valid credit card.
Just behind the hotel is the building of the Vienna Musikverein , famous for its excellent acoustics and the annual New Year's concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
From the forecourt you have a very nice view of the largest baroque church in Austria, the Karlskirche. Also blessed with good acoustics, this imposing sacred building is often used for classical and contemporary concerts.
We stay with the music and cycle on to the sunken cistern of the Vienna City Opera. It was the first completed secular building of the Ringstrasse era. From here we pass Goethe, Schiller, Mozart, to the Burgtor, behind which is the Hofburg complex and Heldenplatz.
Alls architectural counterweight function on the other side of the ring. The Museum of Art and Natural History with the Maria Theresa Monument in the middle and the Museumsquartier behind it are the architectural counterbalance on the other side of the Ring.
In less than a minute's drive we are standing in front of the next highlight, the Parliament. In front of the magnificent neoclassical building, Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, looks toward the Volksgarten, her back turned to the high house with its representative body of the people.
We cycle on to the Burgtheater, the former home stage of the Habsburgs, and catch sight of the Town Hall opposite with the Town Hall Square in front of it, which is used for various major events, such as the opening of the Festival Weeks, the Film Festival, the Christmas Market, the Ice Room, etc. The next imposing building is also used for this purpose.
The next imposing building is also used, mainly by the approximately 90,000 students and 10,000 employees of the University of Vienna. This university, which is over 650 years old, is the largest in Austria, the largest in the German-speaking countries and one of the largest in Europe.
Not far behind stands the Votivkirche . The neo-Gothic building on the Ringstrasse was erected in gratitude for a failed assassination attempt on the young Emperor Franz Josef. Slightly downhill we roll on, past the former stock exchange to the actual end of the Ring, marked by the Roßauer barracks on the outside and the younger Ringturm on the inside.
From here we cycle along the Danube Canal on the Franz-Josef-Kai. Worth seeing on this section is the over 1000-year-old Ruprechtskriche. Also the "unity symbol" of Austria the Stephansdom is attainable from here in few minutes.
Our ring tour is completed by the Urania, an observatory also built under the reign of Emperor Franz Josef. Here, within sight of our starting point, our short journey through time comes to a worthy conclusion.
What will happen next? The stars will tell us!
