Photo TR: Vienna and the Wiener Prater

Hi there.

Yesterday I returned from my one week trip to Vienna. Having two friends there, since several months, I finally took the chance to visit them and also check out Austrias capitol.

The city is really a gem. Castles, churches, sculptures, museums, you name it, its there. Scattered all over the place and mixed with newer, modern buildungs. I loved it a lot, so I decided to provide some pictures of this as well (just a few).

Of course I also had to visit the Wiener Prater (It translates to "the Prater of Vienna", so its not what you may think). In fact, I actually visited it twice. On our first visit, the batteries of my camera got empty pretty soon, so I returned alone the next day to take more pictures for you.

The whole place is pretty wierd. This year it celbrates its 250th birthday. It contains large gardens to the right. The left part is the main fairground area. Its landmark is a huge, old Ferris Wheel, which greets you at the main entrance. The Prater is also famous for its different kindsof saussages, also called "Wiener Würstel".

The thing that makes the place so wierd is the fact, that you can't clearly declare it as a fairground or theme park. A lot of its rides are transportable rides you can find at the european travelling fairs, except they are put there on a regular basis. You also have to pay for every single ride at the ride's entrance. Then, there are also stationary rides like a boomerang or S&S Space Shot.

There are also solid houses in between, like restaurants, casinos or arcades. To top it all of, a lot of the ment-for-travelling-rides are decorated on a staionary basis. E.g. the room under the drops of the Flume Ride are covered. To me the place felt more like a large fairgound, much like the Oktoberfest (Though there weren't any beer tents there).

Coaster-wise the park offers several credits. Theres a spinning mouse and a regular mouse. A custom Vekoma Coaster called "Mega Blitz", which I didn't care to ride. Then there is a Boomerang, A Zamperla Flyer called "Volare" and a pretty good Pinfary coaster I enjoyed a lot. Of course, the most important ride is the wooden coaster "Hochschaubahn". In fact, its a side friction ride with a brakeman. It features a compact circular and figure-eight layout. The theming is pretty nice. There are caves, waterfalls, loads of rockwork und a small replica of a mountain-village. Its a classic scenic railway in every sense. The ride itself offes a fast first drop and a nice double dip on the second drop. On my second visit, which was a sunday they, actually ran two trains on it.

So, I hope you enjoy my Photo-TR. It's actually my first.

And please be patient. There are 79 Pictures waiting to be posted.

Nikita

Detail shot of the Stephansdom's facade.

The Stephansdom. This thing is huge.

This Fiaker takes a nap inside his Fiaker.

These traditional coaches are all over the place. They are called "Fiakers" and charge you 40€ for 15 minutes.

Creepy gothic-style sculptures with bleeding eyes.

More sculptures inside the palace.

Somehow a prankster managed to hang a bicycle tire up there.

Sculpture of king Josef (i guess) in the old imperial palace. Something is wrong with it.

What does this mean?

The place in front of the house is beautifully themed too.

This house was decorated by the famous artist Hundertwasser as part of a social housing programm.

Vienna's city hall. Quite impressive.

This view never looses its feeling.

My flight from Nuernbern to Vienna. Hooray for the cheap 1€-flights

Part 2. More of the town and the first Prater pictures.

The landmark of the prater. The old Ferris wheel.

One of the many spinning rides that occupy the place.

A standard wild mouse. Since I have ridden enough mice enough times I decided to skip this credit. It wasn't worth the price.

There was this nice wooden Toboggan slide. Unfortunately it was closed.

Pretty kiddie carousel.

Side-entrance of the Prater.

Zooming in on the Prater, you can easily spot the ferris wheel, the space shot and the Starflyer

Beautiful night shot from a hill outside of the town.

This exhibition of 60's psychedelic art was pretty cool.

On my last day I also visited the museum district.

Being a psychology student I also had to check out Siegmund Freud's house.

A toy shop had this politically not so correct Supey in its window.

Detail-boobie-shot of the fountain.

The parliament building with the nice fountain in front of it.

Part three. More Prater pctures.

My favorite picture. Pure, twisted, Pinfari fun.

I can seriously recommend this ride. I really liked it, although there was no airtime on it.

It doesn't look like much, but its very fast and all the brakes where turned off.

Next to the spinning mouse was the Pinfari "Super 8er Bahn". This was a very good ride.

Who's the biggest spinner now?

It also has a small tunnel section towards the end.

They don't look like they have fun either.

The spinning mouse. Actually it was my first ever and I really didnt enjoy it.

See what these girls do. The ride-op encouraged them to do it. He even knew their names.

The second ferris wheel. It appeared to be only slightly smaller than the old one.

Splash.

The flume ride. You can see the "theming" attached to the small drop.

Not a high capcity ride, but it didn't matter since nobody dared/cared to ride it.

There was this freaky bell ride.

Part 4. Almost done.

It was very old.

It was old.

The sound and smell literally dragged me to this one. It reminded me of my first ghost house when I was a child.

One of the many ghost houses you can find there.

A train going down the first drop. I didn't ride this one too.

Though it looks like a Schwarzkopf at first, it's actually a Vekoma.

Mega Blitz. It's almost impossible to take acceptable pictures of this ride.

The beautiful skyline of the prater. How many rides can you spot? Email you know who.

The Starflyer. Omg this thing is so tall. Can't wait to try out Holiday Park's version next year.

I waited in the rain for 5 minutes to take this picture. Unfortunately it's all blurry.

The Boomerang is directly besides the space shot. Guess what it's called.

The central plaza is home to the space shot which is called "Space Shot". They charged 5€ for it, so I skipped it.

Break Dance and the "I don't know what it's called" ride.

Random spinning ride picture.

Scary masks appear out of the darkness, directly in front of you.

Nice pictures, but you should really have ridden Megablitz as its by far the best coaster in the park. Its very smooth and those helixes are extremely powerfull. I think it was a great ride, unlike Super 8-bahn, which I thought was 'just alright'....

The Spaceshot is also great! Im not a big fan of S&S towers as they usually feel very controlled compared to the ones made by companies like Intamin and Fabbri. This S&S tower was really good though. It may be expensive, but you get 4 or 5 ride cycles and it has massive ejector airtime at the top. Of the 5 S&S towers I have ridden, this is the only great one.

Part 5. The last one. Hope you enjoyed it.

One of the brakemen sitting in the last row.

Return run to the station. You can see the side-friction track.

A train passing the village section.

Nice view of the twisted layout.

The lift hill. Up we go.

It starts with a nice tunnel section.

The theming resembles a small mountain village

This ride is just beautiful. Here a train ascends the lift hill.

Last, but not least the reason why one should visit the Prater.

It still offers some nice views from the outside.

It wasn't really painfull, but it wasn't joyful either.

The first inversion, the worst part is almost over.

A train prepares to be released into hell.

Volare the Zamperla torture device.

What on earth does the bell ride do? I'm so curious now.

^From what I have heard, it basically does the same thing as a frisbee, but you know how bells work...

The middle "weight" (in this case, the seats) swing towards the sides of the "bell" as the arm swings.

In this case, the bell ride was nothing more but a lower capacity, themed, frisbee ride.

That's obscenely spectacular for even a German fairground, if only because of the terrible capacity.