Ringstraße
The grand boulevard round the old town, built where the city walls stood.
In 1857 Emperor Franz Joseph ordered the city walls pulled down and a boulevard built in their place. Along the Ringstraße rose the Opera, the Parliament, the town hall, the university, museums and palaces.
Trams run round it, and in the game the race rides a stretch of it, past the Burgtheater and the Hofburg to the Opera.
More in Vienna
St Stephen’s CathedralVienna’s Gothic cathedral, with its 136-metre south tower and a roof of glazed tiles in zigzags.
GrabenVienna’s grand shopping street on the line of the Roman ditch, with the Plague Column in the middle.
Plague ColumnThe Baroque column of clouds and angels put up after the plague of 1679.
HofburgThe Habsburgs’ winter palace for six centuries, now the seat of Austria’s president.
MichaelerplatzThe round square at the Hofburg’s gate, where Roman ruins and Adolf Loos’ plain house face the palace.
Spanish Riding SchoolThe white Lipizzaner stallions dance in a Baroque riding hall inside the Hofburg.
State OperaOpened in 1869, the first great building on the Ringstraße and one of the world’s great opera houses.
AlbertinaA Habsburg palace with one of the world’s largest collections of prints and drawings, Dürer’s Hare among them.
BurgtheaterOne of the most important German-language theatres, on the Ringstraße, opposite the town hall.
FiakerThe two-horse carriages that wait on Stephansplatz to drive you round the old town.
Coffee housesMarble tables, newspapers on wooden holders and a glass of water with every coffee.
SachertorteA rich chocolate cake with apricot jam, invented by Franz Sacher in 1832.