The center of Vienna is a grand place. It has large pedestrian areas, it is clean and tidy, plenty of provision for litter and reasonable public seating. They have some problems with pigeons but not as much as I expected. They did have one problem for us and that was lack of directions. You would get one direction and then nothing!
This is a visual journey of our walkabout — to get the best from Vienna as a sightseer — you have to look up!
Looking back at St Stephen’s Cathedral:
Looking forward to destination across Stephansplatz/St Stephen’s Square:
Turning right into Graben:
Pestsäule — Enormous — 69 foot tall — Baroque Statue commemorating the end of the Great Plague of Vienna:
View to the right to St Peter’s Church — a Baroque Roman Catholic parish church.
The original church of which nothing remains is rumored to be the oldest building in Vienna.
As well as being a church it houses precious artifacts and holds regular musical performances and organ recitals.
One of the many fountains in Graben:
Next, we turned right into Kholmarkt through the roof tops a view of Franziskanerkirche — the Franciscan church of St Jerome:
We turn another corner — following a sign that takes us through a narrow gateway which joins the stables and training halls of the site of the new Vienna Riding School and which houses the Lipizzaner Museum.
Once you have passed through the gateway you enter the courtyard outside the Austrian National Library guarded by two magnificent statues.
A couple of hundred yards more and we are at our destination — The Albertina Museum!
We took about three quarters of an hour strolling to reach our destination — we could have spent a whole day if we had stopped and investigated everything on offer. However, Monet awaited and was the primary objective for the day.