My town, your town, our towns...

One disdadvantage of the centre of Vienna is that in recent years rents have risen greatly, and most of the shops that formerly sold things that I might be able to afford, have been replaced by Fifth Avenue/Bond Street/Champs Elysées chain stores like Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Armani, etc. Even in the side streets, prices are amazing.

Yes, these little animals are interesting: they are made of glass, mirrored on the inside; but at prices around €5000 each I'd be afraid of breaking one.

Even €1200 seems a little excessive for a piggy bank!

David

WOW. Who buys those?

Rochdale with a new lens

Nice pictures, Alan. Gracie's face looks more masculine than I recall. The old Shure microphone is very interesting: not the type she would have used in the UK, surely, and it's several inches too high. (Not as bad as Sir Robert Peel in Bury with his buttons on the wrong side.) My mother used to have her hair done like that...

Time to clean the lichen off the clock tower!

Is the original Co-op store still standing? If so, a pic of that would be interesting.

David

Yes, it's here.

We have similar marks on our cathedral. Often measurements of lengths differed from town to town, though they had the same name.

It‘s interesting that the representation of your longer unit is vertical. It must be about 3 metres tall, thus actually unreachable!

David

More digging near where we live. This blocks the zebra crossing that leads to the station. It appeared on Friday morning. No more action expected until Monday!

As far as I can see, the aim is to do away with one of the two lanes here. It seems that the city of Vienna is trying to make life difficult for drivers. Stay tuned...

David

No progress visible on the hole in the road above, or on the new tramlines that suddenly appeared in recent months.

But the weather was much improved, and I took some pictures of downtown buildings. The first in Kärntnerstrasse, next to the Maltese Church. The street is so narrow that I dont think I could get a totally satisfactory photo, even if I had had my shift lens with me.

Detail:

The second is a street away, roughly to the west, in the Neuer Markt, this time facing the sun.

Detail:

It never ceases to amaze me how much decoration was added to buildings in earlier centuries, and that this is not visible to the occupants unless they go outside. The statue looks like it might be Mercury from his wings and what he is holding in his hand; but I have no idea why.

David

Sunday was spring-like, so we drove to the top of Kahlenberg (only 480 metres high, and reached by means of many hairpin bends). This map shows our walk.

Just south of the parking lot is the church. We walked down Kahlenberger Straße to the statue of St. John Nepomuk and then took the steep and stony path shown by a dotted line. Here were lovely little spring flowers called Leberblümchen (Eng: Liverwort, Latin: Hepatica nobilis):

Rejoining the road we turned right and sat for a while. The vines do not yet have any new growth.

Nearly at the top of the hill there is a cemetery, dating from 1783 (marked Mausoleum on the map).

I think Monty was hoping to find some bones:

The grave with fabric draped over the urn is that of Stephan Ziegler, who was a silk merchant. The inscription on the grave stone to the right says: "if you have seen Vienna from the Kahlenberg, you will understand my peace here".

Below is the grave of "the prettiest girl in Vienna". She died in 1815, aged only 21. Unfortunately, no photo or painting exists of her, but that doesnt stop here from being famous still!

We the took the little path up a steep hill. It is a challenging shortcut. We made it and continued back to the top. The * on the map just south of the church is the spot from where I took this photo:

One can see the two arms of the Danube, facing downstream. The Old Danube is on the right, and the New Danube (produced by piling up what was the flood plain and making the Danube Island) on the left. Unusually, both were blue. When spring really comes, mud, etc, from upstream will turn the Old Danube brown. The New Danube is closed off at this end, and only opened when flood threaten.

David

In Vienna new shops have a habit of opening and then closing very soon after. This is one I havent seen before. The animals are cuter than those I showed earlier -- and a lot less expensive.

David

Units of measure were placed on the wall next to the west door of Stephansdom in Vienna in 1450. They represent the ell, which is approximately the distance from the shoulder to the fingertips, the exact legal definition of which varied from town to town. It was used for measuring cloth. The upper bar is the cloth ell. It is 77.6 cm (30.6"), and the lower one is the linen ell and is 89.6 cm (35.3"). These measure could be consulted in case of a merchant's suspected inaccuracy.

There must have been disagreements even in 19th century London, as similar standards were erected in Trafalgar Square in 1838-42 and can still be seen. For added accuracy, the London standard specifies an ambient temperature of 62° F!

David

I didn't know that. Thanks.

Alan

Unusually, on Friday I was in town during the morning, when the sun illuminates buildings from a different part of the sky than in the afternoon. I paused on the Ringstrasse, by the Hofburg, and took these pictures.

I do not know what this opening in the walls is for: we are looking into part of the parade ground, with the statue of Prince Eugene of Saxony (1663-1736) and the old palace in the background, the spire of St Michael's Church behind. I have always found the presence of these two eagles somewhat disturbing, dating as they must from the 1930s.

Here is another view, in which one can see the Rathaus in the distance, and part of the Burg Tor: once part of the fortifications, this has for long been a war memorial:

And a 100% crop:

The Leica Q3, with its 28mm lens and 60MP sensor, offers amazing results on such a small segment taken from the photo.

David

The magnolia in the back yard is coming along nicely!

It lives in a sheltered environment. Other places I have lived, where there was an abundance of magnolia trees, suffered from gusts of wind that brought the blooms down within days of their maturity. If 2025 is like former years, we should have weeks of pleasure from this tree.

David

I was up early this Sunday to witness the start of the 42nd Vienna Marathon at 9:00 am, in which 43,000 runners competed. The weather had suddenly turned cold: from 19° C on Saturday, the temperature dropped to 0° C, accompanied by a bitter northwest wind. Pictured is the start of the race, as the runners come over the Reichsbrücke (Republic Bridge) over the River Danube.

The winner was Haftamu Abadi from Ethiopia. At 21 he is the youngest winner ever in this event. The freezing weather defeated the favourites, but Haftamu was smart enough to wear ear muffs and extra clothing! This is him at the end of the race -- a screenshot from the computer.

David

The Magnolia in the back yard reached its peak display on Sunday:

David

You never know when you are going to discover a memorial plaque in Vienna. This one commemorates the composer Antonio Salieri, who died 200 years ago this year. He may be best-known today for his part in the film Amadeus about Mozart -- not all of which is based on fact. He lived and died in the house that stood on the same spot as the present one, not far from the cathedral in the centre of the city.

On the same day, I rediscovered this little cut through to Michaelerplatz:

Go through the archway at the end of the lane and you come across the remains of an early 19th century house (foreground) with Roman remains in the background:

David

About two months ago, on the first page of this thread, I showed lines being installed for a new tram route. At that time, the work had stopped when it arrived at the main artery that the route crosses.

There things stayed, until recently, when the road was closed and more rails were laid. Sharp eyes will notice that they are not any more straight or flat than the previous ones! Half of the main road is still out of action.

David