Amusement Parks and Me

I forgot to mention that all of us went to the Wurstelprater Amusement Park our last night in Vienna.

The Riesenrad (meaning "giant wheel") is a Ferris wheel at the entrance of the Prater amusement park in Vienna, Austria. It was one of the earliest Ferris wheels, erected in 1897 to celebrate Emperor Franz Josef I's golden Jubilee. The designer was an Englishman, Walter Bassett, which explains why the wheel's diameter is a round number in Imperial units - 200 feet (approximately 61 m). The Riesenrad is now one of Vienna's most popular tourist attractions, and symbolises the city for many people.

The wheel originally had 30 gondolas, but was severely damaged in the Second World War, and when it was rebuilt, only 15 gondolas were replaced. The spokes are steel cables, in tension, and the wheel is driven by a circumferential cable which leaves the wheel and passes through the drive mechanism under the base.

The Riesenrad famously appeared in the post-war film noir The Third Man. It is also featured in the 1987 James Bond film, The Living Daylights, and appears prominently in the 1995 Richard Linklater film Before Sunrise.

There is no entrance fee to get into the park; instead, each attraction charges its own fee, the attractions being individual businesses mostly owned by local families.

Some of the group went on some pretty scary rides. I only went on the very fast racing cars!

Dinner was onsite at the Schweiserhaus Restaurant.......yummy!