Vienna | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts tagged ‘Vienna’

25T55 My slice through Vienna’s inner city

E54, V02.

There’s no finer way to mark today’s Canada Day than to find the Canadian Embassy 🇨🇦 in the Austrian capital city. It’s all part of my walk through the Inner City, starting at U1/U4 Schwedenplatz and ending near U2/U3 Volkstheater.

Vienna’s historic city centre was inscribed onto the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2001, but its status was put onto the Danger list in 2017 with plans (threats?) for development.

It’s 501am and 801am in Vancouver and Toronto, respectively. But here in Vienna, I completed food shopping for the next few days. I’m about to have lunch, after which is some time in the inner city. “3” (Drei) is Austria’s third largest mobile carrier after A1 and Magenta Telekom. Naturally, all temperatures are in degrees Celsius.

*While the building has multiple tenants, the uppermost floor is occupied by the Government of Canada with its embassy (Botschaft).*

*The flag pole is attached to the wall with a metal plate in the shape of a maple leaf.*

*Summertime shop for Eis Greissler (Greissler’s Ice Cream).*

*At Stephansplatz, the northwest corner of St. Stephen’s Cathedral (near the cathedral model) has on its wall a small rectangular plaque whose text inscription is almost entirely faded.*

This plaque dates to 1945 when Soviet troops had moved into the city and checked building by building. The two words in Cyrillic are: квартал проверен (kvartal proveren), “Häuserblock geprüft”, building checked. There are at least 2 more Soviet inscription-plates like this appearing elsewhere in Vienna.

*Steiff: it’s not only about teddy bears* 🧸 *so how about Riddler bear, Bat-bear, and Elton John bear. At lower-left is a more modest-sized bear holding a little red heart* 🫶🏽

מוּזֵיאוֹן
*“Museum“, 2011 light installation by artist Brigitte Kowanz for the Jewish Museum Vienna.*

*Bräunerstrasse, west towards Josefsplatz.*

*“Henry: the art of living”, at Billa Corso Michaelerplatz.*

*“Island” platform for U-Bahn U3 (orange) station Volkstheater. This is also a junction station with the U2 line (purple).*

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 1 July 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

25T54 The transition from Berlin to Vienna

E53, B48-V01.

Travel day 54. The beginning of day 48 in Berlin ends with day 1 in Vienna.

I completed 7 weeks in Berlin after having been away for almost 4 years. But this is now my 4th consecutive summer in Vienna, another month in the Austrian capital. I guess the Vienna “Grantigkeit” is something I can recognize and appreciate. I’ll miss the general reach, frequency, and efficiency of Berlin’s U- & S-Bahn, but I’m also a fan of Vienna’s “end of the Alps” foothills and the unmistakable presence of the Danube river.

From one airport’s train station at BER, to the next airport’s train station at VIE.

*I arrived at Berlin’s airport on an FEX (Flughafen Express) train from Gesundbrunnen station.*

*Multiple tracks and platforms at Berlin Brandenburg Airport BER train station.*

*The airport is named after former German chancellor Willy Brandt. “If I were asked to say what, apart from peace, was most important to me, then my answer would be ‘freedom’.”*

*BER gates A16 and A17 at left and right, respectively. My flight to Vienna with Austrian Airlines from gate A17 is getting the prep.*

*Into VIE: Terminal 1 arrivals’ baggage carousel.*

*How could you, VIE, possibly know I was thinking about going back to Meissl & Schadn? Perhaps this is why.*

*I’m about to board an ÖBB RailJet train to Vienna’s central station (Hauptbahnhof).*

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 30 June 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

My Vienna: space invaders in the capital

Above: WN_31 at the corner of Ballgasse and Rauhensteingasse, 9 July 2024 (P15).

Don’t worry: it’s not 1529, nor is it 1683, and there are no bands of marauders on horseback arriving for a large and lengthy siege. This also does not include anything from outside the Solar System. Instead, this is about a human artist and their little creations sprinkled throughout the Austrian capital city. In fact, I’d claim their “invasion” has already succeeded.

When a wae lad was I, the video game Space Invaders was a kind of dawn, an opening to a brand new world. The lasting effects snuck into many aspects of life, including the time I dedicated to the learning, pursuit, and practice of science. In time, a video game about a battle to ward off waves of little aliens required the purchase of a large bulky black console, accompanied by a large bulky black joystick with a big red button. In the decades since, the technological leap into the first-quarter of the 21st-century means that Space Invaders is available as an online web-application, easily called upon anytime on demand.

In Vienna, the sight of little aliens prompted immediate personal curiosity, and I spent parts of three consecutive summers wandering the streets to find as many possible little “visitors”.

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My Vienna: Johann Strauss II, traces & places

Above: Danube river at dusk, facing southeast from Brigittenauer Sporn. Photo, 11 Jun 2022 (X70).

Vienna is a historical city of music with the likes of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and more. In the mid- to late-19th century, the Strauss family of composers created a dominant scene in Viennese waltz (Wiener Waltz). Johann Strauss II’s “An der schönen blauen Donau” (The Blue Danube) is one of the best-known compositions of classical music. The song was used famously in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “2001: A Space Odyssey“.

And as in the movie, the soaring feelings of hopeful anticipation during the spacecraft’s journey and docking with the spinning space station have become as routine as my arrival onto Viennese shores from the other side of the big eastern pond. I rely on Vienna to provide the gravity to maintain balance and spirit; this much has stayed true over multiple consecutive summers.

I’ve spent over 100 total days in Vienna, explored many of her streets and districts, and walked hundreds of kilometres. Efforts to immerse myself in various types of the city’s art and architecture have been accompanied by the sounds of brass horns and sweeping strings in a back-and-forth “dance” that spans the entire city. There’s new opportunity to learn about the song’s composer who was born, raised, studied, worked, and died in the Austrian capital city.

With the 200th anniversary of Johann Strauss II’s birth in 2025, the city of Vienna celebrates the occasion with a multitude of arts and culture events over the entire 2025 year.

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Rathauspark, Rathaus, WienLiebe, Stadt Wien, Vienna, Wien, Österreich, Austria, fotoeins.com

24 for 24: Foto(ein)s in 2024

Above/featured: “Hashtag Wienliebe” (Vienna love), Rathauspark. Photo, 15 Jul 2024 (P15).

2024 has been an interesting year of personal challenge and discovery. A conclusion for the family house provided fresh impetus to inhabit (in the short term) new spaces and places to improve overall health and happiness. In Vienna, I spent a full month for the third consecutive summer. Yes, it was continent hot, but time in the Austrian capital was both glorious and productive as expected. In Calgary is a city I hadn’t visited in many decades, and I witnessed a very happy aunt surrounded by many family members on her centenary year. In California’s Bay Area is a place where I hadn’t set foot in over ten years, but whose daily temperatures and chances of consistent sun offer a higher level of content.

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