Fantastic photos from around the Ring, Part 1

…. on Freud’s couch

Directly vis-à-vis Sigmund Freud invites you to lie down. The park is the ideal place to get a picture of the "Ring Cathedral". On the grassy lawn, which is actually named after the forefather of all shrinks but is known by everybody here as the "Votivpark", there is always something going on. Here people play, chill and (hard to believe) probably also skip a lecture or two. Probably the ones about Freud ...
 

Cheeese, doctor

Switch to selfie mode on the phone and the University of Vienna is already in the background. The venerable "main uni" as it is known by insiders (and most of them have studied something here), is over 650 years old and, with almost 100,000 students, the largest university in the German-speaking world. A look in the “Arkadenhof” – the beautiful arcaded courtyard – and the auditorium is definitely worthwhile. Nowhere is it easier to get a selfie with Nobel laureates – where you can be sure they will keep still. (By the way, the title of the shadow figure on the ground is “The muse has had it!)
 

Winter magic, summer sounds and many colourful personalities

Right next to the main university, the Rathauspark invites the "flâneur" to linger. The view of the old "New Town Hall" is especially spectacular in the evening. The large Town Hall Square is not only the perfect place for a small Viennese postcard shooting with a tram (the Viennese also affectionately call the tram the "Bim"), a horse-drawn carriage or the Burgtheater in the background. You can always be sure that there is something going on around here. There is never a break in the hustle and bustle in front of the offices of the no less busy mayor. In winter, the famous Christmas market sparkles and for the more active there's a skating rink, which leads on intricate paths through the park. In summer, everything is set from head to toe to on music. When the major theatres and concert halls take a summer break, a huge screen in front of the town hall takes the stage. It appeases the culture-hungry Viennese and their guests from all over the world with concert highlights of the last decades. The range includes everything, from classical to jazz to rock. It is particularly colourful in June, when a festival for life is celebrated in and in front of the city hall: the famous Life Ball in aid of AIDS.

The show must go on....

Celebrations are also celebrated vis-à-vis: the Viennese are more attached to the theatre than to any other institution. The Viennese Burgtheater "shrine" is, after the Comédie-Française, the second oldest straight theatre in the world. The building on the ring was severely hit during the air raids on Vienna in April 1945 and burned right down to the steel structure. While modern and purist buildings were being built all over the world at the time, the Viennese did their utmost to preserve and rebuild the "cream cake".

But the "Burgtheater" - that is Vienna’s much-loved theatre company, the plays and the actors, who are celebrated here like superstars - were by no means unemployed during the reconstruction. Just a few days after the fire, they were back on stage. In "exile", as the actors called it, in today's Ronacher theatre.

The play of colours continues - albeit less entertaining - in parliament. After a "quick" photo shoot with good old Pallas Athene, who stands guard in front of the mighty ramp of the parliament, you can cross over quickly into the much more relaxed rose garden ….