Wurstelprater

Listen for a moment before you look. The rattle of a roller coaster chain. A burst of screams that fades into laughter. Organ music from a carousel, slightly out of tune. Then the smells reach you: frying dough, roasted almonds, beer, and the sweet smoke of grilled meat. You are standing in the Wurstelprater, Vienna's old amusement park. People here have come to play for well over two centuries.

The ground under your feet was once forbidden to almost everyone. The wider Prater was an imperial hunting ground, a stretch of woods and meadows along the Danube. Deer and wild boar lived here, and the Habsburg court rode out to hunt them. Ordinary Viennese stayed outside. That changed in 1766, when Emperor Joseph the Second opened the Prater to the public. He was a reforming ruler, and this was one of his more popular decisions.

Almost as soon as the gates opened, people came to sell things. Coffee houses appeared, then inns, then puppet shows, swings and simple merry-go-rounds. Over time, this corner of the Prater filled with entertainers of every kind. That is where the name comes from. It is usually linked to Hanswurst, a crude, comic clown of old Viennese popular theatre. So the Wurstelprater is not really the sausage Prater... although, as you will soon notice, there is no shortage of sausages either.

Now turn and find the great wheel. You cannot miss it. This is the Riesenrad, which simply means giant wheel. It was built in 1897 to mark the golden jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph, fifty years on the throne. The engineer was an Englishman, Walter Basset, who built similar wheels in Britain and elsewhere. Most of those other wheels were taken down long ago. This one is still turning.

Look closely at the cabins. They are not small open seats. They look more like little red wooden railway carriages, hanging from the rim. The wheel moves slowly, so a ride feels calm rather than thrilling. As you rise, the city opens out around you: the green roof lines, the spire of Saint Stephen's Cathedral, the hills of the Vienna Woods on a clear day. The steel frame turns quietly around you.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. The wheel you see today is not exactly the wheel of 1897. In the last days of the Second World War, in 1945, fire swept through this area. The Riesenrad burned and its cabins were destroyed. It was repaired and reopened soon after the war, but with fewer cabins than before. The engineers reduced the load on the old structure. So the gaps between the cabins carry a small trace of that difficult year.

Those postwar years gave the wheel its most famous moment. In the film The Third Man, from 1949, Orson Welles plays Harry Lime, a racketeer in a ruined, divided Vienna. He meets his old friend in one of these cabins, high above the fairground. Looking down at the people below, he talks about them like dots. Then comes his speech about Switzerland and the cuckoo clock. Film lovers still ride the wheel just to sit where that scene was set.

Back on the ground, wander away from the wheel and the park changes character. There is no single gate and no single owner. The Wurstelprater is a patchwork of rides and stalls, many run by families for generations. Old wooden carousels stand next to modern machines that spin riders upside down far above the treetops. Painted ghost trains, with grinning monsters on their facades, sit beside shooting galleries and arcades. The mix is part of the charm.

Keep an eye out for a giant figure with a long braid and a fixed smile. This is Calafati, named after Basilio Calafati, an entertainer who ran a carousel here in the nineteenth century. The figure has been rebuilt over the years, but a version of him has watched over the fairground for a very long time. To older Viennese, he is as much a part of the Prater as the wheel itself.

Now follow your nose to the Schweizerhaus. This large beer garden sits under the trees at the edge of the fairground. It is famous for one dish above all: Stelze, a whole roasted pork knuckle with crackling skin. It arrives on a board, and people eat it with mustard, horseradish and their hands. The beer is Czech, Budweiser Budvar, poured in heavy glass mugs. On a warm evening, the long tables fill with families, students and office workers.

If you have children with you, look for the Liliputbahn, a miniature railway. Its small trains run out of the fairground and through the green Prater park. It is a gentle way to see the quieter side of the area. Beyond the rides, the long Hauptallee, the main avenue, runs straight through the park under old chestnut trees. Joggers, cyclists and horse riders use it every day. The noise of the fairground fades quickly once you are there.

That contrast is worth noticing. Vienna is often seen as a city of palaces, opera and formal manners. The Wurstelprater shows a different Vienna, louder and more relaxed. Here, emperors once hunted, and now anyone with a few coins can ride a carousel. It is close to Praterstern, one of the city's busy transport hubs, so locals drop in after work. Many visitors come for the wheel and stay for the evening.

Before you leave, stand still for one more minute. Watch the red cabins of the Riesenrad climb slowly against the sky. Listen to the carousel music mixing with the screams from the newer rides. Notice the light: in the evening, the bulbs and neon signs switch on one by one. People have walked across this same ground since 1766, looking for the same simple thing... an afternoon of fun.