Prater Hauptallee: Vienna's Green Runway

Why is it significant?

Here it is: an avenue so straight that it seems to run to the horizon, lined on both sides by tall chestnut trees, with runners, cyclists, prams and dog walkers flowing along it in both directions.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Here it is: an avenue so straight that it seems to run to the horizon, lined on both sides by tall chestnut trees, with runners, cyclists, prams and dog walkers flowing along it in both directions. The Hauptallee runs for more than four kilometres through the Prater, almost all the way to the Danube.

For centuries this was where Vienna came to show itself. Once the Prater was opened to the public, the nobility drove their carriages up and down the avenue on fine days, especially on the first of May, in a parade called the Praterkorso. Everyone watched who rode with whom, who had new horses, who had a new mistress. At the far end stands the Lusthaus, an elegant little pavilion that marked the end of the drive.

Then, on the first of May 1890, a very different crowd arrived. Tens of thousands of workers marched into the Prater for the first May Day demonstration, demanding the eight-hour day. The authorities expected riots, and many shops stayed shut. Instead the workers came in their Sunday best and walked peacefully along the same avenue the aristocrats used. From then on, the first of May belonged to them too.

The Prater has seen darker days as well. Its great stadium, opened in 1931 and now named after the football coach Ernst Happel, was used in September 1939 to detain about a thousand Jewish men before their deportation to Buchenwald. And the Rotunde, the huge domed hall of the World Exhibition of 1873, stood beside this avenue until it burned down in 1937.

So here ends the walk: on an island that began with salt boats and a ghetto, survived flak towers and fire, and still keeps its funfair and its green avenue for everyone. Stroll on under the chestnuts as far as you like, or turn back to Praterstern, where trains and the U-Bahn will take you anywhere in Vienna.