A procession of Fiakers

One of the features of Vienna that you cannot be missed on the roads are the Hackney carriages known as  'Fiakers', apparently named after the cabs that used to be found in the Rue de Saint Fiacre in Paris. At the peak in the 1900s, a thousand fiakers plied their trade in Vienna. Nowadays, they aren't quite so many, but certainly enough, doing brisk tourist business in the city centre, to make you watch your step when crossing the road. The fiakers are pristine in glistening paintwork, the drivers are smartly dressed, and the horses clearly looked after. 

Vienna is a city that visually keeps giving. You can turn around almost every street corner to find something interesting such as traditional shop, mural, stature, memorial and the wonderful Ankeruhr (or Anchor) Clock in the Hoher Markt. Vienna is nowhere near the sea, so it appears a strange name to commemorate in a locked city The explanation it that the clock was designed as a bridge between two buildings of the Anchor Insurance Company. It is over 100 years old and in the designed in the Art Nouveau style. There are 12 figures of famous people that proceed in rotation in the body of the clock and appear in the same position in 12 hours cycles.

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