Wurstelprater

The Wurstelprater is a popular amusement park in Vienna, Austria.It is referred to as the Volksprater in papers dating back to 1825.It is now often referred to as the Prater.The amusement park is located in the 2nd district of Leopoldstadt, in the northwestern portion of the Prater leisure area, near the Praterstern.The Wiener Riesenrad is the city of Vienna’s and the Wurstelprater’s emblem.

This institution goes back to the Austrian Empire, when Emperor Joseph II opened the Prater (which had previously served as an Imperial hunting area) to the public in 1766. The Wurstelprater was formed as the first snack restaurants, shops, and bowling alleys built on the grounds.

The Wiener Riesenrad, a Ferris wheel, is the most well-known attraction. The park also has bumper cars, carousels, roller coasters, shooting galleries, ghost trains, a Madame Tussauds wax works cabinet, and other attractions. Aside from the rides, the park has a number of well-known classic Viennese restaurants (including the Schweizerhaus and the Walfisch) and gift stores.

Calafati, a 9-meter-tall sculpture of a Chinese man located near the Wiener Riesenrad, serves as the park’s mascot.

During its season, which runs from 15 March to 31 October, the park is open everyday from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Some attractions, as well as food booths and restaurants, are open year round. There is no admission price to the park; instead, each attraction charges its own fee, with the attractions being independent companies, most of which are owned by local families.

During the Christmas season, there is a tiny Christmas Market on Riesenradplatz, just next to the Wiener Riesenrad Ferris Wheel at the Wurstelprater entrance. From mid-November through the beginning of January, this Wintermarkt offers traditional Christmas items as well as seasonal cuisine and beverages.

The Wurstelprater is located in the Wiener Prater and is easily accessible by public transportation (U1/U2 Praterstern) as well as vehicle (parking facilities are provided).

History

The unofficial but continuous name of the amusement park, the Wurstelprater, comes from a Volkstheater character, the ” Hanswurst ” invented by Josef Anton Stranitzky.During the late 18th century Enlightenment, these popular theaters were evicted from the market squares of today’s old town and relocated to the Prater, which Joseph II opened to the general public in 1766.

The section of the Upper Prater containing entertainment businesses was already known as the Volksprater throughout the Biedermeier period.The term Volksprater was formally established by the city government on the occasion of the World Exhibition in 1873, for which the Wurstelprater had been dismantled in the early summer of 1872.Today, the name Volksprater is used officially, for example, B. on the Vienna city administration’s computerized city map, but it is rarely used.

The Wurstelprater crossed the exhibition street to the north in the late nineteenth century.Some entertainment enterprises established up in the Venice Au, most notably the Circus Busch in the panoramic building built in 1881.The Venice Au entertainment district grew to 48,250 m2 during the next several decades.There were also equestrian stables, beer depots, and numerous display booths in addition to the Circus Busch.

Around 1900, the Wurstelprater was possibly the world’s first theme park – “Venice in Vienna.”Gabor Steiner created it in 1895 to replicate the lagoon city on the Prater’s Kaiserwiese (between the Praterstern and the Riesenrad) in a lesser scale.Water canals were built, which were bordered with carnival booths and other amusement options.Every year for the summer season, new attractions are introduced.

The Ferris wheel was created in 1896/97 and is now an icon in Vienna.The Wurstelprater attained peak supply and demand values in the twenty years preceding World War I.Friedrich Holzdorfer opened the Ghost Castle, one of the world’s oldest ghost trains, on lot 96 in 1933.

The Wurstelprater was nearly totally destroyed during the Battle of Vienna in early April 1945. It was reconstructed or renovated in the years that followed, and the part in the Venediger Au was no longer included.

The Prater was used to film crucial scenes for the feature film The Third Man, which went on to become a worldwide success.

The only remaining Prater cinema, located between Exhibition Street and the Ferris Wheel, burned down in 1981 and was never rebuilt.The cinema, which had roughly 1000 seats, has been here since 1927 as the replacement of an 1845 theater.

The Wurstelprater today

The Wurstelprater is the most well-known section of the Vienna Prater, with many show and entertainment facilities such as ghost trains, merry-go-rounds, wave flight, rollercoasters (roller coasters), mirror and laughing cabinets, Autodrom, drop towers, and many other family-friendly establishments.There are also several slot machine arcades and other forms of gambling.The major season runs from the middle of March until the end of October.

The Flower Wheel, which launched in 1993, is a relatively newer Ferris wheel.It is substantially smaller than the Wiener Riesenrad, with a diameter of 35 meters, and, unlike the latter, features spinning open cabins.The Calafati, Watschenmann, and Toboggan are three other, albeit lesser, Prater features.

Unlike many other amusement parks, admission to the Prater section is free; however, the entertainments enjoyed must be paid for at the individual showmen.Despite the fact that the Wurstelprater is marketed jointly, the individual properties are leased by the City of Vienna to private entrepreneurs, who work at their own risk.

The Wurstelprater also has a wide range of gastronomic options, including the popular Lángos, which are offered at a number of stalls, and the well-known Schweizerhaus, which was taken over by Karl Kolarik in 1920.Nowadays, it is most recognized for its genuine Budweiser beer, which, because to its high and hence quick consumption, only requires a small amount of CO 2 and so tastes lighter.The pork knuckle is another highlight.

The Liliputbahn is a magnificent park railway that travels the Prater region far beyond the amusement park on a 3.9-kilometer circuit.It also crosses various highways that are open to the general public.It has a 381-millimeter gauge and has been in operation since 1928, while the line was extended to the Prater Stadium in 1933.Vehicles include two steam locomotives, four diesel locomotives, and four passenger train sets.The main station is located next to the Ferris wheel.

The “Republik Kugelmugel,” a micronation with a single citizen and a single residence – a Kugelhaus – also sits in the Prater.The “President” of the state, Edwin Lipburger, erected the home in Katzenlsdorf, Lower Austria, in the early 1970s, believing that because it only relies on one point and has no spatial growth, it is in a state-free region and he may use his to announce their own republic.His “Republic” was then transported to the Vienna Prater, where it still stands today.

Since 1964, there has been a planetarium with the Prater Museum on the edge of the Prater, near the Ferris wheel, which depicts the history of this amusement park with various exhibits.

The Wurstelprater or Volksprater is the property of the Vienna municipal government; the amusement and gastronomic enterprises that use it are tenants of the spaces they occupy.The Wurstelprater is handled by one of the municipal administration’s companies.

The Bohemian Prater near Vienna- Favoriten is a comparable but considerably smaller facility.

The Wurstelprater was given an entrance area designed by Emmanuel Mongon next to the Ferris wheel, which was designed as a rondeau and given the name Riesenradplatz; Gastronomy establishments, information stands, and shops in the style of “Vienna around 1900” were arranged around it in connection with the 2008 European Football Championship (the Ernst Happel Stadium, one of the venues for the European Championship, is located in the Prater).

Already in the planning stages, there were allegations that there was no public procurement for the 32 million euro deal.Furthermore, the initiative only altered the entry area; the rest of the Prater remains “spread out” and inhomogeneous due to the small-scale leaseholder structure; yet, this is a common aspect of the Vienna Prater.The new buildings’ appearance were also somewhat criticized in the media.

The Praterdome (dome, English meaning cupola), Austria’s largest disco at the time, opened on the outskirts of the Riesenradplatz toward the end of 2008.From November through January, the square hosts a winter market with live music.

Vienna, Austria