The Panorama
For more than a century the Giant Wheel has been turning above Vienna, offering a unique vista of the City on the Danube. For the Viennese and visitors alike, the Wheel has become an unmistakeable symbol of the city, visible from far away. Now another wheel turns at its foot: The "Wheel of History."
In audio impressions, in eight cabins with ingenious artistic and technical installations using all the tricks of presentation and an enormous diorama, this Panorama brings an age-old Prater tradition back to life. This is not a museum, but a stage, a stage of history. The tour takes in two thousand years of the history of Vienna and stories of the Prater.
ROMAN TIMES
Vindobona rises from the ground. Marcus Aurelius travels in a horse-drawn carriage through the countryside. He ruled here when the Prater wetlands were still a wild flood landscape.
MIDDLE AGES
The Prater as a connecting element of the landscape, the medieval city, the construction of St. Stephan's Cathedral. The inner city starts to take on the form it will retain for centuries to come when the Prater still lay far beyond the city gates.
TURKISH WARS
The Prater as the scene of military conflict, Vienna in the 17th century, the cavalry of Polish king Jan Sobieski. The scene shows the attack of the Polish cavalry launched from the Kahlenberg.
AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
In 1766 Joseph II opens the Prater to the public, the imperial hunting grounds become a huge entertainment park – a European attraction to the present day.
BIEDERMEIER
The Prater as the kingdom of the ordinary people, dance and music lead the way into the first half of the 19th century. Vienna is not spared the political conflicts which rage throughout Europe.
WORLD EXHIBITION and VENICE IN VIENNA
The illusion landscape "Venice in Vienna" was constructed at the entrance of the Prater as part of the World Exhibition. Of the many attractions only the Giant Ferris Wheel has survived the passage of time.
FIN de SIECLE
The Prater as a literary setting, the first car races in the main alley. Vienna at the turn of the century, a truly cosmopolitan city in which the Prater was both a place of loud enjoyment and discreet adventure.
From the GOLDEN 20s to the DISASTER of the WORLD WAR
The ideal world of the Prater and its destruction. But the certainty remains that nothing can destroy the "Wurschtl," the symbol for the vibrancy of the Prater. And still the Giant Ferris Wheel turns ....
