Okcoasterfest 2006 part 3, Prater Park, Vienna

This is the third article in a series about my trip to Europe in 2006 for Oktoberfest.  For the previous installment, see here and here.

The third day of our trip featured a trip to a very famous European park, Vienna's Prater.  I'd seen it and its famous Riesenrad ferris wheel from a distance on a prior trip, but had not had a chance to go in.  So I was all the more eager to have a chance to see this legendary park.

Because of our late arrival the night before, I'd barely gotten a good look around our hotel room.  It turned out to be very nice.  From our balcony we had a very good view of the theater (the Raimund) across the street.  In fact, above us we saw some spotlights that I suspected may have been directed at the theater's marquee at night.  We also had a panoramic view of the city.  In the distance I saw a cluster of modern-looking buildings that I suspected were the UNO complex.  I thought perhaps the Riesenrad itself would be visible, but I could not spot it.

One of the most annoying logistical issues I had to deal with throughout the trip was finding enough outlets to keep all my electronic equipment charged.  Recall that for the first day and a half of the trip we were without our luggage.  This meant I'd been without my chargers, leading me to run dangerously low on batteries on some of my devices.  My camcorder and camera were most important, as their batteries tended to run out most quickly.  I had brought a whole slew of camcorder batteries but since most were old they tended to run out quickly (in fact, that very day one that I'd thought I'd fully charged turned out to give up the ghost almost immediately).  My camera had the flaw that it wouldn't show its battery level until it had almost run out, so I rarely wanted to risk it not being charged for more than a day.  And my experience the day before with my PDA motivated me to try to keep it charged at all times too. For the rest of the trip I'd feel obligated to charge as much as I could every night so as not to risk running out of batteries on any of these devices.

With our luggage now in hand, we decided to leave behind the inferior toiletries we'd bought to get by while we were missing our bags.  We went down to breakfast.  Seating was a bit chaotic, but the food selection was as good as we'd get used to on that trip.

After checking out we walked over to the Bahnhof, where we dropped our bags off in lockers for the day.  This was a technique we'd use several times on the trip.  The lockers here would only accept exact change, which we didn't have, but fortunately we could cancel our transaction to get the right change before it was too late.  While we were in the Bahnhof we also validated the rail pass that would serve us for the rest of the trip.  With this pass, we were able to take trains all across Germany.  We had a certain number of days on which we could use the passes, and Tim had worked our travel plans out precisely to make use of those days.

However we weren't going to take the intercity train until that evening.  Instead we took the U-bahn orange line to Stephansplatz, from which we transferred to the red line which took us to the Praterstern station.  We emerged at street level to see the Riesenrad clearly, but it took us a few minutes to find the way to the park.

We did the Riesenrad first thing.  It would be an injustice to call this just a Ferris Wheel; it's a historic landmark and an icon of Vienna.  In the style of the original Ferris Wheel at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago--but unlike most later installations--it has enclosed wooden cars rather than small seats.  These can accommodate many people at once.  It is not much younger than the Chicago wheel, as it was built in 1897.  It barely survived the Second World War.  It now runs with only half of its cars attached to the wheel, giving it a sparse, skeletal look.

Before boarding the wheel we briefly looked through the museum below.  Its display cases, covering the history of the attraction, were arranged to look like the cars of the wheel itself.  As with many such attractions, they took a souvenir photo of us before we boarded.  Our picture taker was far more enthusiastic than we were; we really had no interest in the photo and just went through the motions.  For one of the pictures she took she had us look up at the wheel.  The result was funny, but we still didn't buy it.  We were also given some coupons for the souvenir shop, but didn't use these.

There were a few people in front of us in line, but due to the large capacity of the cars, we didn't have to wait long.  The wheel stopped very smoothly for loading and unloading.  Our car was somewhat sparse, with only a bench in the middle, and a lot of graffiti on the walls--the funniest was "America Rocks!"  (I hear that dinner can be served in some cars; I presume these are much fancier.)  You don't need to sit on the bench; you can stand if you wish.  If too many people stand on one side, the car can get unbalanced.

We were sent around for one slow full circuit.  The tall wheel gave us a good view not just of Prater Park, but of the entire city.  I could see some smokestacks for some factory I'd seen on my previous Vienna trip, as well as the patterned roof of St. Stephen's Cathedral.  Of course there is nothing physically thrilling about this ride, but I was thrilled just to be on such a historical structure.  To me it is almost as significant as going up in the Eiffel Tower.

There is much more to Prater Park than the Riesenrad, and it was time for us to begin exploring the rest of it.  We began by going to one of the nearest coasters, the Dizzy Mouse.  For a price of 3 Euros (everything in the park had to be paid for separately, even trips to the toilet) we could get a rather standard "crazy mouse" ride in spinning cars on a switchbacking track.  I liked some of the theming touches on this ride, candy stripes on the cars enhanced the idea of spinning and at one point the track went through a tunnel shaped like a cat's mouth.

Our next ride was one called "Super 8er Bahn".  In German, a roller coaster is an Achterbahn, meaning figure-8 road.  That's where the "8er" comes from.  The ride itself is a moderately small steel coaster featuring more turns than hills.  I'd ridden a similar ride at Wildwood in New Jersey, and recalled it being somewhat unpleasant.  Though it didn't go upside down, it had restraints that went over the shoulders and passed by the ears.  Super 8er Bahn had much more logical simple lap bars, making the ride far more comfortable and fun.

After this ride we headed further into the park.  We didn't realize it but it seemed that things toward that end of Prater didn't "wake up" until about noon, so we really didn't get to ride anything for a while, but we got to see some of the rides and get more of the feel of the park.

Though we didn't ride it we were amused by a ride called Rock Me Amadeus.  Another called Superman intrigued us.  It was similar to "Top Spin" rides in the US that would flip riders repeatedly upside down--or just suspend them--but in addition it could tilt the platform to one side or another at the same time it flipped.  However we never came back to ride it.  Economics prevented us from riding everything we might have otherwise--at a few Euros per pop, things added up quite quickly!  Another interesting looking ride was shaped like a bell.  Not only didn't we ride this, we never saw it in operation, so I have no idea what it even did.

There were also plenty of non-ride things to see.  One plaza had some interesting sculptures in it.  One set had many human figures strung together.  A picture is worth a thousand words here, I can't even think how to describe this.  In the pavement were embedded little figures, such as utensils or musical instruments.  One object looked like a grub until we realized it was a crescent roll!  In another place we saw face in a wall that would make noises if you approached it.


I'll add some other miscellaneous notes about some other aspects of the park's ambiance here, though not all are strictly chronological.  There were many "random dogs" wandering about, apparently perfectly at home.  Another oddity was the McDonald's where "mineralwasser" was sold.  On the sidewalk in one spot we saw a chalk drawing with the lettering "Happy birthday Florima".  In another area there was a ride with Michael Jackson painted on it (my vague recollection is that it was airbrushed, apparently a popular decorative technique there).   There was also a shuttle that ran through the park that looked like a train with no tracks.  It even had a locomotive shaped front car.  Such a shuttle in the open would not be found at an American park for insurance reasons!  Near a grill stand was an inexplicable sign that just said "Buddy".  Throughout the park were a whole slew of "El Toro" bull-wresling games as well as "Muscle man" games.  Apparently Austrians are vain about their strength!  Later I'd see a cute little "xylophone" embedded into the concrete.  By stepping on the right panels at the right times, one could play a tune.  Janna also saw something I didn't, a woman on roller skates passing by with a plate of food.

We were still having no luck finding an open coaster.  One that we looked at, the Boomerang, was clearly going to be down all day.  There were cranes around it, apparently to give it the sharp new paint job it was sporting.  It was like many a similar ride I'd seen in the US--three loops taken forwards and backwards--but it had a unique tunnel before one of the loops that made me wish I could have ridden it.

Finally we did find an open ride, though not a coaster.  Called Extasy, it was a flat ride under a cover.  It looked very similar to a ride we'd ridden on a prior trip called Xtreme.  Xtreme had been a wicked-looking ride, with many upside down flips but I'd wound up loving it, so I expected to really like Extasy too.  Knowing that we'd be flipped upside down one way or the other, we decided to spend a Euro to put our stuff in the "Safe-o-mat" locker temporarily for the next few rides where it would be best to be unencumbered (mostly those that went upside down).  We bought ride tickets at the booth labeled "Kassa", which we soon would recognize as the word indicating tickets at all the fair-type parks we went to.

Extasy seemed to be as much about the environment as the ride itself.  There were airbrushed paintings on the walls of heavy metal guitarists and bare-breasted women.  I didn't hear it at the time, but later noticed that the operator could make various sound effects by pushing buttons at his console, including a burping noise.  The ride was accompanied by loud music.  As we were boarding they played a dance version of "Because the Night".  At moments during the ride where it was accelerating the op played "I got the power!"

Sad to say the ride was not what I expected.  Unlike Xtreme, Extasy's cars did not flip freely.  They were secured to the ride arms, which meant that when the arm went upside down, riders would be suspended that way.  This became very uncomfortable when combined with the other spinning motions of the ride that flattened us to the back of the car.  The ride I'd recalled would flip more freely with random movements.  This prevented me from being upside down for extended periods of time, making it more fun.  Since Extasy was so much more uncomfortable and less fun, I was quite glad when it was over.

We next went to one of the many dark rides in Prater.  They also had similar names, but I believe this one was called Geister Schloß (loosely, "haunted castle").  This also cost 2.50 Euros.  It was a nice old-fashioned dark ride, not all that different from what one might see at an older park in America, though some of the effects came closer to us than would be found in most American ride, such as a shovel that looked like it was going to hit Janna's face until it pulled back at the last minute.  We couldn't help but laugh at another Spider Man effect after the one we'd seen in Budapest's park.  But the best effect of all was at the end.  As amazingly simple as it was, I'd never seen it before--as our car emerged through the last door back into the open, the ride operator held a mask right in front of our faces.  Just as the ride was finishing we got the most shocking effect!

Our next ride was called Volare.  Though it was a roller coaster, none of us was particularly looking forward to.  It represents a relatively new variation on riding position, a so-called "flying coaster", of which quite a few have cropped up since about 2000 or so.  Several different manufacturers have their own variations.  I am not a big fan of any of them, but Volare is not the best implementation of the concept.  Riders board the ride four across standing up facing into a kind of grill and a door is closed behind them.  The cars then tilt so that riders face forward in a Superman-like position.  A clever pushing mechanism propels the cars up to the top of a spiral lift.  From there the ride goes through a series of twists and turns, with two moments of being upside down.  It sounds intriguing, but in practice it isn't very fun, as we had discovered on a similar ride in the US.  This experience was no different except that there was an odd little dip before the first main drop, apparently to help it fit in a tight space.  The tight turns and inversions tend to bang one's head back and forth a lot.  We were happy to get our "credit" and get off.  Incidentally, I know a man who used to sell these rides, and we would give him a hard time because they were so bad.  And yet we spent 4 Euros to ride it!

Next we rode the Liliputbahn, a train ride.  It was apparently a famous attraction at the park but I must confess that I hadn't heard of it before.  It was located in back of Super 8er Bahn.  There were several ticketing options, and we were confused about which to buy.  I chose the Teilstrecke option.  Apparently a one-way ride, it was the cheapest option at 2 Euros.  This turned out to be a bad choice.  The other station was well outside the main area of the park--past tennis courts and even a bowling lane--so we had a lot of walking to do to get back.  Also, it appeared that the return journey made a big loop through the woods before returning, making for a more scenic ride than the one we got.

We walked through a mildly wooded area--with some wonderful huge gnarled trees--to get back to the amusement park proper.  Along the way we saw an odd teeter-totter type of ride with seats made of tires.  Our walk took us back to a kids section of the park, which we passed through quickly, but I did get the impression that it was a bit newer and nicer than the areas of the park we'd seen to that point.

We wandered around a bit aimlessly, but eventually wound up at one of our most anticipated attractions, Hochschaubahn.  This is another Scenic Railway ride, but unlike Vidámpark's this one was truly scenic, simulating a trip through the mountains.  We were immediately charmed when a cat jumped out of the train as we approached.  Another aspect of ride atmosphere (literally) was the smell of chicken from a nearby restaurant.  I think we were about the only people on the ride; at the very least there was absolutely no line.  The operator had to come out of a little office to give us our ride (which cost 2.50 Euros).  Not only did he have to take our money, he had to act as the on-ride brakeman.

We rode in the very front where I could film (this time Janna took the on ride pictures).  It wasn't a very thrilling ride by any means, but I loved it all the same.  There were several cute scenery touches such as little gnome figures at various points throughout, including one that spit water at us as we passed beneath.  There were several tunnels (the one before the lift had lights and bright splotches of paint).  In the middle of the ride was a miniature village and even a waterfall!  Though it wasn't part of the theming of the ride, another touch I liked were the traffic signals at various points along the track.  If more than one train had been on the course, these would have told the operator that he had to stop the ride to avoid a collision.  For us they were always green!

Thrilling or not, Hochschaubahn turned out to be one of my very favorite rides of the trip.  I can't think of anything quite like it anywhere else.  More even than the other Scenic Railways I've ridden this one felt like a trip back to a time time when such rides were common.  Oddly enough I didn't record more than one ride in my notes, but I'm pretty sure we took at least one more ride, possibly even two.  If we only took the one, it would be the biggest mistake of the trip!


There were yet more parts of the park to explore, so we walked around again without riding for a while.  One that intrigued us was a broken down spiral slide.  Having loved the Helter Skelter slides in Britain, I was sad to see this giant slide closed, but more mystified at the ramp that seemed to lead halfway to the top of the slide.  We couldn't figure out what it was used for; we'd only find out later on the trip when we saw one in operation (and you'll have to wait to hear about it too).

We also saw a charming attraction, the Auto BergBahn, a kiddie wood coaster.  We had originally had hopes of getting yet another "credit" on it, but we soon saw that this would be impossible.  The cars would simply not have fit us.  Instead we just watched a girl and a boy riding (and loving it).  They were sent around for several circuits, both on the course at once; with the girl seeming to catch up to the boy as they went.  The operator seemed to share duties with another ride.  Though we couldn't ride, when she'd left we couldn't resist temptation and tooted the real bulb horn on one of the cars.  (There was one other "coaster" we didn't ride, Der Zug des Manitu.  It was powered, so we skipped it when we ran into it very late in our visit.)

It was time to get on the last of the coasters we could ride.  We began with an interesting ride called Megablitz.  It had standard-looking steel track, but the cars had tandem seating, more like a bobsled.  A ride op told us in a singsong voice to ride two to a car.  The layout had a lot of helixes, usually not my favorite element, but I found this one intriguing and fun.  It cost us 3.50 to ride at first.  We could have reridden for 2.50, but decided not to.  However we did bring the operator more business, as a group of Germans who had been watching us ride decided to go for a ride themselves.

The final coaster we rode was the generic Wild Mouse ride, for 3 Euros.  The operator told us it was "very fast", but we weren't impressed since we'd all ridden so many such rides before.  Even so, the braking on this one was very light, so we got some good pops of airtime through the ride.

It was time to eat, and we had a specific plan as to exactly where to go, the Schweizer Haus, right by the amusement park.  We sat outside in the good weather, though smoking seemed to be allowed in the entire area.  We began with some beers.  We all got Budweisers, but this was no American Anheuser-Busch beer.  This was the original Budweiser Budvar from Czechoslovakia (for legal reasons in this country it must be sold under the name of Czechvar).  They came in roundish flasks, the beer coming to a perfect head at the top.  Janna and I got small ones but Tim for some reason got a large (I don't think he deliberately ordered that size).  Later we'd each get a second round.  The beer tasted great, but was also deceptively light.  We soon found ourselves feeling the effects that put us in a pleasant, mellow mood for the rest of our stay at the park.

The specialty of the house is undoubtedly the pork knuckles, but we were a bit intimidated by the name and didn't order them.  Later I came to regret this when we saw them brought to another table.  They looked and smelled delicious!  Next time for sure, but that time I got Bratwürstel, i.e. small bratwurst sausages.  They came with Senf, i.e. sweet mustard.  I thought the sausages just a bit pink on the inside for my tastes.  Better was the bread we got, which was flavored with salt and caraway seeds.  Janna compared it to a Buffalo weck roll.  I also shared some of Janna's Erdäpfelpuffer, a dish like potato pancakes but a bit crunchier than I was accustomed to.  We were puzzled by the payment protocol; the check was brought in a glass, and we weren't sure if we were supposed to use the same glass for payment.

Our meal over, we next went to see one of the more famous--or perhaps infamous--attractions of the Prater, the Ponykarussell.  This carousel is powered by live ponies, something we felt a bit guilty about trying ourselves since we thought it a bit cruel.  For this reason, we never did ride, though we kind of hoped somebody else would so we could see it in operation.  We never did, though during our meal we'd heard a deep rumble we attributed to the ride going around.

Nearby was Star Flyer, a ride that had been intimidating us since we'd first glimpsed it.  It is a swing ride, but with a difference.  The swings, with nothing beneath riders' feet and only a lap bar chain for restraint, rise up to a height of over 200 feet.  There's nothing to it beyond that, no extreme flips or anything else of that sort, but the extreme height and vulnerable seating made me very nervous about it.  Apart from coasters, I don't do well on high rides.  But it could have been worse.  When I first heard about the ride, I thought that when it went down, it was in free fall.  Even though it didn't do this, it took the lubrication of the strong beers to give us the courage to ride.  Once I conquered my fear it turned out to be a pretty pleasant experience, quite windy at the top with a fantastic view!

We'd already done one spook house but there were several more to try.  We rode two of them, which I believe were both called Geister Bahn.  The first featured some very old and low-tech effects.  Rather than being activated by electric switches, they were triggered by the cars rolling over wooden bars.  It had one excellent effect where it looked like we'd drive over a collapsing bridge.  It was very long and in spite of its primitiveness was pretty scary, due to the effects really getting right in your face.

The second dark ride had its own unique effects.  At one point we were surprised to see a tiger figure cross over our path.  There were very loudly banging doors, and a skeleton figure at the end that looked like it was operating the brake.  At the end was another unique feature, the seat began to vibrate!

Besides dark rides, the Prater also has its fair share of impressive looking fun houses, often five levels high, for patrons to walk through.  Perhaps it was our bad luck for picking the wrong one, but the first we tried was not very impressive.  There was a decently disorienting maze at the end, but otherwise it had an assortment of standard tricks such as a tilted room and roller floors.  Nothing struck me as something I couldn't see elsewhere.  A bit later we'd try a four-level one called Magic Dreamland which seemed to be better.  I found myself having lost the technique of dealing with the moving split staircase, something which I used to be able to do.  The idea is to let one set of stairs bring you up a level, then step across to the other, which brings you up the next step.  If you do it right, it goes very smoothly, while if you don't, it is awkward indeed!  There also was a very fast moving belt, which seemed to be triggered just as we stepped on it; we began to suspect the operator was able to see us and trigger them when necessary.  At the end we descended by a very tight spiral slide.

Our next ride was the Tagada, one of those we had most anticipated.  This ride exists in a few places (and in fact we'd run into another example later on) but it is nowhere to be found in the US, so it was a rare opportunity for us.  When it's not running, it looks like a simple large bowl in which riders step in and sit around the edges.  One distinct oddity is that there is nothing to hold them in at all, not the least sign of a restraint of any sort.

When operating, the ride begins to spin very quickly.  But that's not all.  The bowl can rock in several distinctive ways, apparently under control of the operator.  The motion is oddly organic and mesmerizing from off the ride.  On the ride it is enough to really throw you around.  It's at this point that the lack of restraints becomes positively scary.  Then add to that the operator encouraging people to try to stand up and stay standing as he bounces them about and you'll see why this ride never will appear in the US.  We didn't try the standing trick ourselves--it was quite difficult enough for me to stay in place while seated--but we were very entertained watching some kids try to ride.

Two things prevented us from staying longer at Prater, money and time.  With all rides costing several Euros apiece, it was not economical to ride as much as we'd otherwise have liked to.  The time factor, of course, was that we had to return to the station to catch our train out that evening, heading toward Salzburg.  We were left wanting more, and I hope to return some day.

On the way out, Tim and Janna looked for post cards--something that I tend not to do myself.  We also got some Coke in a can.  In a prior installment I mentioned our search for Coke made with sugar, so I'll mention that this Coke seemed to have sugar as an ingredient, but also seemed to have corn syrup.  Our quest continued for "pure" old-school Coke.

The U-bahn took us back to the Westbahnhof for our outbound train.  We arrived with plenty of time, giving us the chance to scrounge up a meal-on-the-go from the "Das Ist Okay" convenience store.  I had some sliced gouda cheese and landjäger sausage.  Neither was quite to my taste.  The gouda was creamy, but I'd expected it to have a smokier flavor than it did.  The sausage seemed more like jerky than anything else.

On the train, we had reserved seats, which were marked in LED letters with our destination.  Our seats were facing a table, much like a restaurant booth.  Our tickets were taken with a crisp "Grüss Gott" from the conductor (who had bad BO).  Sadly, the trip to Salzburg was mostly in the dark, probably denying me some great views.  Instead I napped briefly, but some loud nearby teens kept me from getting too much quality sleep.  An American train might have masked their sounds, but the European trains ran too silently.

A slight track delay made our arrival time slightly late and we had to leave through the gauntlet of teenagers.  As the night before we had a tough time finding our hotel, though it was only a few blocks from the train station.  Once we got in, we didn't stay up long.  We did have time to appreciate the nice room (outlets all over, very convenient for me), the pieces of marzipan on the beds left for us, and the Sound of Music channel that broadcast that movie in a continuous 24 hour loop!  Further exploration of Salzburg would have to wait for the next morning.