Ferris Wheel

The Wiener Riesenrad (German for "Viennese giant wheel"), is a Ferris wheel at the entrance of the Prater amusement park. It is now one of Vienna's most popular tourist attractions, and symbolises the district as well as the city for many people.

The Riesenrad famously appeared in the post-war film noir The Third Man. It is also featured in the 1987 James Bond film, The Living Daylights, and appears prominently in The Star of Kazan(a children's book by Eva Ibbotson) and in Max Ophuls' Letter from an Unknown Woman and its Generation X counterpart, Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise. 

The Riesenrad was one of the earliest Ferris wheels, erected in 1897 to celebrate Emperor Franz Josef I's golden Jubilee, and has an overall height of 64.75 meters(212.4 ft). The wheel originally had 30 gondolas, but was severely damaged in World War II. When it was rebuilt, only 15 gondolas were replaced.

The Riesenrad is not the only Ferris wheel in Vienna, but it is the largest. Since 1993, there is a second permanent Ferris wheel in the Prater with a diameter of 35 metres. A further permanent Ferris wheel in Vienna can be found at Bohemian Prater.

 

 

Source: Wikipedia