1.Bezirk / 1st district, Vienna

To be honest, never before I have seen such a church building, to me it looks alike construction composed of several different buildings put together.
The church is strongly connected with the Minoriten - Franciscans monks who appointed in Vienna in 1224. The construction of the church started in 1276, in French Gothic style, and was completely finished in 1350. The masters who built the church are unknown, however, it is commonly attributed to Jacobus Parisiensis. The building follows the pattern of the French Cathedral architecture.
The top of it's bell tower was damaged during Austro - Turkish war, rebuilt and then again destroyed in another war. Finaly the top was then replaced by a flat roof.
Later on the church become Italian National Church and was named Santa Maria Maggiore.

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The history of the town goes back 25.000 years ago when the first settlement was built here, most probably by the Celts. Later on, in the 15th century BC, Romans fortified the frontier settlement they called Vindobona, to guard the Empire against Germanic tribes from the north. Vindobona is the oldiest known name for todays Vienna.
The recent excavations discovered remains from the Roman times at the Michaelerplatz, right in front of the entrance to the Hofburg.

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The Graben and surrounding streets are essentially visited for shopping; you find here what you find in any city centre from the luxury brands to the popular ones. Not to forget a number of terraces for drinking, eating and people watching.

A plus point of the Graben is the architecture of a number of buildings.
The larger ones like Grabenhof, Generalihof, Erste österreichische Sparkasse all from the 19th c. belong to banks or insurance companies (photo 1). They give, with several other smaller ones, that monumental style typical of the Graben at least if you look above the commercial ground and sometimes first floors. I especially like the building in light brown colours at the start of the Kohlmarkt (photo 2) belonging to the Bausparkasse Wüstenrot.
Is it a coincidence that there are so many famous jewelers on the Coalmarkt or due to the fact that diamonds are also made of Carbon atoms?
From here the promenade reaches the Michaeler-Platz and Hofburg.
Coming back you cannot avoid that strange monument called Pestssäule (photo 3). On each of my visits to Vienna I stop here and … feel invaded by perplexity. This should be an example of high baroque?

It’s an old square called Graben (Fortress Moat) and surrounded by buildings in so called Jugendstil with Holy Trinity Column (Dreifaltigkeitssaul) in the center.
The column dates back to the end of the 17th century when the city was suffering from plague.
The monument was erected in the reign of the emperor Leopold I as a sign of gratefulness for the end of the devastating plague epidemics in the city in 1679. You can see three angels, numerous other figures and statues and the statue of the kneeling emperor Leopold I who is thanking Heavens for the end of the plaque nightmare.
People call that column simply Plague Column.

The House of Butterflies is the place there I found lot of colorful butterflies in hot atmosphere with exotic plants. It was interesting to see how butterfly eat bananas, and easily can be touched with hands or photo can be taken on macro mode in even 5 - 10 cm distance.

This place is not so big, just two small flours. As I remember, entrance costs about 3,5 euros.

Hofburg theatre is opposite to Vienna Ratthaus (Town Hall). Its architecture looks similar with mush theatres in Europe, especially built in Austrian - Hungarian Empire period and German lands.

This is special place to relax and take a walk in green surrounding in the centre of Vienna. The park, in my opinion, famous about its plants - lot of roses and every rose is different from each over - by color, type. As I know it is the most popular public park for Viennese.

As I like Ancient history of Europe, Ancient Greece and Rome, I was lucky to see remains of Roman building just in the centre of Vienna. Really greatly presented and not destroyed object shows long history of Vienna city, that it is not only the treasure of Austrian-Hungarian Empire, but also of Ancient Europe too.