Prater

The large public park between the city and the Danube in Vienna, Austria, with the Hauptallee and the Riesenrad Ferris wheel. See Vienna (Literary).

At a glance

Source	Author	Role	In one line
Neither Here Nor There	Bill Bryson	journey waypoint	Setting out to see the Danube, Bryson gets only as far as the Prater’s Ferris wheel.

Neither Here Nor There — Bill Bryson (1991)

Source: Readwise highlight

I tried walking to it one afternoon and never made it, only getting as far as the Prater, the vast and famous park, which is bordered by the Danube on its far side.

• Role: journey waypoint
• In the book: Chapter 19. The park is so big that he gives up on reaching the river and plods along the Hauptallee past playing fields and cafés to the amusement park and its Ferris wheel, “the one made famous by Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten in The Third Man”. A sign says the Riesenrad was built in 1896–97 by an Englishman, Walter Basset.
• Why it matters: It makes his point that the Danube is incidental to Vienna: you can spend an afternoon trying to reach it and fail.