This was supposed to be a gym day, but I can’t pass up sunshine! Instead, I decided to check out the walking/biking path along the Donaukanal (Danube Canal).

Originally a natural tributary of the Danube River, the Donaukanal has been used as a canal and regulated as such for several hundred years. It’s easy to mistake it for the actual Danube, because it flows right beside the Innere Stadt and is much more a part of Vienna than the main river, with trails, parks, cafés and “beaches” alongside it.

I walked from Friedensbrucke to the Hundertwasser Promenade, snapping pics along the way. (Dear parents: though all the graffiti makes it look like I was walking in a bad neighborhood, it is in fact a well-populated  hiking and biking path right next to the city center!) Then, I hopped the nearest tram home. Great infrastructure sure allows for a lot of spontaneity!

For some reason, most of this section of the park is called a “Fairness Zone”— in English. I was unable to determine from looking online whether this means that bikers and walkers have to share the path “fairly” or if it demarcates the area in which graffiti is legal. Anyway, most of the graffiti is just graffiti, but some of it approaches pop art and is definitely the work of some talented taggers. I posted some pics my son took a few months ago—these are from the other side of the canal.