Hoher Markt, Vienna
Ancient market square holding buried Roman officers' quarters and a gilded Art Nouveau clock parade.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Hoher Markt in Vienna opens in the last cold weeks of winter, 180 AD, when a Roman army camp stood on this ground and the emperor Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher on the throne who filled campaign nights with the notebooks now called the Meditations, lay dying in a tent. For centuries no one could confirm it happened here, until workers laying pipes in 1948 broke into the buried stone quarters of Roman officers beneath the square, which you can still climb down into. Above the square hangs the Ankeruhr, a gilded Art Nouveau clock built for an insurance company by the painter Franz Matsch, its figures sliding across the face hour by hour.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Ankeruhr
Art Nouveau bridge clock with a slow parade of historical figures crossing hourly, all twelve together at noon.
Am Hof
Cobblestone square where a herald proclaimed an empire's end, ringed by a baroque Marian column.
Freyung
Triangular medieval square once granting sanctuary to fugitives, ringed by baroque palaces and a grand river fountain.
Franziskanerplatz
Compact L-shaped square anchored by a Baroque Moses fountain beside a humble Franciscan church.
Column of Pest
Baroque monument of swirling clouds and angels raised in thanksgiving for the end of a devastating plague epidemic.
Naschmarkt
Sprawling open-air food market of stalls and cafes, overlooked by gilded Art Nouveau apartment facades.