One of Vienna’s most beautiful shopping arcades is located in the Palais Ferstel in the heart of Vienna’s 1st district on Freyung. Palais Ferstel was built in the Venetian-Florentine Trecento style between 1856 and 1860 by architect Heinrich von Ferstel and was actually designed as a bank and stock exchange building. For me, this palace is simply beautiful. From 1860 until the completion of the Vienna Stock Exchange building, it housed the Vienna Stock Exchange on the ground floor. It cost the enormous sum of around 25 million euros in today’s money. Palais Ferstel is a magnificent Italian palazzo with wrought-iron gates, its façade adorned with sculptures by Hanns Gasser. The interior of the passageway impresses with its rich paintings, leather wallpaper, and fine wood paneling. In 1876, the famous Café Central opened its doors there, becoming a meeting place for decades for Viennese poets, thinkers, and revolutionaries such as Leo Trotsky and Alfred Polgar. To this day, traditional culinary delicacies of Viennese cuisine are served there in a dreamlike atmosphere in the historic architectural style of late Romantic historicism. I love strolling through the magnificent glass-covered shopping arcade with its stucco-decorated ceilings, the beautiful Mediterranean arcade courtyard, the magnificent rooms on the first floor, the wonderful fountain, and the elegant shop windows. I am particularly taken with the imposing Danube nymph fountain in the hexagonal bazaar courtyard of the arcade, which is 6 meters high and has a basin diameter of 3.20 meters. The basin is made of Adnet marble, while the column with the nymphs, the upper shell, and the three figures— merchant, shipbuilder, and fisherman, as well as the Danube nymph with flowing hair, are cast from 75 Vienna hundredweight of bronze. I am always fascinated by this beautiful fountain, which was created by Anton von Fernkorn. The arcade is home to exquisite antique dealers and boutiques, as well as specialty shops.
