This, in glorious black and white, is the Wiener Riesenrad, the giant Ferris wheel found in the Prater amusement park on the north side of Vienna, Austria. "Riesenrad" is German for "giant wheel." And it is.
The Wiener Riesenrad was made famous by that climactic scene in the Orson Welles's movie "The Third Man." There are two great monologues by Orson Welles on the Riesenrad. The first is at the top, where he talks about calculating how many "dots" on the ground below you could afford to spare, "free of income tax." The second is the great monologue contrasting Italy under the Borgias and the Swiss under 500 years of peace and prosperity.
I rode the Riesenrad without any great monologues back in December 2018.
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