GRABEN

Description

Essentials about the Graben in brief

The Graben is probably the most famous and certainly one of the most beautiful streets in downtown Vienna. It begins at Stephansplatz and leads northwest to Kohlmarkt and Tuchlauben. The Graben is designed as a pedestrian zone in the form of a square and is framed by a large number of historic buildings. The most prominent monument on the Graben is the Plague Column, erected at the end of the 17th century to mark the end of a plague epidemic as a column of mercy in honor of the Holy Trinity.

The name “Graben”

The name “Graben” already goes back to the ancient Roman camp of Vindobona, where a wall along today’s street formed part of the ramparts of the Roman fort, in front of which there was a ditch. This ditch existed until the Middle Ages and was filled in and leveled at the end of the 12th century in the course of the city expansion (which, by the way, was financed by the ransom for the captured English king Richard the Lionheart).

Shopping on Graben

The Graben has served as a marketplace since around 1300. Once a market for the fruit, vegetable and bread trade, the Graben is now the top address in Vienna’s shopping world. Accordingly, many luxury stores have settled here. Together with the adjacent Kärntner Strasse to the south and Kohlmarkt to the northwest, the Graben forms the so-called “Golden U” (because of the U-shape of the three streets) of Viennese commerce.