Alert---Turtle in the Flakturm!

An innocent excursion to purchase an adapter at the local store for all things Mac yesterday morning led to several unanticipated discoveries: flakturms, turtles, snakes, amphibians, birds, marmots; then ground-zero for chess; then a gratis massage (just what one needs after contemplating a book touting the merits of the Caro-Kann). My desire to escape the heat, after visiting the Mac store, compelled me to climb aboard the first bus I spotted going in the general direction of the city center. As it trundled down the cobblestone streets, I spotted the great dinosaur-like outlines (actually from some perspectives it looked like a flattened Mickey Mouse head), looming ahead. Jumping off the bus, I headed for:

The ‘Haus der Meers,’ a zoo for aquatic, avian, and reptilian critters housed in a former flakturm, beckoned with its soaring greenhouse façade climbing up one side of this monstrosity, and an actual climbing wall for climbers on the other. A number of former ‘bunkers’ were built from 1942-1944 throughout Austria and Germany (a total of 16 flakturms were built in Vienna, Berlin, and Hamburg). Their history is documented on 22 wall charts occupying three floors. What should be done with them has been a controversial topic and concern for decades. The Haus der Meers must be exemplary in its transformation of one of these mega-structures. The pièce de résistance was the top floor, flung open to the sky and offering a splendid panoramic view of all Vienna.

The rest of the afternoon was spent investigating the treasures of the chess shop on the next block, and indulging in a massage (gratis!) performed with heated jade roller machines from Korea.