Vienna 1952

We left checkpoint and drove along the British Corridor but soon came across a deviation sign.  We followed the arrows for a few miles until we were suddenly confronted by two soldiers bristling with guns who signalled us to pull in to the side of the road.  they told Arthur to get out.  After a while he returned to the car and we turned round and started back the way we came.  Apparently we had missed the sign directing us back on to the main road.  The soldiers seemed satisfied with Arthur's explanation thank goodness.  The week before some British soldiers returning from a football match in Vienna had been detained overnight.
We arrived in Vienna and parted from our friends.  We would meet again the next day.   We had a rather frugal meal and walked down to the river.  Vienna  too, was divided into four zones.  We saw a jeep with four uniformed soldiers, one British, one French, one American and one Russian. The Red Army Bridge was the limit of the Russian Zone and had an enormous red star hanging over it.  The Danube was not blue but a murky greyish green!

The next morning, a Sunday, we visited St. Stephen's Cathedral with its roof of molti-coloured tiles.  We admired some very fine buildings in the Ringstrasse.  The Opera House looked in ruins.  There were some very fine but expensive shops.  We went to the Prata, a large Park.  There we saw the Big Wheel which featured prominently in the film The Third Man.  In the Prata were many family groups taking photos.  It was Whitsun and children had taken their first communion.  They looked so pretty, girls in white dresses and boys self conscious in their smart suits.

We met our friends in the early afternoon.  We had an uneventful journey home.  We negotiated the checkpoints successfully and were thankful to leave behind the Russian soldiers and their enormous portraits of Josef Stalin.