The Danube promenade at the Donaulände

The Donaulände is the stretch of riverbank between the Nibelungenbrücke and the eastern edge of the centre, and it is the city's outdoor room: a wide green strip of lawns, gravel paths, plane trees and open-air sculpture running for the better part of a kilometre along the water, with the Lentos museum standing on it and the old town immediately behind.

Unlike most city riverfronts, the water is right there — no wall, no road between, just grass down to the quay where the Danube cruise ships tie up. That gives you a foreground of open lawn, a river with real traffic on it and, across the water, the north bank rising to the Pöstlingberg with the basilica on top.

The bank faces north, so the light is soft on subjects most of the day and the far bank is lit rather than backlit — an easier riverfront to work than it sounds. Early evening gives the best combination: warm light on the Pöstlingberg, the river still bright, the buildings not yet lit.

From May to September the lawns are busy with the whole city, and there are festivals along here through the summer. In winter it empties completely and the fog that fills the valley makes the far bank and the hill disappear altogether — a bare, quiet, very different photograph. It is ten minutes' walk from the Hauptplatz, which makes the pair an easy single session.