31/05/2026
Viennese Fiakers are a living landmark of the city and Vienna is the world’s capital city of horse-drawn-carriages. 🐴 Weather you love them or not, they give Vienna a very unique cultural DNA.
But why and how did Vienna become such a „Mekka“ for carriage driving? ⬇️
There are mainly two reasons for it.
1st: the taxi industry as you know it today, was invented in 1693 here in Vienna by horse carriage. Back, then they gave license plates to the carriages and placed them on fixed parking lot where they were allowed to wait for customers. Further the city was also divided into different sounds and the prices and rates for the rides in each zone were regulated as well. That was an absolute modern and new public transportation system.
2nd reason: in Vienna the famous Fiakers invented their own driving system and style of driving, which is called the Viennese Hungarian style. Therefore different harness and drains are used as well as the set up in front of the carriages of the horses different. The Fiakers made a lot of adjustments to help the horses to have more freedom of motion in front of the carriage and to make carriage driving much more comfortable on the one side. On the other side, this driving system was very convenient for cities with busy and narrow streets. If the driver was skilled enough, they were able to navigate the horses up to 1 cm close on very narrow streets. That was very revolutionary! And still until today Fiaker keep improving their own driving system, horse welfare standards, horse training and a lot of positive changes have been invented by the Viennese Fiakers. 🇦🇹
