A flimsy hairnet combined with a white plastic helmet is not necessarily my best look, but they were compulsory kit to undertake the Dritte Mann hour-long tour of the Vienna sewers.

The sewers were made famous when they appeared in the famous chase sequence in Carol Reed’s 1949 film The Third Man, starring Orson Welles as black marketeer Harry Lime.  Ironically, Welles only spent a small amount of time in the genuine sewers; many of his scenes being shot in a studio in London and, rather than squeeze through one of the more traditional narrow sewer entrances, Welles is seen entering by what is now known as the ‘Hollywood Entrance’, which was wider and had easy steps spiralling downwards.  I’m not knocking him, though; that was the same way by which I entered the sewers, in a corner of Karlsplatz.

The tour was led by a genuine Viennese sewer-worker, who interspersed an interesting commentary with a series of wisecracks mainly to do with the black humour of sewer work.

Lights on our helmets illuminated the way down into the sewer’s depths but, on an occasion when we were asked to turn our lights off, an impenetrable darkness prevailed.  Into this darkness was projected a series of stills from The Third Man movie, including the iconic image of Harry Lime himself.

We pass through narrow tunnels, the sound of rushing sewer-water never far away.  I had been warned about the smell of the sewers, but there was nothing that was too unpleasant; perhaps it was just that after a busy day of sightseeing in Vienna, I smelled just as bad as the sewers, so couldn’t tell the difference?

Eventually the tunnels opened out into a vast, subterranean, domed cavern.  Here the River Wien runs underground through the capital, emerging into the open air again at a point in Stadtpark, a kilometre or so to the northeast.  At times of heavy rain, much of the cavern becomes impassable.

Although I had always enjoyed the film The Third Man, what I actually found most interesting about the Dritte Mann tour was seeing the conditions, and hearing about the experiences, of real sewer workers in the city.   For me, being in the tunnels was atmospheric and exciting; for a sewer-worker the same environment represents hard graft, cramped conditions and a day-to-day normality, but our guide spoke with a real sense of pride and job-satisfaction about how he and his colleagues kept this vital utility beneath Vienna operating smoothly.

© E. C. Glendenny

E. C. Glendenny becomes a connoissewer of the Vienna underground.