Fodor's Expert Review Hoher Markt

Crowds gather at noon each day to see the huge mechanical Anker Clock strike the hour. That's when the full panoply of mechanical figures of Austrian historical personages parades by; see if you can spot Marcus Aurelius, Joseph Haydn, and Maria Theresa. The Anker Clock (named for the Anker Insurance Company, which financed it) took six years (1911–1917) to build. It managed to survive the World War II artillery fire that badly damaged much of the square. The graceless buildings erected around the square since 1945 do little to show off the square's lovely Baroque centerpiece, the St. Joseph Fountain (portraying the marriage of Joseph and Mary), designed in 1729 by Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach, son of the great Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach.