This is not a U-Bahn Station

This is not a U-Bahn Station. And this post is not a Renee Magritte joke.

In the first instance I have told a white lie. Sadly the second statement is true.

The tunnel pictured above may stink like an unclean WC but it is in fact an exit from a U-Bahn Station.

It's to be found at a conveniently situated U-Bahn Station where the trains stop to disembark passengers bound for the Vienna Philharmonic and the Kunstlerhaus Museum, two of Vienna's tourist attractions.

Also it is convenient for the Imperial Hotel which is, as the name implies, the city's top hotel.

The reason I said it's not a U-Bahn Station is because when I had to go there recently the stench of  stale urine was too dreadful to describe. I could hardly breathe.

Hardly anyone uses this exit unless they have to, especially during the hours of darkness.

As a public convenience it doubtless serves the city's homeless and wandering alcoholics. Two people were selling the fortnightly paper Augustin, a worthy project to help the homeless, when I passed.

Women with children in buggies, shoppers carrying parcels, the infirm, the less-mobile elderly, the wheelchair users who use this station in the centre of Vienna deserve better.  Meanwhile we lucky others waltz by and scuttle up and down the steps.