The area on Stephansplatz around the cathedral was originally a graveyard – making it the dead centre of Vienna in a very literal sense. But with plague and influenza epidemics striking Europe in the 1730s, Karl VI ordered the graveyard be closed and henceforth Vienna buried its dead beneath Stephansdom in the ‘New Tombs’, which in the 19th century became more wistfully known as Katakomben (catacombs). Entrance is allowed only on a tour.