Austrian lockdown dampens holiday mood to contain virus

A woman rides a bicycle along an empty street in Vienna in Austria (Vadim Ghirda/AP)

Austrians savoured a final mulled wine in packed Christmas markets before the curtain came down on the holiday season as it was just getting under way, plunging the country into its fourth lockdown of the pandemic.

The capital, Vienna, woke to the new restrictions on Monday, with people heading in to work, taking children to school and exercising outdoors, more or less as usual.