We spent the first part of the holidays this year in Vienna, Austria. We left on a Saturday morning and began the 8 hour drive to Linz, which is located just outside Vienna. Our plan was to get in early so that we could explore Linz, but the weather was not agreeable. Once we got out of Zurich, snow began to accumulate on the highways, so the traffic was moving pretty slow. We made a couple stops for food before arriving at our hotel at about 8PM, so no opportunity to explore Linz. Fortunately, the small family operated hotel also had a restaurant, so we ordered up some food and just ate in the room. The next morning, we were up early and on our way to Vienna. We arrived about 2 hours later and since the travel information office was closed, we went straight to the hotel located right around the corner from Prater Park. The Prater Park began its life, as so many European parks did, as a carriage-riding area for the nobility. The Park houses “The Riesenrad” (the giant Ferris wheel) and has become a well-known symbol of Vienna, featured in many movies (most famously The Third Man; also Before Sunrise and Ethan Hawke). The weirdest attraction in the Prater, though, is the Kugelmugel, a spherical house that, after failing to get a planning permit, declared independence from Austria. Originally built elsewhere, it was forcibly carted off to the Prater by Austrian authorities and now sits uninhabited and fenced off with barbed wire. We got the hotel and were fortunately able to check in even though it was only about 11AM. On our final leg in to Vienna, we did some quick reading and decided the best way to get around is with the Vienna card, which allows 3 days of unlimited public transportation not to mention discounts in quite a few museums and restaurants. As we were only going to be there 3 days, it was the perfect solution for us. So we ditched the car, purchased our Vienna cards, and headed by subway into the old town (The subway system in Vienna is very good. It also has trams and buses and like Zurich the transportation network is very reliable).
Sandy hates it when I do this, but here is just a little background info on Vienna:
Vienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria. It is by far the largest city in Austria (pop.~ 1.7m), as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. As the former home of the Habsburg court and its various empires, the city still has the trappings of the imperial capital it once was, and the historic city centre is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The low-lying Danube plain in and around what is now Vienna has had a human population since at least the late Paleolithic: one of the city's most famous artifacts, the 24,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf, now in Vienna's Natural History Museum, was found nearby. Vienna's own recorded history began with the Romans, who founded it in the 1st Century CE as Vindobona, one of a line of Roman defensive outposts against Germanic tribes. Vindobona's central garrison was on the site of what is now the Hoher Markt (the "High Market" due to its relative height over the Danube), and you can still see the excavations of its foundations there today.
Vienna hosted the Habsburg court for several centuries, first as the Imperial seat of the Holy Roman Empire, then the capital of the Austrian Empire, and later of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which finally fell in 1918 with the abdication of the last Emperor Karl I. The court tremendously influenced the culture that exists here even today: Vienna's residents are often overly formal, with small doses of courtliness, polite forms of address, and formal dress attire. One of the many paradoxes of the quirky city is that its residents can be equally modern and progressive as they are extremely old-fashioned.
Vienna has a reputation for having an excellent coffee culture. Vienna prides itself of its dozens of varieties of different coffees: Order a "Kleiner Schwarzer" if you want black espresso, a "Kleiner Brauner" if you want espresso with a little milk, a "Melange" if you prefer a cappuccino-style mix of coffee and milk and a "Kaffee Verkehrt" (or in the more modern places a "Kaffee Latte") if you like latte macchiato-style coffee with lots of milk. Most cafés in addition to coffee serve beer and wine and sometimes liqueurs. Many serve meals, especially at lunch, and these are often cheaper than in restaurants.
