Travel Eye on Vienna (Austria)

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Overview:

Grandiose Vienna was the showpiece of the all-conquering Habsburg dynasty. Monumental edifices line the city centre, world-class museums burst with treasures, white stallions strut their way down mirrored halls and renowned orchestras and angelic choirboys perform in lavish concert halls.

Vienna has plenty of lower-brow pleasures too - walks in the woods, splish-splashing high jinks on the river, slap-up indulgent evenings in its renowned wine taverns. If you can't find something to please you in this generous, opulent, open-armed city, you're ready for the grave.

Cultureheads of every stripe will swoon over Vienna, but music lovers in particular will be in ecstacy. This is the city that nurtured the works of Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Brahms and Mahler, among others. This heritage has an almost physical presence, and music is still a driving force in today's city.

Austria enjoys a temperate Central European climate with four distinct seasons. Summers are hot with cool nights. In Vienna and other low-lying cities temperatures during the day can get uncomfortably hot over July and August. Winters are cold, below freezing in January and February. The ski season in the Alps runs from December to April but the mountains are also popular with hikers and climbers over the summer when the weather is usually warm and bright.

A visit to Vienna is like a stroll through the past, for almost nowhere else is history so close at hand. In the innumerable coffee-houses, often fitted with antique furniture, newspapers are provided free to the customers, a mixture of romantics and managerial types clutching an art-tourist guidebook or holding a mobile phone to their ear, typify the real 'Viennese hodge-podge'.

Locality:

Vienna, the capital of Austria stands imperiously in the Danube Valley, with the rolling hills of the Wienerwald (Vienna Woods) undulating beyond the suburbs in the north and west. The Danube River divides the city into two unequal halves, with the old city centre and most tourist sights south of the river.

Entertainment/Facilities/Attractions/Things to do:

Most of the city's tourist attractions are within the largely pedestrianised inner city area which was once enclosed by the city walls. The walls have been replaced with the Ringstrasse, a wide ring road. Further out in the suburbs is the thrilling Prater amusement park with its massive ferris wheel, and the opulent Schonbrunn summer palace. Visitors also should not miss a trip to the Vienna Woods, peppered with ancient 'heuringen' (wine taverns).

Popular Vienna attractions include:

The Hofburg Palace - or Imperial Palace, was the home of the Austrian Hapsburgs for 600 years.

The Spanish Riding School of Vienna - is the oldest and last riding school in the world where classic dressage is still practised in its purest form.

Museum of fine arts - was built between 1872 and 1891 to house the vast collections then owned by the Hapsburgs who were enthusiastic patrons and collectors of the arts.

Schönbrunn Palace is magnificant, it  was used as the summer residence of the Hapsburgs from the 18th century onwards.

Vienna State Opera - The Vienna State Opera performs a repertoire of near-one hundred operas, operettas and ballets every day from September to June.

For something completely different the Prater is an enormous park and fairground site and the location of one of Vienna's world famous sights - the old Riesenrad (giant ferris wheel). (Take S/U-Bahn to Praterstern). Alternatively wander through the Naschmarkt (Produce Market) or the Flohmarkt (Flea Market) located in the sixth district.

Just wandering along the Ringstrasse will take you past some of this city's most beautiful buildings, including the Staatsoper (State Opera House), the Parlament (Parliament), and the Rathaus (City Hall) as well as two of Vienna's museums, the Naturhistorisches Museum (Natural History Museum) and the Kunsthistorishes Museum (Museum of Fine Arts). The latter of these contains an enviable art collection including work by Raphael, Rembrandt and Rubens.