Visiting Vienna - An Eclectic Experience

20 Sep 2013

For most people, visiting Vienna (Wien) can be an ecstatic experience with its a romantic places full of imperial nostalgia, exquisite cakes and opera houses. The city can overwhelm anyone with its eclectic repast of architectural styles, from the late nineteenth century’s High Baroque, to the early twentieth century’s decorative Jugendstil (Art Nouveau). Both of these are used to quite effectively on several of the Vienna’s exquisite U-Bahn stations.

After becoming an important centre in the tenth century and then falling to Rudolf of Habsburg in 1278, the city became the imperial residence in 1683. Vienna’s Baroque character is due to the great aristocratic families that flooded in to build palaces in a furor of construction. The city had become the birthplace for the ideological passions of the age by the end of the Habsburg era. The ghosts of Freud, Schiele and Klimt are some of the Vienna’s biggest tourist draws now.

Central Vienna is remarkably compact: with the Innere Stadt or historical centre just 1 km wide. The most important attractions are situated here and along the Ringstrasse – the series of tram-and traffic-clogged boulevards that form a ring road around the centre. One can cross the city in just thirty minutes thanks to the efficient public transport, making even peripheral sights, like the monumental imperial palace at Schönbrunn, easily reachable. However, for all the grand museums and palaces, a trip to the city as only a frantic sightseeing would make one miss the European café culture at its very best.

For more information on Austria follow us on twitter.