AUSTRIA : The Capital VIENNA (Wien)
Vienna is a city of
dreams. As no other, she parades transitoriness
and her proper past. The Habsburg Empire has long disappeared, but its
metropolis still cherishes the old dream of splendour and glory. The
pompous façades and cobbled alleyways, the countless ancient monuments
and the mish-mash of peoples -–many inhabitants hail from
East-European countries – make the past come alive again. Not as an
oppressive burden, but rather as a melody from bygone days which now
pervades the air again, a medley of Viennese waltzes, the Radetzky March
and a Bruckner symphony. In Vienna, particularly in the First District,
the air really seems to swing. Apart from nostalgic baroque, however,
one also discovers contemporary architecture extending its tentacles in
the form of glass-and-chromium buildings, right into the heart of the
city, to the Stephansplatz, where the cathedral’s spire points
skywards like giant stalagmite. Visitors climbing to the top are
rewarded with a view of Vienna reaching far into the surrounding
countryside in an ascending panorama. On the outskirts of Vienna a new
district called Donau-City is being constructed by architects inspired
not so much by baroque criteria as by the skyline of places such as
Frankfurt and Chicago.
At one time, marvelous
Vienna was capital of the powerful Habsburg
empire. The slow decline of
the Habsburgs, capped by World War I, brought an end to Vienna's robust
political prominence. The city's famed artistic expression, developed
over centuries, has survived. With a melange of architecture reflecting
Roman, Medieval, Gothic, Baroque, Rococo and Art Deco influences, always
with the intent to impress, Vienna both inspires and delights its
welcomed visitors. Winter and summer palaces, impressive monuments,
circling boulevards and specific architectural treasures are
interspersed with genteel gardens, innumerable fountains and nearby
woodland parks.The sophisticated
Viennese have, for centuries, lovingly held onto many cultural pleasures
- most notably music - to help endure times of political uncertainty.
Over the years, the greatest classical composers, Austrian or otherwise,
graced Vienna with their presence and compositions. Grand opera houses
and concert venues are entwined into the city l
andscape. In 1820, the
Strauss dynasty introduced the waltz, a music and dance that swept
people off their feet in more than ways than one. Considered scandalous
for its time, a waltz melody is, for the present day visitor, a common
accompaniment as one takes in the city's many charms: the luxurious
cadence of passers-by, the meditative atmosphere of a Viennese
coffeehouse, the melodic flavors of the incomparable Sacher Torte . . .
in a world more and more defined by the rush of modern living, Vienna
invites you to slow down, linger and in this way truly enjoy its
incomparable pleasures.
Modern Viennese art, fashion and ‘scene’ are
impressive, yet form
merely one facet of the spectrum. After the fall of the Iron Curtain
which for so long cast a dark shadow over the western world, Vienna is
once more located in the middle of Central Europe. The city has become a
junction connecting the continent’s eastern and western parts, a role
it already fulfilled once when an empire of 53 million citizens was
governed from here. At present, however, political power is no longer
involved, but rather cultural stimuli and lifestyle. Vienna has become a
‘definer of style’ again. Many of the numerous museums and cultural
institutions are truly exemplary and make Austria into one of the most
important cultural centres in Europe.
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’.
