Vienna: A Taste of Culture and History

Vienna is a glorious pastiche, with more attractions than a display case in one of the city’s to-die-for sweet shops. Nestled along the Danube but turning its shoulder away from the river, Austria’s capital city exudes taste, from food – and coffee – to architecture, fine art, music, history, and culture.

With only a few days in Vienna, we couldn’t do more than sample some highlights of this incomparable repository of European charm, but the same is probably true if you had a few weeks or months to spend.

Vienna has been a world capital for centuries, and as the center of the Habsburg empire, spent centuries dominating the interior of the European continent. The palaces, concert halls, cathedrals, and public parks invoke this storied past, leaving a casual visitor with the impression that the city is content to coast on its glory days.

But with all the trappings of empire and cultural touchpoints that Vienna, or Wein in the native German patois, has to offer, one of the first touchstones sought out by these American tourists was culinary, specifically dessert-related: the Sacher torte. Perhaps the most famous cake in the world, this has long been the standard by which others are measured, and it originated and is still featured at the Sacher Hotel in Vienna.

You don’t want to judge an entire city by one slice of cake, but I gotta say – there are better-tasting (to my palate), moister and more scrumptious cakes to be had, including on this side of the Atlantic, than the pride of the Sacher Hotel. But on a drizzly morning, served by an apron-clad fraulein along with a mélange, espresso with steamed milk and topped by whipped cream, the Sacher torte did a fine job of keeping hunger at bay.

A personal preference was the Sluka cake, from the bakery of the same name, accompanied by cappuccino. You can’t accuse this reporter of not exercising due diligence in investigating the various pastries of Vienna, but a full accounting of the myriad varieties available would require a lot of time and probably result in type two diabetes.

What is now Vienna’s Innere Stadt, or inner city, was once the entire city. Now the first municipal district, or “old town,” its history goes back to before the time of the Roman Empire, when it was an encampment for legionnaires, and a settlement of Celts dating to the misty pre-history of the Bronze Age. The downtown area is circled by the Ringstrasse, a road which follows the path of what once were the city walls, circling around what is now also known as the First District.

If the Habsburg Empire were somehow miraculously reconstituted, the structures and monuments are already in place to sing its glories. Admittedly, the dynasty had quite a run. For nearly 650 years, from 1273 to 1918, the extended Habsburg family ruled vast swaths of Europe as absolute monarchs, with territories from Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) to Portugal, Spain, Serbia, Naples (Italy, not Florida), Sardinia, Sicily, Croatia, Belgium, Transylvania, and the Netherlands.

Their core holding, known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, endured until the end of the First World War, which saw the complete overthrow of the family’s dynasty. And the capital and principal city for this far-flung collection of cultures, languages, and peoples was Vienna – so you can see how it became such a cosmopolitan metropolis.

The Habsburgs intermarried copiously with other royal houses, as well as within their own. The youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, one of the most renowned Habsburg rulers, was Marie Antoinette, queen of France, whose signature catchphrase, “let them eat cake,” perhaps explains the proliferation of cakes and baked goods in her hometown.

With her vassal states newly independent after WWI, the Republic of Austria was shrunken to a fragment of her former self, which facilitated Adolf Hitler basically annexing the entire country into a province of Nazi Germany, somewhat akin to what Vladimir Putin is attempting now with Ukraine.

But the monuments endure. Along with Maria Theresa, one of the most celebrated (and commemorated) Habsburg rulers was Franz Joseph I, who died just two years before the dissolution of the empire, and whose statues can be seen throughout the Innere Stadt. Another is Leopold, who famously humbled himself to pray for relief from an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1679.

The Hofburg, the former imperial palace, still serves as the seat of government and the official residence of the President of Austria. It includes the imperial library, the country’s treasury, the imperial chapel, and the Spanish Riding School, home of the famous Lipizzaner stallions. The Hofburg was the winter palace, with the Schonbrunn Palace, the summer residence, just eight kilometers or five miles away.

Also housed in the Hofburg is the headquarters of OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, while across the river, housed in high rise towers that would dominate the old city if they were allowed on the southern bank, the United Nations Office at Vienna, known as “UNO City,” houses many important commissions and organizations for the world body. They deal with issues including atomic energy, refugees, international trade law, narcotics control, money laundering, and disarmament. But the entire complex is tucked away across the Danube and seems to exist in its own international bubble.

Vienna is renowned as a cradle of opera and classical music. Composers including Franz Schubert, Arnold Schoenberg, and both Johann Strausses were born there – Johann II, known as the “Waltz King,” composed the “Blue Danube,” forever associated with the city. Many other music notables chose to relocate to Vienna, including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, and Mahler. A statue of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has a place of distinction in the Burggarten, the park near the center of the historic district. Many concert venues and opera houses, including the Musikverein and the Vienna State Opera, keep the traditions alive, providing a feast for the ears.

Fine arts and literature are also part of Vienna’s cultural heritage, with museums including the Albertina, Museum of Art History, Belvedere Palace, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, a world-class collection of art with paintings by Bruegel, Raphael, Velázquez, Rubens, Rembrandt, and others. Intellectual luminaries include Sigmund Freud and Johann von Goethe.

While no longer an imperial power player, Vienna is a vibrant, multifaceted city brimming with enchantments, one of the cultural capitals of Europe and, indeed, the world. Once you experience a taste of this tasteful town, you will hunger for a return visit.