Vienna, Austria — Bella Via Travels
Austria
Vienna
The city of music and coffee
Vienna is the city that the Habsburg Empire built to impress the world — and the world has been impressed ever since. The Ringstrasse, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Staatsoper and the Schonbrunn Palace are all expressions of an imperial ambition that produced some of the finest architecture in Europe.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is the finest art museum in the German-speaking world — a collection of extraordinary depth and variety, from the Bruegel room to the Egyptian antiquities, housed in a building that is itself a work of art. The Belvedere, with its Klimt collection, and the Albertina, with its Raphael and Durer drawings, are both within easy walking distance.
The coffee house culture of Vienna is one of the great pleasures of European travel — the Cafe Central, the Cafe Landtmann, the Cafe Hawelka and the Cafe Schwarzenberg are all institutions of a particular kind, where the newspaper is provided, the waiter is unhurried and the Melange is exactly right. The Naschmarkt, Vienna's great food market, is the best place to understand what Viennese cuisine actually is.
The music of Vienna is everywhere: the Staatsoper, the Musikverein, the Konzerthaus and the Vienna Philharmonic — a musical culture of extraordinary depth that has been producing the finest orchestral music in the world for three centuries. Bella Via designs Vienna itineraries that combine the art and music with the coffee houses and the food.
“Vienna on a winter morning, with the Kunsthistorisches Museum to yourself and the Bruegel room entirely silent — that is the city at its most itself.”
What to Expect
The Bella Via Experience in Vienna
The Kunsthistorisches Museum
The finest art museum in the German-speaking world — a collection of extraordinary depth, from Bruegel to Caravaggio, in a building of imperial grandeur.
The Vienna Coffee Houses
The Cafe Central, the Cafe Landtmann, the Cafe Hawelka — institutions of a particular kind, where the newspaper is provided and the waiter is unhurried.
The Staatsoper
One of the great opera houses of the world — a performance here, in the standing room or in the stalls, is one of the great musical experiences of Europe.
The Naschmarkt
Vienna's great food market — a kilometre of stalls selling everything from Austrian cheese and smoked fish to Turkish spices and Lebanese pastries.
The Palaces of Vienna
The Schonbrunn, the Belvedere, the Hofburg — three palaces of extraordinary scale and ambition, each telling a different chapter of Habsburg history. The upper Belvedere houses Klimt's The Kiss; the Schonbrunn gardens are among the finest in Europe; the Hofburg's imperial apartments give the most intimate portrait of the dynasty that shaped the continent.
The Christmas Markets
Vienna's Christmas markets are among the most beautiful in Europe — the Rathausplatz market beneath the illuminated Gothic town hall, the Schonbrunn palace market in the imperial courtyard, and the quieter Spittelberg market in the Biedermeier lanes of the seventh district. Bella Via plans Vienna visits in late November and December around the markets, with evenings of mulled wine, roasted chestnuts and the particular magic of the city in winter light.
Vienna rewards those who arrive with time and leave with a deeper understanding of what European civilisation at its most refined actually looks like.