Vienna

Two things about Vienna will stick with me for the rest of my life: bacon for breakfast the day we arrived and the selection of desserts at the plethora of charming coffee houses throughout the city. If you’re surprised that I only remember food, don’t be. It’s really the only reason I travel anymore.

Vienna was recently rated as the world’s second best city to live in and I can see why. The history, the architecture, the culture, the sweets, the transportation system, the multiculturalism. It’s all there in its magnificent glory. Some might call this too orderly and boring. And while that might be true, you shouldn’t really be going to Vienna for an exotic experience, should you?

What you should be going to Vienna for besides the culture vulture stuff I’ve never fully appreciated (museums, ballets, operas, etc.) is the appreciation that the Viennese have for the things they are good at. Chocolate. Austrians don’t mess around with that stuff. Classical music. When was the last time you heard a bad Austrian composer? Exactly. Coffee houses. Nothing short of legendary.

Let’s not mince words. When you’re walking around a Central European city at the end of December, your main goal is to stay warm. And what better way to do that than spending a majority of your time drinking espresso and eating cake in beautiful, high-ceilinged cafes. Austrians just do the whole cafe culture thing right. We mortals around the rest of the world don’t. That’s one thing I learned very quickly.

One point a want to stress is that when I say “cake,” I don’t mean the crap you find at the supermarket. Oh no. I’m talking cakes, torts, and strudels made with history and tradition in mind. The grand daddy of this wonderful world of desserts is the Sacher Tort. Tourists actually line up for a slice of the stuff at the Hotel Sacher, where it was first made. I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

Vienna is one of those places I would go back to with a lot of money. And of course to pay homage to all those desserts I wasn’t able to try.