Vienna, Austria?

Hello,

I will be in Vienna for the holidays. Does anybody have any suggestions for food I absolutely must not miss? I'm already going to the markets, of course!

Cheers,

rachel

sachertorte @ hotel sacher or pastries @ demel are two sweet ideas.

Rachel, there's lots of Vienna discussion in Reverend Andy's thread on "Bohemian Europe":
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=9628

Just dug out my notebook from my most recent trip.

Find a good bakery and buy some of the sunflower-seed encrusted rolls that everyone seems to sell. They're just great. With some butter and some cheese, it's a great picnic.

Visit the Prater, the old amusement park with the Ferris wheel built in 1897, and stop at Luftwerk, at the back of or just outside the perimeter of the park. I was staying with Austrian friends, and they brought me here -- and they ordered the most amazing spare ribs -- great, spicy, pepper-rubbed slabs that were fragrant with the smoke from the charcoal fires over which they cook. These were served with a warm cabbage salad (German style, with bacon and vinegar) that was simply outstanding. A really memorable meal. My friends told me this place has the same owner as Schweitserhaus, but is quieter.

Pastry is good pretty much everywhere. I will say that, on two trips to Vienna, I have found Sacher torte to be something of a disappointment. It's very famous, I know, but Austria is filled from top to bottom with great pastry, and the Sacher torte, while a nice little chocolate cake, just didn't blow me away. (Best pastry shops, however, were in Budapest, if you have a few free days to slip away.)

Demel is fabulous -- very elegant, very old world. They are most famous for their hot chocolate, and it is sensational, though pricey. You definitely want to have at least one cup -- I'm pretty certain hot chocolate at Demel is on at least one of those "hundred things to do before you die" lists.

Central Café is another of the very famous spots with an imperial past. It's near the Hofburg, so you can see it the day (or days) you visit there. (In the Hofburg, there's an extra charge to see the treasury, but it's worth it.) Anyway, Central Café is elegant, has newspapers in a dozen languages, and has some of the best pastry in Vienna. I recommend the Imperialschnitte and coffee. (It can be helpful, if you buy a phrase book, to learn the different terms for coffee, because Vienna is definitely coffee country -- and great coffee.)

The Naschmarkt is a Viennese institution. It’s in a great location for sightseeing, but the market, which dates back to the 16th century, is a destination in its own right. It is a great place to shop for goodies, from candies to fresh fruits and veggies, and to have lunch at one of the many stalls, coffee shops and restaurants.

There are a lot of unusual mushrooms available, so look for mushroom-based side dishes and even main courses on menus (pilze in rahm is a variety of wonderful variety of mushroom in cream sauce that I had last trip –- but it was only one of maybe four or five varieties I had).

Which reminds me – even though I wasn’t terribly excited about Sacher torte, the Hotel Sacher has excellent mushroom soup – and the place is simply elegant, so worth visiting – and even if it isn’t sensational, having Sacher torte at the Hotel Sacher is cool.

Ham (schinken) is different from our ham, too, and is worth trying – less salt, a little sour, very good.

Noodles with cabbage are a classic dish, and particularly popular at the Heurigers, the places out in the vineyards that serve new wine.

Of course, weiner schnitzel, but possibly the best known dish in Vienna is Taflspitz. It was Franz Josef’s favorite dish. It’s basically just boiled beef, but it’s served with a number of sauces (I remember a spicy tartar sauce and apple puree with horseradish) that elevate it about the ordinary. And it’s just so Viennese.

Well, that should get you started, but still leave you some room for your own discoveries. Have a great trip.

You have to visit Schitzlwirt on Neubaugasse for Schnitzl, obviously. It's a hole in the wall, but they are the schnitzl is big as your head.
Also, I second the Nashmarkt for good cheap turkish food.

Cynthia had some great recommendations. Definitely wander the Naschmarkt and have pastries at Demel and Sacher Torte at the Hotel Sacher. Taflspitz is boiled beef and one of the best meals on our whole trip was the version at Plachutta. I can't stress enough the need for you to try it. You'll see my rave review on the Bohemian Europe link posted by Amata.
http://www.plachutta.at/en/plachutta/index.asp

If you're a wine lover, there's a part of the city with a bunch of ancient weinstubes that are affiliated with the vineyards within the city limits. It's a fun place to wander around, sample wines, and have lunch.

If this is your first visit to Vienna, you are in for an incredible treat!

I didn't know this - but immediately when you enter a shop the staff say "GruSS Gott" to you as greeting. I had no idea what they said, or how to respond, or what to do, and I am sure I seemed quite the rude American until I realized. Just say it back, or smile and wave, or say something to acknowledge that you've heard them and are greeting them back.

If they are in season, try the Marienknoedle (I am not sure I have spelled that right) - apricot dumplings. MMMMMM.

Also, the words they use for food are very different than the German-in-Germany words for food, so see if you can find an Austrian-specific phrasebook if you don't speak German.

If you go to Hotel Sacher they will require jackets and nicer clothing in the main dining room. And yes, Sacher torte really isn't all that great. It's kind of dry.

Gruss Gott (literally, "Greet God") is the national greetings of Austria -- like "G'day" in Australia. Everyone says it -- yes, shopkeepers, but also someone passing you on the street, walking past your table in a restaurant, or noticing you in the cafe. So it's a good thing to practice saying. And "gruss" is pronounced to rhyme with "goose."

Cynthia wrote: And "gruss" is pronounced to rhyme with "goose."

Cynthia,

The vowel in the first word of the formula «Grüß Gott» is umlauted and thus a different and distinct vowel in German from the 'oo' sound which is spelt with plain «u». The pronunciation of German «ü» is much like the «u» in French (plume, lune, puce).

grüß (verbal form) ≠ Gruß (noun)

«Grüß Gott» is, of course, widely used in Austria but not specifically Austrian; it is used widely throughout southern Germany as well.

Mit herzlichen Grüßen und den besten Wünschen,
Antonius

Actually, in my experience vowel mit umlaut ≠ not pronounced at all. In practice, they just sort of toss off "ss'gott."

My friend Scott was quite startled at first to find that every shopkeeper and barman in Austria knew his name and greeted him by it. He was looking for the wanted posters, until he finally figured it out.

Antonius wrote:

Cynthia wrote: And "gruss" is pronounced to rhyme with "goose."

Cynthia,

The vowel in the first word of the formula «Grüß Gott» is umlauted and thus a different and distinct vowel in German from the 'oo' sound which is spelt with plain «u». The pronunciation of German «ü» is much like the «u» in French (plume, lune, puce).

grüß (verbal form) ≠ Gruß (noun)

Mit herzlichen Grüßen und den besten Wünschen,
Antonius

Yeah -- but I was trying to keep it simple. And if an American says groose gott, an Austrian will smile and nod, because it's close enough for them to understand. It takes a fairly well-trained ear to be able to make a distinction between the vowel sound in lune and goose. So while I admire your scholarship, I always figure it's better to keep the information simple enough that a person doesn't feel too intimidated to try to use a few words in another language. (Though it is of course possible that the original poster is fluent in German, and my concern is unwarranted.) Your goal is perfection, mine is encouragement and communication.

I second Schnizlwirt. I had the best schnizl there! They have good spaetzel too!

I would also pay the extra money to see the treasury at the Hofburg. Vienna is a city to its own and has so much to offer!

Thank you, thank you! I will print this out and bring it with me on the trip! (And I'll keep checking it for the rest of the week, so keep posting!)

Personally I think that while the sacher torte at the Sacher Hotel might be something to say you tried one time, it's not worth the trouble to consider it a don't-miss. But that's just me.

I opted instead to buy an attractive tin of coffee in the Sacher Hotel gift shop. It makes a nice souvenir of a trip to Vienna long after the coffee is gone. I refill mine with grocery store ground coffee, but nonetheless it reminds me of coffee in Vienna every morning.

Not that this is a don't miss either, but on a break from shopping and sightseeing in downtown Vienna, we had a very nice meal at the restaurant next to the Graben Hotel. I would seek that restaurant out again, if I ever get another chance to go to Vienna. Can't speak for the quality of the hotel.

The original post asked only about food, but to the list of non-food don't-miss suggestions, I would add spending an hour or two walking around the grounds of the Schönbrunn Palace. I took dozens of pictures there. From the hill above the palace you can see the whole city.

Also, depending on how much time you have, I had some incredible meals in Grinzing, a neighborhood/suburb, just north of the city. It's the region where all the wine grows and during the fall, they celebrate the harvest of grapes and drink some of the really good young wine. Grinzing should be in most tour books and it is accessible via street car.

Wenn i mein'n Kren dazuageb'n kann...

Concerning Vienna, I'm a little jealous of you, Rachel2025, as I'd love to visit that city this time of year. I think I've expressed my praise of and affection for Austrian cuisine a couple of times before and Vienna -- on account of its status as an imperial capital -- has an especially interesting repertoire of dishes. The city's population drew heavily from the outlying provinces of the Habsburg's empire and the cuisine is then a harmonisation of influences from elsewhere in the German-speaking areas in the region, as well as from Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary and beyond, including to a degree influences from the Balkans and northern Italy.

Leek mentioned above that standard Austrian German and standard Bundesrepublik German differ a bit and that is especially true with culinary terms. This is not at all surprising, given the historical and cultural backgrounds of the two countries, but it is something of a problem in that most pocket dictionaries and phrasebooks tend to focus on Bundesrepublik German and often leave out common Austrian terms. For example, the Austrian word for 'horseradish', Kren (a borrowing from Czech), is commonly absent from such little language-aids, and only the term current in Germany is offered (Meerrettich). The number of such differences, where the dictionaries treat Austrianisms as ignorable dialect words, is legion; e.g. Austrian Karfiol vs. German Blumenkohl, or Mus vs. Brei or Nockerl vs. Spätzle or Obers vs. Sahne, Topfen vs. Quark, etc. etc. For that reason, as leek suggested above, if you don't know German, you might want to get a guidebook for Austria/Vienna that includes a phrasebook or glossary of culinary terms, just to make menu reading easier.

There are lots of good suggestions above and I'll just add that there are plenty of simple and nice restaurants (including many of the 'Beisl') around town that offer Austrian specialties that are well-made, delicious and not too expensive (more of a consideration, perhaps, given the weakness of the dollar); e.g., the menu looks pretty interesting at this place: http://www.haasbeisl.at/index.htm

Here's a link with links to various eateries' and drinkeries' webpages and surely most have English versions; it might be worth going through it to get a sense of what's out there beyond or beside the good suggestions given here:
http://www.tourist-net.co.at/lokale/

Have a great trip and report back.

Antonius

***

Cynthia, griaß di God!

But Gruß and grüß just don't rhyme, certainly not to a German ear but the average English-speaker can also hear the difference very clearly, even though he might not be able to produce the ü sound himself. It seems to me that, had you wanted to offer the approximated pronunciation as such, you should have done so in so many words, e.g.: "'Grüss Gott' sounds sort of like 'groose got'" (or perhaps 'groose goat' -- quite suggestive, nicht wahr?; more colloquial still would be 'grease got' or 'grease goat' -- vide super: dialectal form griaß). Anyway, I'm surprised you object to my corrective comment since, when a list of polite phrases in foreign tongues appeared here not too long ago, phrases that were clearly intended as simplified tips for 'encouragement and communication', you wrote in to correct an entry for 'thank you' in Thai. In light of that, one might have thought you would have welcomed my prod in the direction of accuracy with regard to the southern German phrase of salutation. As you intended to do there, here I was just offering our fellow cyberpeeps more/accurate information.

And isn't there an old expression... What's good for the groose is good for the grander.



Anyway, good notes about Vienna, especially the recommendation of the Heuriger.

Und grüß mir mal Gott, wenn du ihn wiedersiehst!



A

Antonius wrote:Wenn i mein'n Kren dazuageb'n kann...
Cynthia, griaß di God!

But Gruß and grüß just don't rhyme, certainly not to a German ear but the average English-speaker can also hear the difference very clearly, even though he might not be able to produce the ü sound himself. It seems to me that, had you wanted to offer the approximated pronunciation as such, you should have done so in so many words, e.g.: "'Grüss Gott' sounds sort of like 'groose got'" (or perhaps 'groose goat' -- quite suggestive, nicht wahr?; more colloquial still would be 'grease got' or 'grease goat' -- vide super: dialectal form griaß). Anyway, I'm surprised you object to my corrective comment since, when a list of polite phrases in foreign tongues appeared here not too long ago, phrases that were clearly intended as simplified tips for 'encouragement and communication', you wrote in to correct an entry for 'thank you' in Thai. In light of that, one might have thought you would have welcomed my prod in the direction of accuracy with regard to the southern German phrase of salutation. As you intended to do there, here I was just offering our fellow cyberpeeps more/accurate information.

And isn't there an old expression... What's good for the groose is good for the grander.



Anyway, good notes about Vienna, especially the recommendation of the Heuriger.

Und grüß mir mal Gott, wenn du ihn wiedersiehst!



A

Actually, part of this is because of the differences between the way men and women communicate. I'm assuming you've read Dr. Tannen's sociolinguistic comparison of male and female communication: "You Just Don't Understand." Anyway, the way I spelled GruSS was not any effort to be accurate, but rather was in imitation of the previous poster, who spelled it that way, and being female, and therefore focused on building community rather than being correct, I simply copied what he had written. Even though I majored in French, rather than German, I really do understand that a u with an umlaut is pronounced differently than one without. And I will say that I'm impressed by the fact that you can do the double-s thing on your computer (I can do an umlaut -- they use them in French, too -- but I haven't accessed them on my Mac.)

I am immensely impressed with your erudition, and I appreciate your patience in explaining this to me, but this is one instance (though perhaps the only one) where I did know the correct spelling and chose not to use it. However, I do ask that you continue to enlighten me, when you do encounter the occasional faux pas (had to work in some French), because I am passionate about language, and would prefer to know the right way to do it.

Dankeschön.

HI,

Kren in Czech is horseradish. I know we are thinking the very same word, though when I hear it or pronounce this word, it is more like khren. I think in Russian it is spelled XPEH. The X having the KH sound, though when transliterated into English is usually a G, which I never understood. Any statement on my part beyond my personal experience is simply asking for trouble, so I will stop here.

***

I don't know if you require a visa and you may not even be interested. When you are in Vienna, you are very, very close to Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Republic. Years ago when Vienna was on the steps of Eastern Europe, a very short journey was huge difference in economics, governments and streetscape. Visas to Czechoslovakia were then required, which could not be obtained at the border.

The Velvet Revolution where Slovak Republic simply voted its separation from Czechoslovakia, really freed up the Czech Republic's economy. The Slovak region had the heavy industry which was competitive in the artificial soft rouble markets between the socialist countries and a dinosaur when competing to the rest of the world.

If visa's are not an issue, it may be worth a day trip, though simply concentrating on Vienna and the region is worthwhile. I know I would go to Bratislava in a heartbeat simply to compare to my earlier experiences.

Another incentive, your day in Bratislava is very likely a cheaper experience than the same in Vienna. I know of people who stay in Croatia rather Italy, because of expenses. So if you feel like you are bleeding Euro's in Vienna, then very likely a visit to Bratislava will slow the money flow.

Enjoy your trip!

Regards,

When my Viennese friend and I went to Budapest, we took the hydrofoil, which travels down the Danube, stopping in Bratislava. It's a lot faster than the train, if you do decide to try for a day in Bratislava.

Too many years ago to mention (30), I spent a week with my great uncle in Bratislava. There was an old section and a newer one. I remember buying a dog skin (preserved just like any other animal skin) for an aunt who had expatriated to Germany & asked me to get her one. It was a little strange, to say the least. They also had milk bars where you could buy a glass of uber-rich milk & your choice of pastries to go with it. This was eaten standing up at the bar.

The rye bread that I ate in Bratislava was the best that I have ever eaten. The stores and restaurants were all like something from the 50s, but I was young and adventurous and it was all fun. I didn't speak much Slovak--just the basic words taught to me as a young child--and so it sometimes felt like I was from another planet. Everything felt so foreign!

Our family has always had close contact with the stream of relatives coming from there over the years and settling in Chicago, and they were always great folks who likes to get together & have a good time. (BTW, I have a distant cousin that ran for president of the country just a few years ago, but lost.)

I would definitely take advantage of your closeness to Bratislava to check it out. I can imagine how very different it must be there today. I hope you'll write up your experiences of your trip here regardless whether you make to Slovakia or not.

Cynthia wrote:When my Viennese friend and I went to Budapest, we took the hydrofoil, which travels down the Danube, stopping in Bratislava. It's a lot faster than the train, if you do decide to try for a day in Bratislava.

Years ago in my other life, I was friends with Leonard Anatolyevich Alexeyev who worked for the Ministry of Foreign Trade in Moscow, USSR. Every summer when the hydrofoils went up and down the Moscow river, he'd comment his Uncle was a National Hero with his picture hung in the U.S. Congress for designing hydrofoils. I believed everything until we reached the portrait hung in the U.S. Congress, however I since found corroborating evidence this was true albeit briefly.

Flash forward some years, it's canning day at my friend Ellen's home. The History Channel has the program: Secrets of the Cold War. The topic was Rostislav Evgenievich Alekseyev who not only designed the hydrofoils on the Moscow and Danube rivers. He had a Howard-Hughes like odyssey designing and building oversized hydrofoils: Alexeyev (also spelled Alexeev) designed a massive hydrofoil using multiple jet engines designed to carry a full army division and/or tanks. While the project was initially approved by Kruschev with whom he was on friendly terms. Unfortunately there were political and funding problems after Brezhnev took reign, though it was eventually built. U.S. Intelligence observed this 'Monster of the Caspian Sea' being tested by satellite, though they did not know what it was.

While Leonard and his uncle didn't precisely look like each other. The family resemblance was in their hands. It was really something to link pieces of stories heard over the years.

I know, my apologies, too much information. It is not every day I can pull out my hydrofoil story where the information is germane.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:I know, my apologies, too much information. It is not every day I can pull out my hydrofoil story where the information is germane.

Regards,

No need to apologize. It's a great story. Your life -- past and present -- always fascinates me. What adventures you've had! Of course, it also underscores something I strongly believe -- we are nothing like six degrees from everyone -- it's more like 3. How could I have known, when I took that hydrofoil, that a couple of years later, I'd know someone who knew the nephew of its designer.

Thanks for sharing. And always feel free to share more.

Cathy2 wrote:Kren in Czech is horseradish. I know we are thinking the very same word, though when I hear it or pronounce this word, it is more like khren. I think in Russian it is spelled XPEH. The X having the KH sound, though when transliterated into English is usually a G, which I never understood. Any statement on my part beyond my personal experience is simply asking for trouble, so I will stop here.

C2,

Yes, I mentioned in passing above that Austrian Kren (also used in parts of southern Germany) 'horseradish' is a borrowing from Czech. Both in older German and Czech the word is also attested with the spelling «ch-» and I wouldn't be surprised if in some regions an older pronunciation has been maintained, but a Slavicist I'm not and I don't know what the dialect landscape of Czech is like. Anyway, as you say, the Russian is khren, Polish also with the initial ch- (kh-) sound, «chrzan».

Russian has a kh (same sound, roughly speaking, as ch for German and Polish and lots of other languages) but no h; German and English words and names with the h sound are adapted to Russian phonology with g: Gitler, Gonolulu, etc.

I better go dig up that gorseradish from my garden today...

Gappy Golidays to my fellow LTGers!

Antonius

Antonius wrote:Russian has a kh (same sound, roughly speaking, as ch for German and Polish and lots of other languages) but no h; German and English words and names with the h sound are adapted to Russian phonology with g: Gitler, Gonolulu, etc.

At the risk of turning this into a linguistic rather than a culinary thread, it may be of interest that the Belarusian language, which uses an alphabet almost identical to the Russian, pronounces the same letter that the Russians pronounce as a "g" as...(drum roll, please)..."h" And thus my maternal grandfather, who was born there, pronounced his last name "Horvich" (Americanized as Horwitz)--as opposed to Gurvitch. And so he would (presumably) have said either Hitler or Honolulu (I presume, that is, because somehow neither word came up in our conversations, though he was fond of recalling that they pronounced the name of the newspaper as the "nev york teemis." I was more intrigued that they even knew of the paper in his tiny shtetl than how they pronounced it....)

And, to return us to food, horseradish in my family has always been referred to as "khrain"--from the Yiddish.

On my Bohemian trip, we stopped in Bratislava during the drive from Vienna to Budapest. Apart from the old town, which was charming, though not very large, there was still much of the Soviet era architecture. We felt the city to be a bit drab and dreary. Slovakia is the poorer brother of the former union and it had that feel while driving and walking around. We had lunch in the main square. We had no desire to spend the night and were ready to head to Budapest. I'm not sure how much time you will have in Vienna, but for a day trip I would sooner rent a car and drive to the monastery at Melk. However, if you decide on Bratislava, no visa is necessary. If you are looking to overnight somewhere, it's an easy drive to Budapest. Just my humble opinion.

there was still much of the Soviet era architecture. We felt the city to be a bit drab and dreary. Slovakia is the poorer brother of the former union and it had that feel while driving and walking around.

Precisely why I am drawn to go.

It's like visiting East Berlin during the Cold War. My first time to East Berlin in 1977 I was shocked to see bullet riddled buildings from WWII still left unrepaired. You didn't find anything like that in the other Berlin. It's a bit of living history is how I look at it.

Regards,

i vote for budapest. i prefer it over vienna and can taste the foie gras just thinking of it.

Cathy2 wrote:
It's like visiting East Berlin during the Cold War. My first time to East Berlin in 1977 I was shocked to see bullet riddled buildings from WWII still left unrepaired. You didn't find anything like that in the other Berlin. It's a bit of living history is how I look at it.

Cathy, I agree that to see East Berlin during the Cold War was fascinating. I believe that to see a city well after the war is over isn't quite as interesting. There's no Soviet, Red Menace feel here, just a city with lots of ugly Cabrini Green type structures and an oasis of the Old Town. If you really want to see the ugliness of Soviet structures, head to Bucharest. They don't even have an old town, which was destroyed by Ceauscescu. Belgrade, still reeling under UN sanctions, has a bunch of former military buildings with their roofs caved in from the NATO bombings. It's a depressing city, but more interesting than Bratislava because the war is not history, they are still living it.

RevrendAndy wrote:If you really want to see the ugliness of Soviet structures, head to Bucharest. They don't even have an old town, which was destroyed by Ceauscescu.

Well, actually, that's not true (although Ceausescu did, in fact, level a huge area of town with many historic buildings and uproot thousands upon thousands of citizens). The area around strada Lipscani dates back at least 250 years and is among the oldest in Bucharest. Dirty, yes. In dire need of help, yes. But colorful? Extremely. The whole street isn't terribly long and runs the gamut from the Hanul cu Tei, a courtyard that's home to art and antiques shops to the other end where there's a old-fashioned lower east side of NYC feel, garment district and all. And the Lipscani isn't alone.

Not very far away is the fifteenth-century area where the town began (established by a certain Vlad the Impaler). You can still see the ruins remaining from the 15th-century Prince's Palace as well as Stavropoleos Church (1724). There's also Hanul lui Manuc, a genuine caravanserai built around 1808 to serve merchants on the trade route between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. The inner courtyard has carved wooden balconies all round and the inn still functions as a hotel hotel, restaurant and wine cellar. Is it a "district" like Lipscani? No, probably not. Did Ceausescu destroy much of historic and architectural significance? Undoubtedly.

I don't mean to sound like a tour guide or a shill for the Bucharest Chamber of Commerce. My point is simply that despite the ugly, Stalinist architecture, there are still a substantial number of 19th-century (and earlier) buildings that are truly beautiful. They may not be to everyone's taste and there is no question that Bucharest could use some cleaning and an infusion of rehab money, but these places exist in plenty. Bucharest has its problems, but let's not forget it (and the entire country of Romania) was Ceausescu's personal fiefdom for a long time; it's a little too easy and not quite fair to brush it off so easily.

I love Vienna, and am very jealous of the trip. I was telling the Bride a week ago that I had a real yen to head back. This time of year you will find some wonderful wild boar and other game available, the town will be festive, the weather delightful. If you plan properly, you may also be able to catch an Opera or two, which is well worth your while if you have any fondness for that art form. World class Opera House and company.

The sausages in the market are great, as noted. I like the wine dinners in Grinzing, but more for the experience than the meal. The young wine at the Heuriger is simple and astringent, and the food is usually mass-produced and more of the quality of a Swedish buffet than some of the other wonderful options noted in the thread. But I do like it, and suggest you explore it.

Unfortunately I cannot find my last posts on Vienna on CH, so I cannot be specific, but here are some general rules:

- Look for Croatian places for great seafood and darned good wines (not that Austrian wines are not wonderful).
- Enjoy some Blaufrankisch with your wild board.
- The best, absolute best, Bohemian food I have ever had was in Vienna.
- The Imperial china museum (at least I found it both funny and beautiful) and the treasury (where the plunder of the world is on display) in the palace are not to be missed. Of course, neither is the art museum down on the museum quadrangle, and there is a totally neglected room of Celtic artifacts in the Natural History Museum (at least I think that is where they last stuck it) that is the best such collection in the world.
- Skip the Sacher torte in the Hotel Sacher (overpriced and not that special, IMO) and just go to Meinl or some other coffee shop, hang out, have some pastry, watch the world go by. Much better way to spend your time and money.
- There is a wine store near the market whose name escapes me. It is a very good store and you should buy and bring back as much as you can. Praeger in particular can be relied on. It was also a bargain last time I went, but the exchange rate will not smile on you so favorably now.

If I actually find my notes or CH post, I will put up some specifics, but I have had a lot of wonderful meals in Vienna covering a wide range of cuisines (Bohemian, Austrian, Croatian, and Spanish all are stuck in my mind) and price points. In general, I found the mid-range places to be more adventurous, and the high end spots to be more traditional and stuffy, though it has been 4 or 5 years since I last went. And I would only eat in the center of town to people watch, or feed myself on the way to a museum or opera.

Enjoy!