Vienna - Eating Out
Austria’s cooking is great. If you like flummeries, pastries and sweets, it is the paradise on earth. These dishes are not necessarily served as a dessert, they can also be a complete main dish. The traditional venue for eating out in Vienna is the Beisl, an intimate neighbourhood place, somewhere between restaurant and pub, providing good home cooking and a cosy refuge for local beer drinkers. There are plenty of these both within and beyond the Ring. The best places to look are districts 6,7 and 8.
Vienna is also the true home of the traditional Kaffeehaus or café - largely a venue for good-value lunchtime food, afternoon coffee and cakes, and late-night drinking. Those within the Ring tend to be touristy and overprized, but many are dipping with atmosphere and continue to be patronized by the Viennese themselves. If you want to order in German/Austrian, make sure to pronounce “Kaffee” with a long and open “ee", like the end of “fiancé” (otherwise they will immediately think, you are German). Austria has a great choice in coffee, which names sound all a bit strange: “Wiener Melange", “Brauner” (coffe with milk), “mit Schlagobers” (with whipped cream) etc.
For food on the move, the Würstelstand is as big an institution in Vienna as anywhere else in Austria. Look out for Leberkäs, a slice of spicey meat sandwiched between two halves of a Semmel. One more advice: Go to the Naschmarkt - the city’s main fruit and veg market off Karlsplatz. This is a great place to assemble a picnic or grab a tasty take-away, and also home to numerous cheap cafés attached to the various stalls.
Related Travel Information
Vienna - Sights
Vienna has a compact historical centre, bound to the northeast by the Danube canal and surrounded on all other sides by the majestic sweep of the Ringstrasse. From here, the main arteries of communication radiate outwards. Most of the important sights are concentrated in this tourist-clogged district and along the Ring, but a lot of essential Vienna lies beyond it, in the initially forbidding grid of barracks-like 19th century apartment blocks. There are also outlaying sights, such as Schloss Schönbrunn, or the funfair and parklands of the Prater. To discover Vienna by walking needs more than only some
Vienna - Getting Around
Vienna has an exellent public transport system of trams, busses and subways. Since it's a large town and there's not much (free) parking space available, public transport is the easiest and cheapest way to get around. You can get a wide range of tickets, including tickets valid for an hour (22 schilling), 24 Hrs. (60 schilling), 8 days (300 schilling), etc. The advantage of an 8 day-ticket is that it doesn't have to be 8 consecutive days. It doesn't even have to be 8 days, you can use it for more than one person at a time,
Vienna - History
Most visitors connect Vienna with a romantic place full of Habsburg nostalgia and musical resonances. It is, still today, but more.
The first settlement of any substance was Roman. The city was called Vindobona, but was in fact never more than a garrison town. It was only with the rise of the Babenberg clan in the tenth century that Vienna became an important city. In the 1278 the city fell to Rudolf of Habsburg, but had to compete for centuries with Prague, Linz and Graz as the imperial residence on account of its vulnerability to attack from the Turks,
London - Eating Out
England may not be famous for its food, but London sure does have a range of very good restaurants catering for every appetite. London has a vibrant bar and pub scene. With over 5,000 pubs and bars, the capital has everything from traditional British public houses to cutting-edge and modern venues. You can opt for the tradition pub experience or hang out in the more luxurious home of the first British Martini. Eating out in London can be a real hit-or-miss affair. What we've done here is separate the wheat from the chaff. The restaurants, pubs and
Vienna - Accommodation
Vienna offers its visitors a wide range and choice of rooms of every quality level, especially for those who are able and willing to splash out. However, extreme pressure on the cheaper accommodations end of the market means that booking ahead is essential in summer, and advisable during the rest of the year. It is hard to find anything affordable in the central area, and the cheapest double rooms within reach of it will set you back at least 350 ÖS a person. The best hunting grounds for cheap accommodation are in the western districts between the Ring
