Vienna

Vienna was the capital of an empire, and it kept all the sets. The Habsburgs held court in town at the Hofburg and withdrew to Schönbrunn Palace, a yellow palace of fourteen hundred rooms with its park and its zoo. Music here is not a memory: the Vienna State Opera plays almost every night, and standing tickets go on sale shortly before the curtain. The Belvedere Palace holds Klimt's The Kiss, all gold leaf, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum lines up Bruegel and Vermeer under painted ceilings. The zigzag tiled roof of St. Stephen's Cathedral can be picked out from far across the city. Coffee houses are part of the heritage: marble tables, banquettes, newspapers on wooden rods, Sachertorte and coffee served with a glass of water. And at the Prater, the giant Ferris wheel built in 1897 still turns slowly above the funfair.