Introducing Vienna

'Vienna remains Vienna, and that's the worst anyone could ever say about it', quipped the Austrian writer Alfred Polgar. It also ranks among the world's most liveable cities.

The humorist Karl Farkas has a different angle on this. He said, 'We Viennese look with confidence into the past'. And what about the future? Well, it can probably look with confidence into that too. Few cities in the world match Vienna for its remarkably high quality of life. Throw in some excellent programs for sustainable development and we're talking about a city with a future.

We often see Vienna in terms of its grand past: angelic choirboys, monumental palaces, Fiaker (horse-drawn carriages) and flamboyance. The tones of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms and the filigree paintings or sketches of Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka. But this is to ignore its dynamic present. Vienna has an astoundingly colourful contemporary culture and arts scene; a burgeoning culinary culture; bustling and lively pubs, bars, coffee shops and beer houses; picturesque vineyards on its edges; an idiosyncratic rock and club scene; and extraordinarily innovative performance arts.

Throw in lakeside excursions to Burgenland or trips to the Danube Valley, Znojmo in the Czech Republic or Bratislava in Slovakia and Vienna becomes not just the city we think we know but also one we still need to discover.