5 Days in Vienna

New Year’s Eve is known as Silvester in Austria. It’s the Roman Catholic feast day of the pope and saint with the same name who died on December 31st, AD 335. At 2pm on December 31, Vienna’s Old City center transforms into a giant party zone with 750,000 visitors from all over the world (close to the 1…

The City Airport Train (CAT) completes the journey between Vienna International Airport and the city center (“Wien Mitte”) in 16 minutes flat. A roundtrip ticket costs €19pp online.

In 2014 Conchita Wurst, the stage name of the Austrian recording artist and drag queen Thomas Neuwirth, won the Eurovision song contest with “Rise Like a Phoenix”. Following her victory, Wurst became an icon for Europe’s LGBT community and the Vienna Tourist Board decided to make a statement on gender equality and sexual orientation by installing…

The Secession is one of the best-known buildings in Vienna purposely built in 1898 to exhibit the works of the association of artists by the same name. The leafwork dome (“golden cabbage”) is the symbol of the Secession and visible from afar. The Beethoven Frieze, created in 1902, is a 34m long interpretation of Beethoven’s…

2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth and many events and celebrations are planned across the globe. Apple Music even launched a special Beethoven room that offers full access to the composer’s music. Beethoven came to Vienna at the age of 22 as a pupil of Haydn and stayed for the rest…

Dinner for One is an 18 minute comedy sketch in English that was recorded by a German TV station in 1963 and is broadcast annually at 11:30pm on New Year’s Eve in Austria. The plot involves an upper-class Englishwoman who hosts a dinner party for her friends every year on her birthday. She has now…