Vienna

Vienna is among the great imperial capitals of the world — a city that served as the centre of the Habsburg Empire for six centuries, and which accumulated an extraordinary density of palaces, museums, opera houses, and monuments that remain almost perfectly intact. The Ringstrasse, a grand 4.5km circular boulevard commissioned by Emperor Franz Joseph I in the 19th century, is lined with some of the finest public buildings in Europe: the Vienna State Opera, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Naturhistorisches Museum, the Parliament, the Burgtheater, and the Rathaus. Walking it is one of the great urban experiences on the continent.

Vienna's cultural legacy is formidable. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, and the Strauss dynasty all worked here — the Vienna Philharmonic, founded in 1842, remains the world's most celebrated orchestra. Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis in his apartment at Berggasse 19 (now a museum). Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele created the Vienna Secession movement here; Klimt's The Kiss at the Belvedere is one of the most recognisable paintings in Western art. The intellectual and artistic ferment of fin-de-siècle Vienna shaped the entire 20th century.

At street level, Vienna's extraordinary quality of life is what most visitors remember. The coffee house tradition — sitting for hours with a newspaper, a Melange (Viennese coffee), and a slice of Apfelstrudel, with no pressure to leave — is genuinely unlike anywhere else in Europe. The Naschmarkt, the Prater park, the wine villages of Grinzing and Heiligenstadt on the city's edge, and the easy day trips to Bratislava (1 hour) and the Wachau Valley wine country make Vienna a city that rewards those who slow down and stay a while.