Cafe culture in an intriguing city

Vienna offers imperial architecture and community spaces

Vienna is a place of history, dramatic imperial architecture and delicate, highly flavoured patisserie. The city is also famous for its role in 1949 cold war thriller The Third Man (directed by Carol Reed and starring Orson Welles at the height of his powers), which brilliantly captures the desperate post-World War II days of a bitterly divided city teeming with spies and conspiracy. Vienna retains this air of intrigue and diplomacy and is now home to several United Nations agencies, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.

View from the rood of St Stephen’s Cathedral, in the centre of Vienna

Since the 1960s I’ve visited the city many times, staying with my maternal grandparents when they were alive and thereafter with various relatives and friends. On other occasions I’ve visited for work. In the pre-internet days of the late 1980s I was there as a travelling bookseller visiting English-speaking communities such as surround international schools and UN agencies, and in the late 1990s to report on the oil producing countries’ cartel, OPEC, as an energy journalist. Over many of these trips I’ve found familiar places to return to, whilst discovering exciting new cafes, bars, restaurants and shops. 

Here are some of my inspirations for someone with an interest in food, history,