City of music, cafes, waltzes, parks, pastries, and wine--that's Vienna. Vienna is a true cosmopolitan city, where different tribes, races, and nationalities have for centuries fused their cultural identities to produce the intriguing and often cynical Viennese.

From the time the Romans selected a Celtic settlement on the Danube for one of its most important central European forts, "Vindobona," the city we now know as Vienna has played a vital role in European history. Austria grew up around the city and developed into a mighty empire. The capital of Austria became a showplace city during the tumultuous reign of the Habsburg dynasty. The splendid and brilliant Habsburg court was a dazzling spectacle. Before the fall of the empire, Vienna was described as a "royal palace amidst surrounding suburbs."

The face of the city has been altered time and again by war, siege, victory, defeat, death of an empire, birth of a republic, foreign occupation, and the passage of time. But, fortunately, the Viennese character--a strict devotion to the good life--has remained solid.

Music, art, literature, theater, architecture, education, food, and drink (perhaps wine from the hills where the Romans had vineyards in the 1st century A.D.) are all part of Vienna's allure.

The Viennese have always been hospitable to foreigners, but there was a time at the end of the 18th century when the emperor felt that tourists might spread pernicious ideas, and all non-Austrians were limited to a 1-week stay in the capital. This, of course, is no longer so, nor has it been for 2 centuries.