Tours in Vienna

Walk the Ringstrasse on a weekday evening and you will notice the trams first, then the doors. Tall ones, heavy ones, opening onto opera houses, parliament, a university, a theatre. Vienna was laid out to impress, and it still does, but the pleasure is in how ordinary people move through it. Office workers cut across the Volksgarten. Someone is always carrying a violin case.

The inner city is small enough to wander without a plan. Stephansdom anchors it, and you will keep finding its roof between buildings when you think you are lost. Around it, lanes run off toward the Hofburg, the Albertina and the cobbled squares where fiaker horses wait. Go a little further out and you reach Schönbrunn, with its long gardens, and the Belvedere, where the lawns slope down toward the city. The Naschmarkt is good for a slow lunch, and the Prater has the big wheel if you want to see the rooftops from above.

Music is the thing Vienna does without apology. You hear it in the Staatsoper foyer, in a church on a Sunday, and in rooms where composers once played for friends. The best way to understand it is to sit in a hall and listen. An evening concert among Strauss waltzes, Mozart and Schubert, with a glass of sparkling wine beforehand, suits the city's rhythm better than another museum hour does.

Then come the coffee houses. Order one drink, take the newspaper offered to you, and nobody will hurry you. If there is a palace, church, or quarter you want to see that is not listed below, ask. A local guide can build the day around it.