Austria

Several recent surveys have deemed Vienna the vanguard in quality of life (Mercer) or green-friendliness (Siemens). But is Vienna fashionable? Is it ‘in’? The term ‘cool’ brings to mind the New Yorks and the Berlins. 

What about Vienna? 

Cities like New York never seem to grow stale; they remain at the cutting edge, always curious and changing. They’re creative and open, with a diverse social scene and vibrant nightlife. But just what is it that makes them ‘cool’?

Popular petitions (Volksbegehren) enable the electorate to initiate the law-making procedure.

To recreate in Vienna the ritual of a propper Christmas dinner with roast turkey, crackers and flaming Christmas pudding, planning ahead is vital, but it’s also a challenge, and well worth rising to. Order your turkey from Zum Gockelhahn at the Naschmarkt (stand 180-183), a tried and trusted source (and friendly, too). They also sell wonderful Schenkel cranberry sauce.

Go to Himmelbach (stand 40-45) for all your vegetables; it is the oldest family-run stand on the market, and the best.

Bobby’s, the British import shop at Schleifmühlgasse­ 8 in the 4th District, has nearly everything else: sausage meat, streaky bacon, chipolata sausages and, of course, the pudding. They also have packets of sage and onion stuffing, jars of brandy butter, and also party crackers.

The descent into homelessness can be dizzyingly fast, explains social worker Susanne Peter, but the climb back out is painstakingly slow.

The small, single-nave church slowly empties as parishioners pile out into the wintry, bright Sunday morning. Like most weeks, the 12th century Romanesque church of Probstdorf, a farming village a 45 minute drive east from Vienna, had been almost full. “I’ve come from the neighbouring village,” says a woman in her mid-40s. “I don’t like our conservative priest.

On Sunday, 9 Oct., near the town of Osijek in Croatia, 40 protesters launched a regatta of small boats and canoes into the Danube in the stretch that separates Croatia from Serbia. The activists from four Danube nations wore thick jackets and woolly hats against the autumn cold. They were protesting the industrial regulation of some of Europe’s last stretches of wild river.

Light and luminous. That is the impression conveyed by Vienna’s “new” Jewish Museum, which re-opened in October after a nine month face-lift that cost a total of €2.6 million. The darkness of the Holocaust recedes from view, while gleaming Torah crowns in illumined showcases recall the wealth and vibrancy of Jewish life in the Habsburg Empire. 

If a relationship can be judged by its shared home, then the cohabitation of the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and the Green Party in Vienna’s City Hall is far from egalitarian.

While a duo of lute and violin played a solemn tune accompanying an Arabic song, Austria’s foreign minister Michael Spindelegger leaned over to say something to the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Alfaisal. That was all it took. Suddenly, the music was lost in a cacophony of flashing cameras and clicking shutters.  

Indeed, this was the perfect photo op to accompany suspicions of ulterior motives behind the Saudi king’s giant investment in Vienna.