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    CARNET D’ADRESSE. VIENNA

    City of emperors, designers, baroque buildings and royal gardens, great music and cuisine, museums and cafés – which are integral part of the social life, like the milk foam on the traditional Melange. Welcome to Vienna, famous art de vivre city for the fifth consecutive year placed by Mercer Quality of Living Survey at the first place of the world ranking of quality of life. Vienna, city for every sense and taste, to visit through 10 emotional adventures. Voila.

    1. KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM

    Monument to Habsburgs’s irrepressible passion for collection, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the majestic Italian Renaissance-style building, keeps important artworks of European painting. From the 13 panels of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (among them The Hunters in the Snow and The “Big” Tower of Babel) that is the highest concentration of artworks of the Flemish artist in one museum, to the 10 Titian’s paintings (Danaë and Portrait of Isabella d’Este), from the 4 Allegorie delle Stagioni by Arcimboldo to 3 Caravaggio paintings (The Crowning with Thorns), more than Parmigianino artworks (Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror), the Giorgione ones (The Three Philosophers), then Rubens and Velázquez. Here visitors can find Cellini Salt Cellar, stolen in 2003 and rediscovered in 2006 inside a buried box in Zwettl forest.

    1. GOURMET-ABEND

    Every Thursday the Kunsthistorisches Museum offers the most lavish sensorial experience: eating among the art masterpieces of all the time. For the Gourmet-Abend evening, from the name of the amazing domed room of the first floor which turns into the most theatrical buffet of the world, real celebration of Viennese cuisine.

    Between 18.30 and 22 people can choose between drinking an aperitif before or after a Caravaggio or tasting a starter between Raphael and Vermeer, taste or painting pleasures, enjoying the table and The Peasant Wedding by Bruegel the Elder, shown a few metres away. On Sunday, the Art Brunch.

    1. DEMEL

    “Demel is more than an institution, it is a legend”. Word of the writer Friedrich Torberg, a regular in the rococo halls of this pastry shop and chocolaterie, historic rival of Sacher, opened in 1786 and never changed. Special meeting point chosen by Danube nobility (the famous candied violets were delivered to the court of Sisi for the Empress only), it is the pantheon of tradition; here the waitress, called the Demelinerinnen, “friendly, esteemed and respectable as sisters of a noble holy order”, address the customers in third person.

    In the open-play workshops the pastry chefs fill strudels, frost cakes, create pastries, pralines, sugared almonds, cat tongues and tea biscuits in more than 60 variations. Best seller of the maison is the Demelsachertort, Sachertort variation without the layers of apricot jam. Delicious.

    1. AKADEMIE GALERIE

    Every tourist in Vienna can’t miss to visit the Belvedere, just to admire The Kiss by Gustav Klimt, perfect synthesis of Vienna Secession. But few people visit another, not less amazing, museum: the recently restored Akademie Galerie (Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der Bildenden Künste). It was the first public museum in Vienna which keeps incredible artworks, from the altar of The Last Judgment by Hieronymus Bosch to Lucretia by Lucas Cranach the Elder, and the Venetian views by Francesco Guardi. Do not miss it.

    1. HOTEL SACHER

    The most famous cake in the world, invented by Franz Sacher in 1832, who was cook at the court of Prince Metternich, is served with whipped cream without sugar in the coffee of Hotel Sacher, a pantheon of art de vivre, luxury, tradition, symbol of Austria, just like the House of Habsburg.

    Velvets, boiseries, crystals and old paintings fill the hotel and the two well-known restaurants: Anna Sacher, with its green velvets, and Rote Bar, meeting point for the important people of the city, most of all after the performances at the Wiener Staatsoper.

    1. CAPUCHIN CRYPT

    A nostalgic and sinister charm, a literary topos (it inspired the novel-masterpiece of Joseph Roth) and destination of a continuous pilgrimage, since 1633 the Imperial Crypt or Capuchin Crypt has been the burial place of Habsburg dynasty.

    It keeps the remains of 149 Habsburgs, including 12 emperors and 19 empresses, in amazing Baroque sarcophagi full of symbols about the transience of power and life. Empress Maria Theresa rests with her husband in a double tomb, while the graves of Sisi and Franz Joseph I, always adorned with fresh flowers, are alongside that of their son Rudolf who committed suicide.

    1. MUSIKVEREIN

    Headquarter of the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Musikverein hosts the most beautiful music room of the world, that Goldener Saal, from which every year the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic is broadcasted worldwide.

    New Year’s or not, listening a concert in this location is such an emotion that touches the heart. For not only opera lovers.

    1. PARK OF SCHÖNBRUNN

    Maybe, until today you visited the interiors only, the splendid rooms of Schönbrunn Palace. In autumn time, come out and visit the 160 hectares of green poetry in the park of the castle, UNESCO World Heritage Site, that in this period offer a charming view.

    Walk in the long boulevards with sculpted pruned hedges, marbles, fountains, flowerbed still in bloom. Visit the big Palm House and Desert House with its cactuses. Get lost in the Labyrinth, in the Japanese garden, enjoy the Gloriette view drinking a Viennese Chocolate Cafe on top of the hill. And you will discover how beautiful life is.

    1. ZUM SCHWARZEN KAMEEL

    A break at the “Black Camel”, a gastronomic institution in the heart of the capital city (same headquarters since 1618), a pleasure that visitors must not miss.

    A lunch in the elegant Jugendstil rooms where people can taste – with a flawless service – the big classics of the traditional Viennese cuisine, from the Wienerschnitzel, the Austrian sister of cotoletta alla milanese, to Tafelspitz, traditional boiled beef in broth, one of the favourite dishes of the Kaiser Franz Joseph, or a tasty light meal, like the sandwiches that make this place so famous.

    1. ZENTRALFRIEDHOF

    Nothing macabre. The Zentralfriedhof is the second largest cemetery in Europe after Hamburg’s Ohlsdorf Cemetery, a true cultural attraction, an open sculpture museum that in its luxuriant green park keeps the most important complex of famous graves in the world.

    Like the ones of Beethoven and Salieri, Schubert and Brahms, Strauss father and son, Schnitzler and the Austrian musician Falco. A multimedia guide gives informations, indiscretions and real gossips of that times. Walks that last two, three or four hours, from April to October, and that can be taken also by coach.

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