Holiday in Vienna Blog

Our blog Holiday in Vienna provides information for your vacation in Vienna. It gives you insights in the Viennese culture and introduces famous sights as well as insider tips. We also share a lot of photos to give you an impression what your stay in Vienna will look like. We are looking forward to your comments!


Vienna – the World's Most Liveable City 2011 (Mercer)

Vienna is the most live­able city in the world – for the third time in row. After 2009 and 2010 it has again been con­firmed by the well-known inter­na­tional city sur­vey of the con­sult­ing com­pany mer­cer: Vienna is the best in every way!

Vienna – the world’s Most Live­able City

Vienna the most liveable city 2011 according to MercerEach year the inter­na­tional con­sult­ing firm Mer­cer does a sur­vey to eval­u­ate the qual­ity of liv­ing in 221 cit­ies around the world. Once again in 2011, Vienna came out on top in the study, mak­ing the Aus­trian cap­ital the world’s most live­able city for the third time in a row.

The sur­vey com­pares the polit­ical, social and eco­nomic cli­mate, med­ical care, edu­ca­tion, and infra­struc­tural con­di­tions such as pub­lic trans­port­a­tion, power and water supply.

It also takes into con­sid­er­a­tion recre­ational offers such as res­taur­ants, theatres, cinemas, sports facil­it­ies, the avail­ab­il­ity of all kinds of con­sumer goods from food to cars, as well as envir­on­mental con­di­tions – from green space to air quality.

Vienna – city with the highest qual­ity of life in Europe

In August 2011, the Eco­nom­ist Intel­li­gence Unit (EIU) recog­nized Vienna as the city with the highest qual­ity of life in Europe and the second-highest in the world in a com­par­ison between 140 met­ro­pol­ises around the globe. Vienna was only sur­passed by Mel­bourne, Australia.

Let’s cel­eb­rate Vienna

Celebrate ViennaThis is just one more reason to visit Vienna and exper­i­ence an imper­ial and green city where pleas­ure is a part of the cul­ture. Enjoy a walk through Schön­brunn or the Lain­zer Tier­garten or stroll around in the city and exper­i­ence the capital’s rich cul­tural her­it­age and remind­ers of bygone imper­ial splendor which await you around every corner.

In order to cel­eb­rate Vienna’s first rank, we offer you the unique oppor­tun­ity to exper­i­ence the Vien­nese qual­ity of liv­ing in per­son. The first per­son who books our hol­i­day apart­ment for a week (6 nights) in the period Nov 29, 2011 to Dec 27, 2001 refer­ring to this post is awar­ded a 10% dis­count.

Danube Tower

Danube TowerThe Danube Tower (Ger­man: Donau­turm) is the tallest build­ing in Aus­tria and is 252 metres (827 ft) in height. It is loc­ated in the Donaupark in the 22nd dis­trict of Vienna called Donaus­tadt. The Danube Tower is a very pop­u­lar tour­ist attrac­tion and it is the right place if you want to enjoy an amaz­ing view over Vienna. On clear days a dis­tant view up to 80 kilo­metres is pos­sible – you can even see Bratislava.

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Recipe for Sacher-Faschingskrapfen (Carnival Doughnuts)

Today is the unof­fi­cial begin­ning of Car­ni­val (Fasching) in Vienna (Offi­cially Fasching starts on Jan 6th). For those who want to exper­i­ence a little Vien­nese Fasching feel­ing even if you are cur­rently not in Vienna, here is a recipe for the tra­di­tional Fasching­skrap­fen (Car­ni­val Dough­nut) which are dough­nuts usu­ally filled with apricot jam. In Vienna Car­ni­val Dough­nuts or Fasching­skrap­fen are a typ­ical deli­cious dessert to offer in the time from Nov 11 to Lent.

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Billy Joel - Vienna

“Vienna” is a song from Billy Joel’s fifth stu­dio album The Stranger (1977), which was his break­through album. In 1981 it was part of an epis­ode of Taxi — an Amer­ican sit­com which won 18 Emmy awards — called “Vienna Waits.

In 2008 in an inter­view with Dan Barry from The New York Times Billy Joel cited Vienna as one of his two favor­ite songs.

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Advent and Christmas Markets in Vienna 2011

Advent brings out the romantic side of Vienna in an air of anti­cip­a­tion of Christ­mas. The Vien­nese Advent and Christ­mas mar­kets are pop­u­lar in such a way that each year buses full of tour­ists arrive at Vienna. But they come to Vienna just for a couple of hours to visit one of the gor­geous Christ­mas markets.

Vienna’s Christ­mas Mar­ket – The Magic of Advent in Vienna

Nov 12-Dec 24, 2011, 10.00–21.30 daily; Fri, Sat through 22.00; Dec 24, 10.00–18.00
Rath­aus­platz (Vienna City Hall), 1010 Vienna
www.christkindlmarkt.at

The Magic of Advent in Vienna enchants vis­it­ors with its romantic and nos­tal­gic charm. Attrac­tions included the glit­ter­ing tree dec­or­a­tions in the adja­cent Rath­aus­park and more than 150 stands laden with Christ­mas gifts, can­dies and punch. There is also a Christ­mas Work­shop for the little ones.

Pho­tos of the Christ­mas Mar­ket at the Vienna City Hall

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