Upon arrival at the Vienna Westbahnhof train station we picked up a map and hopped on the U-Bahn (subway) into the center of the city. Emerging from underground, we were confronted by a choir of angels singing. The city was white, bright with the diffuse light of the morning fog, and all around were grand frilly baroque buildings. We wandered around the edge of the Innerstadt (inner city) past horse drawn carriages and bright white statues of Greek philosophers, through parks and wide open plazas surrounded by marble and limestone buildings, some with shining bronze ornamentation. Vienna wreaks of its capitol-of-empire past. When entering a new city with a reputation, it can take time to see past your stereotype of it. Vienna smacked me in the face with its image as romantic, elegant "mitteleurope".
The Innerstadt is a UN designated World Heritage Area, but it was great to see that the Viennese haven't preserved it as simply a living period museum. Instead the city shows a continuing progressive design tradition; the architecture ranges from medieval to the 20th century "machine-age". The Osterreichesche Postparkasse (pictured below) looks like it could've come from the 1927 movie Metropolis, or that it could've been built this year. Instead it was completed in 1906.
