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| Your English-speaking guide | Русскоязычный гид в Вене |
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About Vienna: Capital of Music
Vienna (German: Wien) is the capital of the Republic of Austria. It is by far the largest city in Austria (pop.~ 1.7m), as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. As the former home of the Habsburg court and its various empires, the city still has the trappings of the imperial capital it once was, and the historic city centre is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Traditional Vienna is but one of the many façades of this city, the downtown area of which is a UNESCO world heritage site and sometimes begrudgingly compared to an open air museum. But Vienna is also a dynamic young city, famous for its ) music scene with independent labels, cult-status underground record stores, a vibrant club scene, multitudes of street performers, and a government that seems overly obsessed with complicated paperwork. However, people are willing to go out of their way or bend the rules a little if they feel they can do someone a favor. Vienna hosted the Habsburg court for several centuries, first as the Imperial seat of the Holy Roman Empire, then the capital of the Austrian Empire, and later of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which finally fell in 1918 with the abdication of the last Emperor Karl I. The court tremendously influenced the culture that exists here even today: Vienna's residents are often overly formal, with small doses of courtliness, polite forms of address, and formal dress attire. One of the many paradoxes of the quirky city is that its residents can be equally modern and progressive as they are extremely old-fashioned.
Vienna, also described as Europe's cultural capital, is a metropolis with unique charm, vibrancy and flair. It has good infrastructure, is clean and safe, and has all the inspiration that you could wish for in order to discover this wonderful part of Europe.
