Vienna Is In Bloom!

The city is celebrating spring – and 200 years of the Waltz King Johann Strauss. These are two good reasons to visit the Danube metropolis.

Vienna has a lot to offer. Diverse culture, safe living, plenty of sustainability: a few months ago, Vienna was – once again – named the most liveable city in the world by the renowned British magazine “Economist”. As a self-confessed fan of Vienna, I think this is at least as true for vacationers: you can store, stroll, get some fresh air, enjoy art and culture, take coffee breaks, try Sachertorte or schnitzel. Enjoyment has many faces here…

Spring in Vienna

In spring, enjoyment has prime time, so to speak – and for all the senses: the city is in bloom, thanks to winter jasmine, forsythia and fragrant snowballs, which are also wonderfully fragrant and colorful in the middle of the asphalt in the city’s parlor. That’s what you could call the First District, especially the boulevards around St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Here on Kärtnerstraße and Graben, the former stately buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries with their magnificent façades are now home to ultra-modern boutiques, typical coffee houses, souvenir stores and souvenir stores.

Everyone is in spring fever and decorates their shop windows in fresh green, pastel pink or soft yellow, decorated with flowers, butterflies and the inevitable Easter bunny. My favorite place to discover the most beautiful candles, tableware and garden accessories is Lederleitner.

Cleanliness offensive with charm

Even in the middle of the city, green is never far away: there are over 1000 parks in the city. Some are huge, like the famous Prater, others are called pocket parks, small islands of green. There are secluded benches everywhere for picnics or chilling out. There are orange garbage cans for garbage, printed with witty slogans. My favorite: “Hasta la mista, baby”! Who can resist this charming urban cleanliness campaign?

In general, the “green space”, as the areas are known, is carefully tended and cared for by the city gardeners. In the fall of 2024, they planted an impressive 640,000 tulip bulbs, carefully protecting them from frost with brushwood branches. The brushwood is removed at the start of spring. By April at the latest, the tulips will be glowing in bright orange and the classic Austrian colors of red and white. They are joined by primroses, crocuses, hyacinths and violets. The sea of flowers is completed by the sakura – the Japanese cherry blossom, a testimony to the blossoming Austrian-Japanese connection. And a spectacle: virtually overnight, white-pink blossoms emerge from their brown skin and immerse one of my favorites, the Stadtpark, in a white-pink dream. Incidentally, it was the city’s first public park.

Happy birthday for the Waltz King

A more than appropriate backdrop for Vienna’s favorite composer Johann Strauss Sohn, whose imposing golden statue is enthroned very prominently under a marble arch. Sculptor Eduard Hellmer sculpted him as the Waltz King playing the violin after his death in 1899. 22 years later, on June 21, 1921, the statue was ceremoniously unveiled – to the sound of the most famous Strauss waltz “On the Beautiful Blue Danube”, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. It doesn’t get much more romantic than that And what does it matter in the face of such splendor that the statue shines in gold but is actually made of bronze. A bit of fakery was allowed even back then….

Even in the anniversary year 2025, the city knows what it owes to its genius: under the motto “King of waltz (Strauss). Queen of Music (Vienna)”, the city is putting on a huge show for Strauss’ 200th birthday, offering exhibitions, concerts and 3D events that will not only inspire classical music fans with enthusiasm for the master. Even during his lifetime, Johann Strauss was the success-spoiled center of Viennese society and surprised with unconventional performances.

He was a dark-eyed womanizer – and the more people gossiped about his three marriages, various engagements and love affairs, the better it was for (music) business. Incidentally, Strauss turned this gossip culture into a humorous composition, the Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka.

At the House of Strauss

So off to the museum to get to know the genius a little better. The weather has just taken a little break from the sun anyway and the wind is blowing cool. It’s cozy and warm in the House of Strauss https://houseofstrauss.at under the motto “Where music touches the soul”. All four “Strausses”, as the Viennese affectionately call their stars, have performed here: Johann Strauss, his father of the same name and his brothers Eduard and Josef. The original venue, the historic concert hall, has actually been preserved 1:1. Hermann Rauter, owner and “mastermind” of the venue, raves about the acoustic quality. He is right, as we can see for ourselves during the multimedia show with music and animation – an all-round sensual experience.

And Vienna is even reaching for the stars for its famous birthday boy: under the motto “Waltz into Space”, the famous Danube Waltz is to be broadcast into space on 31 May 2025 at the Museum of Applied Arts – as an interstellar concert, together with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and in close cooperation with ESA, the European Space Agency. This will make it possible for the waltz notes to whizz into space as an electromagnetic wave at the speed of light, in the direction of Voyager.

Viennese coffee house culture

So much galactic enthusiasm makes you thirsty and hungry – and in Austria, the nearest café is never far away. Even if more and more coffee chains with the to-go variant in paper cups are spreading: There are still around 1000 old Viennese cafés. Like the “Museum” on Karlsplatz. I love the Salon-Einspänner there (double espresso with whipped cream). As I’m not a sweet tooth, I don’t go for Kaiserschmarrn and strudel.

I prefer the fine lunch dishes that are common here, e.g. the old Viennese soup pot with root vegetables and semolina dumplings. Or the sausages, which are typically served here with mustard and horseradish. Always with a little chat from the service staff, of course: it’s part of good service, they take their time for that. There’s often a bit of humor and light-heartedness. It simply creates a good atmosphere. And gives the feeling that the Viennese like living in their city – and not just in spring.