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Private Guided Tours in Vienna with Max
Private Guided Tours in Vienna's historic Center
The historic city is now district No. 1 of Vienna. Most Viennese just call it "the city". St. Stephan's cathedral stands at it's heart, the imperial palace at the periphery, but you can walk from one to the other in five minutes. Ringstrasse winds around it, like a necklace of 19th century sumptousness. The center with it's abundance of sights naturally attracts most tourists but deviate just a little from the beaten path and you can be almost alone. The whole area is packed with sights, history and stories that only wait to be explored and told. If you want your tour to focus on one or more of the topics below, or anything else in particular, please let me know in the contact form. Otherwise you will be served a well balanced "Viennese Melange".
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Main Sights
Imperial Palace, St. Stephan's and Co. Definitely on the beaten track but still beautiful, cozy, romantic and interesting.
Ringstrasse
The magnificent boulevard encircling the historic city center. Opera, museums and the Imperial Theatre demand to be marveled at. But also many parks invite you to take a stroll and relax.
History
For more than six centuries Vienna was the center of Habsburg power. It was the residence of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the venue of the Viennese Congress, and the fatal ultimatum starting WW1 was also signed here. A whole lot of history!
Quirky / Bizarre
Vienna has its good share of that. To be an "original" is not necessarly a bad thing here. About what could we gossip without them? See the sights with a focus on the strangeness of things.
Fin de Siecle
Vienna around 1900 was a sizzling stew of overcome tradition, scandalous art, an impoverished working class, new technology and radical thinkers and politicians boiling up new ideas by the minute. A long last walz into WW1. An then it was all over. A fascinating time with troubling parallels to the present.
Mozart, Beethoven & Co
If you walk through the city, you walk in the same streets like once the famous composers. A walk in Vienna therefore is a perfect way to hear about their live and times.
Sisi & Co
The Habsburgs and their loyal aristocrats ruled Austria for 650 years. Love them, hate them, but there are many stories, roumors and gossip circling around this family, which are tightly connected to Vienna and which are quite simply entertaining.
Hidden Gems
Picturesque corners, hidden courtyards, romantic lanes. Right in the center, yet off the beaten track.
Coffee Houses
The coffeehouse always was a cornerstone of Viennese lifestyle. In the center many of the traditional hangouts of the artists, intellectuals and everybody else, who wanted to read the newspaper in company, or heatedly discuss, or just save money on heating, are preserved.
Stories
Stories of love and crime, saints and devils, music and art, diseases, megalomania, crazyness, important and unimportant people.
Churches / Saints / Relics
Churches are holy places for believers and might seem boring to others. But they are also monuments of (art-) history and past believe systems. For that alone they are interesting places to visit.
Famous Movies
Vienna cannot compare with NYC in that respect. But famous movies were shot here, like "The Third Man"or "Before Sunrise". If you love these movies, you might want to see some of the film locations.
Other famous Viennese
Believe it or not, Vienna was home not only to Mozart, Strauss, Freud and Sisi. Also other famous people lived here. Fun fact about many famous Viennese: they were not from Vienna. And some were not even composers.
Purveyors to the court
If we walk through the city center we still find many of the old signs announcing a k.k or k.u.k purveyor to the court. Many still produce exquisite quality, be it candied violets that Sisi loved so much, or chandliers that illuminate the opera in Vienna and the Met in NYC.
Baroque Grandeur
Palais, Churches, Monuments, Imperial Palace, Maria Theresia, Frescos, Marble and such.
Art Nouveau
Although not the style of the artistocracy, beautiful and important art nouveau buildings can be found in the city center, like the Postal Savings Bank or the "Zacherlhaus".
Museums
Old Masters, Vienna 1900, Art Nouveau, Modern Art, World Museum, Imperial Apartments, Imperial Treasury, Imperial Library, Mozart, Freud, Schönbrunn, ...
Science / Medicine
It is a known fact: Vienna is full of geniuses. And not only musicians! We have an academic tradition since 1365 and therefore a lot of science was and still is going on here. Believe it or not, we even can beam stuff here!
Legend Busters
Vienna is an old city and therefore many legends, urban and otherwise, are told here. Some of them are completely made up, some have a true core. The truth behind the legends almost always is better than the sometimes somewhat strained (uups I said it!) stories.
Jewish History
The first jew came to Vienna in 1192 and was murdered by crusaders a few years later. The history of jews in Vienna was a troubled one, but it was extremely influencial for Viennese culture at all times, especially in the 19th century.
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