Venture across every inch of this prosperous and stable central European country, from the cosmopolitan capital of Vienna--packed with cultural offerings and late-night musikcafes--to the awesome Alpine backwaters of the Tyrol or winemaking villages. Learn how to stretch your budget in what can be an expensive country to visit. 40 maps. color photos.

The Viennese café was a key site of urban modernity around 1900. In the rapidly growing city it functioned simultaneously as home and workplace, affording opportunities for both leisure and intellectual exchange. This volume explores the nature and function of the coffeehouse in the social, cultural, and political world of fin-de-siècle Vienna. Just as the café served as a creative meeting place within the city, so this volume initiates conversations between different disciplines focusing on Vienna at the beginning of the twentieth century. Contributions are drawn from the fields of social and cultural history, literary studies, Jewish studies and art, and architectural and design history. A fresh perspective is also provided by a selection of comparative articles exploring coffeehouse culture elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

In Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century the question of what it meant to be modern was a heated topic of debate. Focusing on interior design, fashion and photography, as well as on painting and architecture, this study casts fresh light on the vital role of the arts in these debates. The 'new' art and literature was crucial in defining a distinctive Viennese modernity while at the same time challenging preconceptions about modern urban life. Many artists and writers produced work that questioned and undermined oppositions between city and country, interior spaces and panoramic views, masculinity and femininity. Issues of gender and the representation of the body were particularly important in establishing professional identities for some of Vienna's most prominent figures, including the Secessionist painters Gustav Klimt and Carl Moll, designers such as Adolf Loos and Emilie Flöge, as well as the poet and feuilletonist Peter Altenberg. Intellectual life in turn-of-the-century Vienna has often been characterised as a retreat from the public sphere. This book demonstrates how - even in its ostensibly most private manifestations - Viennese Modernism involved a highly performative set of practices aimed at an international audience.

This distinctive city guide swells with incisive listings to the best and best-value Vienna offerings in hotels, restaurants, and night life, as well as the city's famous cafes. Information on Vienna's spectacular sights and day trips both inside and outside the city is featured. 30 maps and plans. of color maps.

The Rough Guide to Vienna is the ultimate guide to one of Europe's most elegant and civilised capital cities. From the world-class art galleries and museums full of Art Nouveau and Modernist pieces to getting off the beaten track and exploring the narrow, cobbled backstreets of the Innere Stadt or the lively cafés and bars of the Naschmarkt area, this guide covers it all. Frank, incisive reviews take you straight to the best of the city's coffee houses, restaurants and nightlife venues, from the minimalist to the magnificently traditional, while tell-it-like-it-is listings help you find the right accommodation for your budget, whether that's a boutique hotel off Karlsplatz, a grand classic on the Ringstrasse, or just a perfect budget hideaway. With inspirational photography, neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood accounts and detailed, up-to-date maps, The Rough Guide to Vienna is the perfect companion for a weekend away or a longer city break. Make the most of your holiday with The Rough Guide to Vienna.

Transforming the Center, Eroding the Marginsis a collection ofcritical articles about recent and contemporary German literaturedesigned to stimulate discussion about German-speaking culture from thepoint of view of diversity. The combination of broad historicalapproaches and detailed textual analyses made it possible to present inthis volume a spectrum of identities and positions within theGerman-speaking sphere, and sometimes even within the work of a singleauthor. Examining the works of German-speaking authors of differentbackgrounds and countries of residence from many different points ofview shows that the very concept of a unified "German Culture" is aconstruct.Because of the increasing visibility of various ethnic,religious, cultural, and economic groups -- including migrant workers,exiles, and immigrants -- multiculturalism and cultural diversity inCentral Europe have received considerable attention in public debatesince the disintegration of the Eastern bloc and the fall of the BerlinWall. Yet neither cultural diversity nor the gender issues examinedthroughout the volume are recent phenomena. Upon closer scrutiny thenotions of center and margin are shown to have origins in the nineteenthcentury and before.The articles in this volume, distinct in theirapproaches and each one concerned with specific situations, reveal anongoing decline of mainstream discourse: the erosion of the cultural"center," and a strengthening of what continues to be referred to as"marginal." The literary and intellectual production of groups that areseen as marginal is becoming ever more compelling and visible, as isdocumented in Transforming the Center, Eroding the Margins.