One of the most beautiful parts of Italy, Alto Adige, is actually German speaking.  It’s known to many as the Südtirol, or South Tyrol, and was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918. Today, it is part of the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino.
The borders of the region, comprised of the Austrian province of Tyrol and the Italian provinces of South Tyrol and Trent (Trentino in Italian, Trient in German), are formed by the former former Austrian County of Tyrol (Gefürstete Grafschaft Tirol), which was divided between Austria and Italy after the …

Graz, a city of 250,000 inhabitants and six universities, straddles the Mur River in southeastern Austria.  The Old Town district is one of the best preserved city centers in Europe and the Grand Hotel Wiesler is in the heart of the city.
After a 270 km (168 mile) drive, I arrived at the hotel’s beautiful Jugendstil (art deco) entrance with high expectations, given the hotel’s grand name.  I wouldn’t be disappointed.
WHERE IS IT?
The Grand Hotel Wiesler overlooks the Mur River and the Old Town. It is within walking distance of the Kunsthaus …

Vienna, once the capital of an empire of which it was said that the sun never set over it, is now equally as important as the capital of a newly-invigorated Central Europe that bridges East with West.
Spending summer and winter in Vienna, one notices an entirely different, but equally vibrant, energy.  I’ve been spending time each year in Vienna since my youth.  In 2008, I was in Vienna for a week in June during the Euro 2008 football championship.  At the beginning of last year I returned to attend the …

The 2010 Executive Road Warrior calendar is now available online for purchase.
This calendar captures the elegance and power of BMW’s latest masterpiece, the new Z4. Jonathan Spira was one of the first to drive the new Z4 in both Europe and the U.S.
This calendar includes 13 photographs of the car taken in places ranging from Vienna, Austria to New York City to Los Angeles.
It covers all three models, the Z4 sDrive23i, the Z4 sDrive30i, and the Z4 sDrive35i as well as the art project based on the Z4, An Expression …

The institution of the Kaffeehaus, or coffeehouse, is one of the most democratic public places ever invented.  Similar to the Melange, the most popular kind of coffee in Vienna, the Kaffeehaus offers a mélange of people of all social classes who come together to sit, read, write, and talk – all for the price of a cup of coffee.   Indeed, a guest who orders one coffee can sit for hours at a time reading the newspapers, typically plentiful in a Kaffeehaus and found in special wooden holders that facilitate one-handed …

Vienna, at the heart of Europe, is a city offering a unique blend of the arts, culture, music, and shopping, where 19th century Imperial traditions coexist alongside the latest trends.  One doesn’t have to go far to see a Fiaker (horse-drawn carriage) being passed by a skateboarder.
Tradition is everywhere, from the Kaffeehaus (coffee house) to ubiquitous paintings and photographs of Kaiser Franz Joseph I., the Habsburg emperor who ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1848 to 1916.
Vienna is one of the only cities in the world with its own cuisine (most …

My all-too-brief stay in the Kamptal (Kamp Valley) was over. I reluctantly left the Loisium hotel in Langenlois around 10:15 for Vienna.
First order of business: top down. The top takes only 20 seconds to retract and it appears far more robust than earlier generation retractable hardtops, which seemed a bit fragile in construction. The interior features generous amounts of space; even with the top up, I never felt claustrophobic. With the top down, which is the way this car is meant to be driven, …

The Wachau is an area of Austria that I have visited regularly since childhood.  It is a valley that runs along the Danube river for 33 km from Melk to Krems but today is the first time I viewed it from the Danube itself.  I left Krems on the Austria, one of several vessels from Brandner that run along the river and disembarked in Weißenkirchen one hour later.
A short walk along the Wachaustraße took us to the the main retail location for Wieser, a purveyor of local apricot marmalade (Marillenmarmalade) …

While Austria is synonymous to many for music and culture, its wines don’t have the renown that those of other European countries have.  Austria has, however, 51,213 hectares of vineyards, mostly in the eastern part of the country.  I’m visiting  the province of Niederösterreich (Lower Austria), which has over 31,000 hectares of vineyards, to be followed by a visit to Vienna (over 600 hectares but it’s the only capital city in the world to have its own wine region) and then I will visit the Burgenland, which has over 15,000 …

Join me as I embark upon a tour to the three main wine-growing regions of Austria.
I departed New York on 4 September via Austrian Airlines, coincidentally on the first day of ownership of the airline by Lufthansa.  Fortunately, not much has changed and hopefully, as the Austrian newspapers have written, it will simply be “red uniforms without red ink.”
The first order of business was to pick up a BMW Z4 sDrive23 from BMW of Austria and drive to Langenlois, where the beautiful new wine and spa resort  Loisium …