One block from Carnegie Hall in New York, just visited by the Wiener Philharmoniker (Vienna Philharmonic), is the Seasonal Restaurant & Weinbar.  Seasonal provides a year-round taste of Vienna and is representative of the new generation of Viennese restaurants in Austria and elsewhere that have moved away from the formal, dark, and gilded Habsburg era style to elegant and casual dining.
There is ample reason to go to Seasonal for the food alone but diners should be aware of the unparalleled cellar of Austrian and German wines that co-owners Wolfgang Ban …

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 …

A twisty drive on the Alpenstraße brings the visitor to Le Ciel, a 12-table restaurant that offers dining at an altitude of 1000 meters at the InterContinental Resort Berchtesgaden.  The hotel itself is set on a small plateau overlooking the Nationalpark Berchtesgaden in Berchtesgadener Land, Bayern (Bavaria) adjacent to Salzburg, Austria.
On Christmas Day it had started to snow in the late afternoon and the restaurant’s softly lighted interior seemed all the more inviting, the quiet elegance of the place adding a festive note to the visit.
The atmosphere reflects the passion …

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, …

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 …

A coffeehouse at 35,000 feet
Terminal 1 is the busy home to 16 airlines. I found Austrian’s check-in area quite easily and checked in without any waiting.  The agent invited me to visit Alitalia’s lounge, where I watched a Euro 2008 match with a glass of wine and a salad.
BOARDING
Austrian allowed early boarding for business class passengers and within minutes I was comfortably ensconced in my business class seat.  The crew was very welcoming and I was offered newspapers and a beverage as well as an amenity kit that contained a …

THE 2426 KM DRIVE
In 5 days, I covered 2426 km and four countries (Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Italy). I crossed international borders 22 times.   I planned each day’s drive the night before, choosing my destination primarily based on the promise of good weather.
11. November – 460 km, Germany, Austria, and Italy
Friends Rich and Jill joined me for breakfast and soon enough, we were on the Autobahn in two 2006 3er Series BMWs.  Our itinerary: drive across the Brennerpaß into Italy and then head back north to Berchtesgaden.  I wonder if …