So, for the seventh year in a row, Vienna has been rated the world's most "liveable" city. The survey, by consultants Mercer, compares the "political, social and economic climate, medical care, education, and infrastructural conditions such as public transportation, power and water supply." Oh and "recreational offers". Personally I wouldn't rank the power and water supply any higher than most other European cities, but I do agree that there is something very special about Vienna - and not just as a place to live. It is hugely under-rated as a tourist destination, and those recreational offers are absolutely outstanding.
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Sure, you will see plenty of coach tours thronging to the Spanish Riding School, and excited tourists bumping along the cobbled streets of the old town in open horse-drawn carriages. But head for the main museum - the Kunsthistorisches, that fabulously grand neo-Renaissance palace of art and culture just off the Ringstrasse - and you will be able to walk in without queuing. This despite that fact that it has one of the great collections of old masters in Europe - easily rivalling the Prado, the National Gallery, the Hermitage and the Louvre. Highlights from what was once the Habsburgs' royal collection include three of the Seasons paintings by Bruegel, and seminal work by Rubens, Titian, Velasquez, Vermeer, Durer, Raphael - it's a long long list and a great one. Yet it gets just 850,000 visitors a year - that's one tenth of the number which floods into the Louvre.
Perhaps you prefer something more modern? Head round the corner to the Leopold Museum for radical 20th-century works by Egon Schiele. Or up to the Belvedere Palace for a spectacular collection of Klimts. And if you enjoy palaces, the two great Habsburg Imperial residences, the Hofburg (home to the Spanish Riding School) and the Schonbrunn are extraordinarily extravagant architectural testaments to power, wealth and influence of the family which, for centuries, reigned absolute over vast swathes of central Europe.
If your eyes are glazing over, Vienna isn't just about art and history. This is a city which wears its culture lightly, a city with its own vineyards, and more to the point, where cafe society was invented. Nowhere has the art of relaxing over coffee or hot chocolate been elevated to such heights, or accompanied by such good cake and quite so much whipped cream.
Suitably refreshed you will no doubt be up for some musical culture. Here too Vienna is a non-pareil. The city of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven does not rest on its musical laurels - the great tradition still thrives, and it is still home to one of the world's greatest orchestras - the Vienna Philharmonic - the State Opera, lively chamber music scene; (and, I'm told, a growing reputation for rock festivals).
But my final salute is more prosaic - it goes to Vienna's public transport system. Not the metro which serves the suburbs, but the red-and-white trams which circumnavigate the Ringstrasse. You can walk across the old town in half an hour. But to appreciate the monumental grandeur of one of Europe's most remarkable avenues, you need to take the tram. Sit back and enjoy the view as you trundle past the coffee shops, and parks, the Steinway showroom, the grand hotels, the Hofburg palace and, most impressively of all, a succession of some of the most imposing architecture of the 19th century, from the splendid Burg theatre to the neoclassical parliament, and of course, the great neo-Renaissance domes of the Kunsthistorisches museum.
That tram ride sums it all up. The great achievement of Vienna is that way that it manages to keep its grandeur on a human scale. It has the charm, scale and good looks of an English cathedral city, and yet the history and traditions and sophistication of one of Europe's great historic capitals.
The Telegraph, London
