Austria Guide
Introduction to Austria
Snowy Alps and the Sound of Music, Mozart and chocolate, the Spanish Riding School and the Vienna Boys' Choir, skiing and yet more snowy Alps. The stock images of Austria are safe and old-fashioned, and are happily peddled by the country's highly efficient tourist industry. But it's not all old ladies in fur coats. For every wealthy St Anton skier, there's a snowboarder in Schladming; for every Strauss concertgoer, there's a clubber in Vienna; for every Kaffeehaus with Habsburg-era fixtures and fittings, there's a designer sushi bar open down the road; and for every far-right voter, there are at least two who believe fervently in the country's well-funded welfare state.
Physically, the Alps dominate the landscape, but Austria is by no means all mountainous vistas: the country stretches across central Europe for some 700km, from the shores of the Bodensee in the west to the edge of the flat Hungarian plain in the east. Far removed from the archetype are the wetlands and reed beds of Burgenland, and the dramatic sequence of slopes that carve their way up the Erzberg in Styria. In Upper and Lower Austria in particular, the predominantly low-key landscape of gentle rolling hills and vineyards can come as something of a surprise to first-time visitors. Yet this fertile, low-lying northern half of the country is, in fact, where the majority of Austrians live and work, many of them within commuting distance of the capital, Vienna – the country's chief tourist destination after the alpine regions.
For all its love of old worldliness, and nostalgia for the days of the Habsburgs when Vienna was the capital of a vast, multinational empire, Austria today is a thoroughly modern, clean and eminently civilized country. Its tourist facilities are uniformly excellent, and whether you're staying in one of the popular skiing, hiking or spa resorts, or in an out-of-the-way Gasthof, you're likely to experience Gemütlichkeit – a typically Austrian term expressing a mixture of relaxed cosiness and hospitality – at some point during your visit. Like neighbouring Switzerland, Austria is also a supremely law-abiding nation, where no one jaywalks or drops litter, and the trains and trams run on time.