
A Belle Époque arrangement frames the entrance to 30 Jahngasse in Vienna’s Margareten district. Vienna, an elegant but relaxed city of tremendous charm, steeped in history and visually lush with architectural monuments to its illustrious past everywhere one looks. Great coffee, tasty food, excellent beer; the pastries and cakes require no comment. I could not have chosen a better place to start my journey.
I am just home from three and a half wonderful weeks of travel through central Europe, with a brief diversion to the Adriatic Sea and Venice, which is in its own world, defying geographical categorization. The trip began in Vienna, where I landed at the end of September after a long flight from Saigon, via Doha in Qatar. I posted an image from my first dinner in Vienna on the evening I arrived and had planned to post more as I moved along my itinerary. But finally, I posted nothing, deciding I was better off focusing on the places I visited without giving any thought to social media posts. Be that as it may, I arrived back in Hoi An with lots of photos from the trip – lots – and I am going to share a few of them in the days to come, beginning with several from my first stop in Vienna. There will also, no doubt, be some commentary included with the pictures. Because I like to ramble.