On Sensory Overload

Vienna, Austria

June 17, 2025

If I had been treated to a visual feast before, then Vienna is a veritable banquet. In every street, around every corner are buildings, parks and spires that have me gawking. Tall buildings in a soft palette of colors grace the streets and boulevards and in cobble-stoned plazas are statues, some simple and elegant and others in all their baroque grandeur. What used to be a palace is the National Library, another grand building is the Vienna Museum and yet another is the Burg Theater.

The famous Lipizanner horses are still housed and trained close to the Spanish Riding School, a building that looks like a palace. Known for their classical dressage skills, the shows by these horses were once reserved for royalty but tickets are now available to all and sundry. Not too far away is the Albertina Museum of Graphic art begun in the 18^th century. Today it houses more than a million drawings and prints from Gothic to the present. Just a short walk has me craning my neck to take in the spires of St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

Another set of spires peek over some treetops but this is no cathedral. It is the City Hall! A block away the grand Austrian Parliament is not only a work of art but has been a place of work for a hundred and fifty years.

I wander down a pedestrian street across from the Spanish Riding school and come across Demel, a famed Viennese confectioner. Begun in 1786, it was once the exclusive supplier to the royalty, bearing the title of Purveyor to the Imperial Royal Court.

Inside is a wood paneled bar-like space with arrays of cakes, pastries and chocolates in tempting packages, on every shelf. In the little room beyond stands an exquisite sculpture of a cathedral made of chocolate! There are more chocolate sculptures gracing the walls. I succumb to a slice of cake paired with an espresso. It is simply divine!

I am on sensory overload! And it is not even close to complete without the music that this city has been home to for centuries. But that I think deserves a post all its own.