Vienna is a beautiful city, perhaps the most beautiful city I’ve visited. You walk along a cobbled street, you look up and see lines of Baroque buildings surrounding a wide courtyard, often with a sparkling fountain in its centre. Or you head for the shade of an avenue of trees and at the end, you see a pair of perfectly matched museums – the Naturhistorisches (Natural History) and the Kunshistorisches (Art History) museums. They were commissioned by Franz Joseph 1 and built between 1871 and 1889.

Vienna’s majestic vistas owe much to its past as the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was ruled by the Habsburgs for over 600 years. They had access to immense wealth and this shows in the palaces and churches they commissioned. Most impressive of all is their vast summer residence, the Schonbrunn Palace, which has over 1,400 rooms and expansive gardens. We ambled through the estate along with hundreds of other tourists and there was room for us all. We enjoyed coffee and apple strudel in the Gloriette cafe, which has a wonderful view of the gardens and the palace.

The two main churches in Vienna are the Romanesque/Gothic St Stephen’s Cathedral and the Baroque St Charles’s Church. The former is the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna and its spires dominate the Vienna skyline. It was built on an ancient Roman site and was eventually completed in 1578. The latter is dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo, who was a leader of the Counter-Reformation. It was commissioned by Charles VI in 1713 in gratitude after a major plague epidemic and completed in 1737.

We were lucky to attend an organ recital in the Church of St Peter. Listening to music composed by Vivaldi and Bach, both of whom lived in Vienna, while gazing at the ornate Baroque interior of this 18th century church was a surreal experience. We also went to a concert of chamber music in a monastery where Mozart lived for a short while. The concert was held in a small, beautifully decorated concert hall called the Sala Terrena and was a programme of Viennese music played by a trio of violin, piano and cello. The cellist charmingly introduced the music and waxed lyrical about J S Bach – “not every musician believes in God but every musician believes in Bach”!

From sublime music to a reminder of Austria’s involvement in the devastation of the 1930s. The beautiful Judenplatz has a sombre memorial to the 65,000 Jewish Austrians who were killed in the 1930s. The square is on the site of a medieval synagogue, which was burned down during a pogram in 1420.

Our time in Vienna was not totally absorbed by palaces, churches and memorials. We were fortunate that our Austrian friends who live four hours away met us in Vienna and they were the most wonderful tour guides. We enjoyed delicious food in their company, including Wiener schnitzel and kaiserschmarrn (a kind of pancake served with fruit compote). We had coffee in a traditional coffee house, where Jim ordered English breakfast tea! and a drink in a roof-top bar with a splendid view of the roof and spires of St Stephen’s Cathedral.