Vienna: Back Again (With a Side of Prague)

We went back. Three weeks in August and September. G flew from London, I flew from Miami, and we met at the airport in Vienna like two people arriving at the same idea from different directions.

This was our second long stay in Vienna. The first, in 2020, was five weeks and it turned the city into something that felt like ours. This time we already had the routine. We already knew which bakery to go to in the morning, which bench in the Stadtpark caught the best afternoon light, which Heuriger to drive to when we wanted wine and didn't want to think. Coming back to a city you've lived in, even briefly, is a completely different experience than visiting one. You skip the tourist checklist and go straight to the version that matters.

We stayed at the Hilton Vienna Park again. Same hotel, same neighborhood, Am Stadtpark. The executive lounge became our evening default on nights we didn't want to go out: Austrian wine, small plates, a view of the park. Some nights that was enough.

The first week we walked. A lot. Retracing old routes, noticing what had changed (a few new restaurants on Naschmarkt, a coffee shop we'd liked had closed, the Ringstrasse looked the same because the Ringstrasse always looks the same). We went back to Cafe Central on day two and the strudel was identical to the one we'd had three years earlier. I mean identical. Same crumb. Same ratio of raisin to cinnamon. We ordered Melanges and sat in the vaulted room and G pulled out her book and I pulled out my phone and we didn't talk for an hour. Cafe Central doesn't change. Vienna does not change for you. That's the whole appeal.

The Naschmarkt on Saturday morning was the same beautiful chaos. We went three Saturdays in a row. By the third week the falafel guy recognized us and started our order before we asked. Small victories in a foreign city.

Food this time around was less about discovery and more about return visits. Figlmuller again, because the schnitzel doesn't need to be improved upon. The host from 2020 wasn't there anymore but the new one was equally indifferent to our existence, which in Vienna is a sign of respect. We tried Mraz & Sohn in Brigittenau, a two-Michelin-star restaurant in a neighborhood nobody would ever wander into on purpose. It's a 20-minute tram ride from the center and the building looks like an office from the outside. Inside, the tasting menu runs about 15 courses and Chef Markus Mraz does things with Austrian ingredients that I've never seen before. One course was a single potato, prepared five different ways on the same plate, each one making you rethink what a potato can be. G said it was the most she'd ever thought about a vegetable. Lunch is the value play here too: same kitchen, shorter menu, roughly half the price of dinner.

In the second week we took the train to Prague. Three nights at the Cosmopolitan Hotel Prague in the Old Town, walking distance to everything. Prague is a city that hits you visually before anything else. The architecture is absurd. Gothic churches next to Art Nouveau facades next to Baroque palaces, all pressed together on medieval streets that were never designed for the number of people walking on them. The Charles Bridge at 7 AM, before the crowds, with the fog sitting on the Vltava and the castle on the hill above, is one of those views that makes you stop and just stand there.

We walked the castle complex, which is technically the largest ancient castle in the world and takes most of a morning to see properly. The St. Vitus Cathedral inside the complex is the highlight: stained glass by Alphonse Mucha, a ceiling so high it makes your neck hurt. We spent an hour in there, which is about 45 minutes longer than most people, because G kept finding details in the stonework that she wanted to photograph. The Golden Lane behind the cathedral is a row of tiny, colorful houses built into the castle wall where Kafka once lived and wrote in a room the size of a closet. It's touristy but worth the ten minutes.

The Vltava River at night is the other thing Prague does that nowhere else does quite the same way. The bridges lit up, the castle glowing on the hill, the reflections on the water. We walked along the river our last evening and G said Prague felt like a city someone made up. Like it was too perfectly designed to be real. She wasn't wrong.

Prague's food scene has gotten better than its reputation suggests. We ate at Eska in Karlin, a bakery-restaurant that ferments and bakes everything in-house. The sourdough bread alone is worth the trip to the neighborhood. The roasted duck with fermented cabbage was the best thing I ate in Prague. We also stumbled into a pub near the hotel one night and had svickova (braised beef with cream sauce and dumplings) with a couple of Pilsner Urquells and it cost about twelve euros for two people. Prague is still one of the most affordable major cities in Europe for eating and drinking, and the beer is the best in the world. I'll fight anyone on that.

Back to Vienna for the last stretch. More Heuriger evenings in the outer districts, sitting under chestnut trees with Gruner Veltliner while the sun went down. More Naschmarkt mornings. One last Cafe Central afternoon where we sat in what had become our usual spot and didn't say much. G was reading. I was watching the room. Same as 2020. Same table, same silence, same city that doesn't rush and doesn't ask you to.

We packed up and flew to Boston. I had INBOUND the next day. The transition from Vienna time to conference time is brutal.