Travel

By Marshall S. Berdan

Less than 500 miles separate three of central Europe’s most popular and evocative destination cities, each laden with centuries of history and layers of charm, and each now the capital of its own historically significant and distinctive country: Fin-de-siecle Vienna (Austria), Baroque Prague (Czech Republic) and post-WWII Berlin (Germany). Each is well worth 4 or 5 days and its own trip, but ambitious travelers can string all three together fairly easily by train, bus, or rental car for a truly capital “triple play”.  

Vienna

Overview: From the late 1200s until the end of WWI, Vienna (Wien) was the center and capital city of the increasingly vast (and wealthy) Habsburg Empire. The “modern” city came into being with the demolition of the medieval city walls in the mid-1850s, thus allowing for a civic building boom in the grand Historicism style along the wide, new, semi-circular Ringstrasse. Significantly damaged during WW II, Vienna was restored to its fin-de-siecle grandeur in the 1950s. With its hereditary devotion to the arts, especially music and ballroom dancing (think Strauss, Mozart and Beethoven), gracious living, and café culture, Vienna is arguably Europe’s most refined and cultured metropolis.

Major Attractions: The Hofburg, the vast and imposing imperial court of the Habsburgs with its opulent state rooms, residential suites, and over-the-top Treasury; Schonbrunn, their equally opulent suburban summer palace and gardens; the expansive Museum of the History of Art, more contemporary-oriented Albertina, and Secession Movement (e.g., Gustav Klimt) Leopold Museum; GothicSt. Stephen’s Church and Vienna’s now commercial medieval center; and the houses of two famous Viennese (albeit for widely different things) Wolfgang Mozart and Sigmund Freud.  

Cultural opportunities: Attend a performance at the State Opera House (or watch it streamed live on a screen outside); take in one of dozens of daily classical musical concerts at secondary venues; observe morning training or a weekend performance of the prancing Lipizzaner stallions at the Spanish Riding School.

R&R:  Take a ride on the giant 1897 Ferris wheel at the Prater amusement park; take a daytime or evening cruise along the Danube River; enjoy java and strudel at a traditional coffeehouse (or Sachertorte at the upscale Sacher Café); tuck into a giant Weinerschnitzel at a neighborhood Wirtshaus; or drink in the atmosphere and fruit of local vines at a suburban Heuriger (wine tavern).  

For more information: Vienna’s online travel guide: the latest information and services - vienna.info  

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 Prague

Overview: Before passing into the industrious hands of the Austrian Habsburgs in 1526, hill-engirded Prague (Praha) served as the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the home of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV(1355-78), who built and spent lavishly here. When the Austro-Hungarian Empire was abolished in 1918, Prague became the capital of the new composite nation of Czechoslovakia. Occupied but not damaged by the Nazis in WW II, it fell to and then suffered under Russian Communist domination afterwards, achieving autonomy in 1989, only to split in two in 1993. Largely unchanged architecturally since the 1700s, it doesn’t get any more Old World charming than the “City of a Hundred Spires.”

Major Attractions: Prague Castle, including towering St. Vitus’ Cathedral, the old Royal Palace, and picturesque Golden Lane all perched atop the hill above quaint Mala Strana (Little Quarter) on the west bank of the Vltava; statuary-guarded pedestrian Charles Bridge; Sternberg Palace, home of the National Gallery; quintessentially medieval Old Town Square with its Old Town Hall and astronomical clock, and towering fairy-tale like Church of Our Lady before Tyn; Josefov (Jewish Quarter) featuring Europe’s oldest synagogue; and19^th-century commercial New Town.

Cultural opportunities: Attend a professional orchestral performance at the Neo-Renaissance Rudolfinum and National Theater, Art Nouveau Municipal House, and Baroque Dvorak Museum, or any number of smaller nightly concerts at landmark churches or synagogues; enjoy suspended animation at the National Marionette Theater.  

R&R: Stroll the incredibly scenic Charles Bridge, especially at sunset; enjoy original Czech pilsner at a traditional beer hall or garden; indulge in a trdelnik (doughnut cone) from a street vendor; take a boat ride on the Vltava River; climb (or ride the funicular) to the top of Petrin Hill and then to the top of the Czech Eifel Tower.    

For more information: Home | Prague City Tourism

Berlin

Overview: Prior to German unification in 1871, low-laying and low-slung Berlin was the capital of the militaristic Kingdom of Prussia, ruled most famously and effectively by Frederick the Great (1740-1786). Under Bismarck and two Kaisers, both named Wilhelm, it became not only the new nation’s capital, but its commercial, cultural, and hedonistic center as well before being commandeered by the Nazis in 1933. Largely destroyed in WW II, Berlin was stripped of its capital city status and divided politically by the victorious Allies, a division that became even starker with the construction of the notorious Berlin Wall in 1961. In 1991, the newly Wall-less Berlin was restored as capital of a united Germany, with former desolate and derelict Communist East Berlin, currently still in the midst of a colossal building boom, once again its heart and soul.

Cultural attractions: Museum Island, especially the Pergamon, the German History Museum, and Neues Museum (of antiquity), home of the bust of Nefertiti; the ornate Protestant Berliner Dom; the Gemaldegalerie art museum of European masterpieces; Brandenburg Gate; and the sumptuous Baroque palaces (Sanssouci and the Neues Palais) of Frederick the Great in nearby Potsdam.

War and Post-War Attractions: The restored Reichstag (parliament)with its climbable glass cupola; dramatic ruins of Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church; Checkpoint Charlie (reconstruction and adjacent museum); open air Topography of Terror exhibit on the site of Gestapo headquarters; the moving Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe; and the Berlin Wall Memorial in Prenzlauerberg.

R&R: cruise the Spree River in a sightseeing boat; rent a bicycle and ride through the Tiergarten; stroll the now uber trendy Unter den Linden; ogle the wares at Fassbender & Rausch, the world’s largest chocolate shop; gaze out over the city from atop the Fernsehturm (TV Tower); sample Bulette and Currywurst at any number of street stands; and, naturlich, soak up suds at a typical beergarten.

For more information: Berlins offizielles Reiseportal - visitBerlin.de

 Originally appeared in Newsday.

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