When you turn up to stay at the Grand Hotel Wien in Vienna, you'll likely be thinking along the lines of "old elegance" and "grand luxury" rather than "high technology" – but you might be pleasantly surprised.

This grand old dame of a hotel has just got itself hooked up to a WiFi network system which claims to be one of the best. (Well, actually it claims to be the best, but we think that's hard to prove). The NonStop Wireless Networking, a Belden brand, has been installed in 140 different access points within the hotel – we assume that means that most or all of the guest rooms now have WiFi. The system has

HotelChatter's Eric Rosen recently spent some time in Austria and Germany. All this week, he'll be rounding up his hotel observations. Any tips, suggestions, questions? Let us know.

The key to “doing” Europe properly, is to start your day with a sensible breakfast at the hotel.

For a long time we resisted taking breakfast at the table d'hôte, rejoicing in the five euros we were saving by foregoing bad coffee, stale rolls and a few greasy cold cuts, while saving our ducats for a leisurely lunch instead. But as we’ve grown older, we’ve come to see the logic of shelling out a little extra cash for a hearty breakfast so that we don’t get cranky

HotelChatter's Eric Rosen recently spent some time in Austria and Germany. All this week, he'll be rounding up his hotel observations. Any tips, suggestions, questions? Let us know.

If you’re anything like us, the first thing you want to do after a transatlantic flight is to wash all the grit and grime of airports and planes off your fatigued body. That’s why, for the first installment in our Austria-Germany Field Trip guide, we’ve decided

Maybe you've heard of this Bruno guy, a proud gay Austrian fashion reporter who's been terrorizing the Midwestern United States for the past year? Sasha Baron Cohen took a whirlwind tour of the U.S. as Bruno by creating more than 30 fake companies to trick unsuspecting interviewees into taking part in his film. All of his hard work pays off tonight when the movie opens nationwide, to the dismay and embarrassment of some of his interview subjects.

If you fell for his Bruno schtick, then needless to say you'd have a pretty grim view of Austria. To counteract this, we've done a little research to compile a mini-guide to Austria's very fashionable capitol; we're sure Bruno would approve.

Where to Stay:
The luxurious teigenberger Hotel Herrenhof, located in old town, is the ideal location for a first visit to Vienna. It is within walking distance to some of the city's top attractions like the Hofburg Imperial Palace, the Kohlmarkt shopping centre and St. Stephen's Cathedral. The hotel features all of the must-have modern amenities including in-room WiFi. Rates for a standard room begin around $260.

All this week, Carolyn Banfalvi will be taking us on a eat-and-drink tour of Vienna, Austria. If you have any questions or suggestions for Vienna Travel, let us know and we'll have Carolyn get back to you. Enjoy.

Everyone knows the Viennese have a thing for coffee. But Vienna is also one of Austria’s big wine-making regions. The world’s only capital city which encompasses a significant amount of wine growing areas within its limits, Vienna also offers loads of places to drink wine.

On the weekends, the Viennese head to the vineyards in the wine district on the edge of town to sample wine, have meals at the traditional wine taverns, and hike in the vineyards.

All this week, Carolyn Banfalvi will be taking us on a eat-and-drink tour of Vienna, Austria. If you have any questions or suggestions for Vienna Travel, let us know and we'll have Carolyn get back to you. Enjoy.

If it were up to me, I’d spend my days checking out the coffee houses, and my nights exploring the wine bars. But Vienna is so full of art museums, grand palaces, well-kept parks, galleries, and theaters, that you have to check out at least the biggies.

You could occupy days just wandering the winding streets of the inner city, where all roads seem to lead to the spectacular Stephansdom--the cathedral which is essentially the city’s focal point. And there’s always that other form of culture for which Vienna is so famous: music.

Here are Five of Vienna's Top Attractions, each of which could easily occupy an entire day, (or more).

All this week, Carolyn Banfalvi will be taking us on a eat-and-drink tour of Vienna, Austria. If you have any questions or suggestions for Vienna Travel, let us know and we'll have Carolyn get back to you. Enjoy.

If there’s anywhere in the world to avoid the coffee chains, it’s Vienna. Think Vienna, and its gilded coffee houses come to mind. These are places where waiters dressed in black and white serve coffee in porcelain cups on silver trays, and the delicate cakes are made as they have been for hundreds of years.

Such iconic Viennese coffee houses have long been places where locals spend significant chunks of their lives, but the city also offers a more modern take on the traditional coffee house, where the younger generations take their coffee and check their email in surroundings ranging from hip Bohemian to sleek revamped versions of landmark cafes.

All this week, Carolyn Banfalvi will be taking us on a eat-and-drink tour of Vienna, Austria. If you have any questions or suggestions for Vienna Travel, let us know and we'll have Carolyn get back to you. Enjoy.

Vienna might be the world’s only capital city to have a cuisine named after it. Viennese cuisine tends to be a bit more refined that food elsewhere in Austria. It’s also a little more international, with influences from the other countries that once were part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

Most notably, the Hungarians contributed goulash (and you will find so many more variations on that dish here, than in more traditional Hungary). Vienna’s most famous dish, Wiener Schnitzel (a huge slab of breaded veal served with a lemon and potatoes), is a riff on Veal Milanese. Vienna’s other signature dish is tafelspitz, a big hunk of beef that has been boiled with vegetables in its own broth, and is usually served with roasted potatoes, minced apples, horseradish, and sour cream. The dish was said to be the favorite of Emperor Franz Josef.

And, of course there are the desserts.

Outer space is the perfect metaphor for God and the mysteries of life. It's infinitely vast, it's mysteriously unknowable, and it elicits wonder and contemplation in all who behold it. This might be why Austrian artists Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf installed a massive NASA photograph of an astronaut floating in space on the ceiling of the historic Jesuit Church in Vienna in an exhibit entitled The Jesuits' Cosmos. The photo, which will be on display through May 25, 2009, is printed on a huge section of semi-transparent net fabric. Employing a change in lighting, the curators can switch the focus between the astronaut and the curvature of the blue planet to a "reverted view" of the Andrea Pozzo ceiling frescoes above them. Either way, the viewer is awed with a sense of spatial illusion. I like this trend of installing thought-provoking pieces of modern art in houses of worship. It's a pleasant reminder that we're all on the same planet, just trying to get along and figure a few things out.

[Photo: Steinbrener-Dempf]

Related Stories:
· Jesuits' Cosmos [Steinbrener-Dempf]
· Vienna Jesuit Church [Official Site]
· Religious Travel Coverage [Jaunted]

In a city we expect better from, the usually-culturally-rich Vienna, someone's really let us down by creating a cafe with a bunch of toilets lining the walls.

The theory is that if the male customers can sit on the toilet while drinking their coffee--they're not functioning toilets, in case you're freaking out--they'll be more rested and happier and, we presume, more likely to come back and buy their next coffee in the same spot.

The name now translates to "A Quiet Place" and we're thinking it's an appropriate name. Watching other customers sitting on the toilet is not our idea of high culture in Vienna, so we'll be staying away and leaving the cafe nice and quiet.

Related Stories:
· Cafe Loo-ses the Plot [Ananova]
· Phil Café and Store in Vienna [Jaunted]
· Vienna Travel Guide [Jaunted]

[Photo: Ananova]