The leaves are beginning to fall from the trees, the weather has turned a little cooler and gaggles of little children spilling out onto the pavement indicates a fresh new school-year has begun. It can only mean one thing: autumn has arrived in Vienna! An elegant city all year-round, the autumnal colours only seem to magnify the architectural beauty of the city-scape. Rounding any corner in the Innere-Stadt brings one face-to-face with a dazzling array of facades: elaborately constructed palaces; richly embellished churches ; regally imposing coffee-houses and noble townhouses.

Yet there is much more to Wien than first meets the eye. One of my favourite pastimes whilst wandering through the city is to try to spot less obvious, subtle details, hidden as they are amongst their more-flashy neighbours.

Like the ornate stucco-work gracing the ceilings in the halls of the University of Wien, or the impossibly-high, gravity-defying spires of the Gothic Votivskirche. I like to be reminded that these little details were conceived in the mind of the architect or the artist before being brought to life: that they are both purposeless and purposeful. Purposeless because it often seems that they serve no practical function and yet purposeful, precisely because they bring beauty to the world and remind us of the great things which man is inspired to undertake.

Nature too, reveals this same pattern and is evident to behold in any of Wein’s numerous parks and green-spaces: ochre, rust and umber; emerald, crimson and gold – the leaves of the passing season wave goodbye in all their varied hues. Beauty is all around us and we only have to learn to fine-tune our vision in order to be able to notice it more and more. In a city as beautiful as Wien, one has more than ample opportunity to practice this ‘beauty-vision’. I encourage you: get out now and enjoy the crisp, autumnal air; go for a stroll along the Donaukanal; take in the fading light of the shortening evenings; enjoy a coffee with friends in one of Wien’s numerous cosy coffee-houses. It need not be anything extravagant, yet will bring you to a deeper appreciation of your new home culture – Wien!

Viel Vergnügen!

Aoífe-Maria Beglin