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Vienna has hosted the Habsburg court over centuries, first as the imperial see of the Holy Roman Empire, then the capital of the Austrian Empire and later of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This has had a tremendous impact on the culture that exists there today.
Like Munich, its residents are formal, but with small doses of courtliness, polite forms of address and formal dress attire, the residents of Vienna tend to be equally modern and old-fashioned. Waiters address their customers with honorifics; a man who bumps into someone on the street is more than likely to implore his or her pardon with a small bow; tourists are treated as if they were a long-lost member of the royal family returning home. This luxurious treatment is one of the reasons that many people enjoy visiting Vienna.
The traditional Vienna is but one of the many façades of this city. Vienna is also a dynamic, young city, famous for its (electronic) music scene with independent labels, cult-status underground record stores, a vibrant club scene, and a government that seems overly obsessed with complicated paperwork. However, people are willing to go out of their way or bend the rules a little if they feel they can do someone a favor.
Vienna is also famous for its coffee culture. "Let's have a coffee" is a very common phrase to hear, because despite incursions by Starbucks and Italian-style espresso bars, the Kaffeehaus is still the traditional place to drink a cup of coffee, read the newspaper, meet friends or fall in love.
If you come to Vienna and don't try some coffee you've missed one of the great reasons to come here. Vienna has a reputation for having an excellent coffee culture and you should at least visit one of the countless traditional coffee houses where you can sit down, relax, and have some coffee.
Sidewalk Cafés line a pedestrians-only street in central Vienna's Graben district. Cafés and coffee houses are an Austrian tradition, and it is customary to take an afternoon break for a strong cup of coffee. The coffee ritual is incomplete without a delicious pastry or a slice of chocolate cake.
One Viennese admitted to me that being in a coffee house is like leaving the real world. "You close the doors and all the troubles you have are forgotten. You leave them behind. You read the newspaper, you play the billiards, you play chess, you talk to your friends while you drink your coffee or beer and everything has become peaceful."
