Вена

Vienna is one of the largest and oldest European capitals. This is a modern industrial center, but in many ways its way of life is still determined by long-standing traditions - crafts, trade, life, architecture, music, theater. Vienna is truly a city of great composers; Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, Brahms and Richard Strauss, Mahler and Schoenberg lived and worked here; all the main directions of Western European music were born or developed here over the past two hundred years. In the Austrian capital, classical genres of light music were also created - the Viennese waltz and the Viennese operetta, the symbol of which was the name of Johann Strauss. In the architectural appearance of Vienna, its entire history was vividly expressed. In the center is a tight nest of narrow streets, the so-called "Inner City". It is surrounded by a wide strip of Ring Street ("Ring"). Streets leading to the outskirts radiate from it. The sectors of the outer districts, in turn, are circled by the Gürtel ("Belt") street, but the city has long stepped over it as well. Both rings are not closed - they begin and end on the embankments of the Danube Canal - one of the branches of the Danube. Such a plan is typical for a city that has existed since the Middle Ages. The originality of Vienna is that in its most ancient part there are, as it were, two centers: the spiritual one - the Cathedral of St. Stephen and the secular one - the free ensemble of the former imperial residence of the Hofburg ... b/w and color illustrations