It may be time to travel for a royal ball in Vienna this February
A worthy pit stop between Prague and Budapest, one full of pastries and paintings.
Mention Vienna and what comes to mind are pastries and paintings, sacher-torte and Schiele—a place worth a pit stop between Prague and Budapest. But the grand onetime imperial capital is starting to shed its gilded cobwebbiness. A permanent home has just opened for the Austrian billionaire Heidi GoëssHorten’s 700-strong collection—of Picassos, Chagalls, Basquiats, Warhols, Richters, and Baselitzes. The two-year-old Albertina Modern, Austria’s answer to the Tate, will showcase in spring 2023 American artist Alex Katz in a major retrospective.
On the hotel front, the 150-year-old Sacher has some competition. Rosewood Vienna opened last summer in a former bank in the heart of the city’s pedestrian district. The onetime Ring Hotel, on the Ringstrasse, will reopen in early 2023 as the Amauris Vienna. The locally owned and operated Leo Grand is a pretty boutique spot a few steps from St. Stephen’s Cathedral. And a Mandarin Oriental is coming as well (to an Art Nouveau building on Riemergasse). But there’s one tradition that Gwen Kozlowski, president of Exeter International, is keen to see preserved: the balls. “They are truly like nowhere else, and superformal.” Skip the ones around New Year’s and focus on the distinctly Viennese ones at Lent. The most prestigious are the Opera and Philharmonic balls. “They’re hard to wrangle tickets for, but if you’re serious, we can usually make it happen.”
This piece originally appeared in Harper's Bazaar US.
