Some­times, Ber­lin can be a bit too frantic for me. Whenever I feel that I need to retire for a while, I book a flight to a calmer place such as Stock­holm. But after I got invited to visit a friend’s art per­form­ance abroad and finally returned to Ber­lin, I knew there was a strong and beau­ti­ful com­pet­itor: Vienna.

Let me give an example of how serene Vienna is: Though being used to the street musi­cians and pave­ment per­formers who are inter­twined with the fab­ric that makes up Berlin’s and par­tic­u­larly Kreuzberg’s pub­lic space, I some­how turned grumpy and narky in Vienna. Hav­ing a deli­cious piece of Sacher cake and a Café mélange in a cof­fee­house at Stephans­platz, I got fed up with a crew of for­eign break­dan­cers who dared to dis­turb my celes­tial peace. Furi­ously, I had to go and come to rest at another café. Obvi­ously, over these few days Maria and I spent in this won­drously calm city, I got com­pletely assimilated.

The first thing Vienna sur­prises you is its lack of any street noise. Hardly any car is seen in the cent­ral dis­trict. Vienna is pla­cid, but vivid. You might not find Vienna the city of excess­ive open-air raves and ever-lasting techno parties, that we love Ber­lin for. Because it has simply too much serenity for that. Pic­ture it a more classy ver­sion of Prus­sian and Bav­arian cit­ies, but with a lot of dolce vita flow­ing in from the South. Take Unter den Linden, add fairly a lot of Kreuzberg laissez-faire and spice it with some Kran­z­ler Eck mood. Best served with a piece of fine Aus­trian pastry.

The second thing you’ll encounter is Vienna’s rich bike cul­ture. Since we are pas­sion­ate bicycle lov­ers, our jaws lit­er­ally locked wide open due to per­man­ently drop­ping in awe over all the beau­ti­ful and stun­ning bikes that dash through the streets. Rare vin­tage racing bikes, col­lect­ible single speeds and the fan­ci­est fixed gears gathered through­out the city in what I still feel was a huge show­case stunt. They were simply every­where. Just to make it clear to you: Even the eld­erly riders had more class than what you might ever achieve on two wheels. Deal with it.

But our hearts still didn’t feel their greatest bike related joy until we stumbled upon care­fully hid­den Rad­la­ger Palazzo. As its name implies it was noth­ing less than a treas­ure cave to us, dis­play­ing and selling the finest examples of bike crafts­man­ship along with fresh organic veget­ables and fruits straight from Italy. Com­plete with a con­nec­ted café and some calm Jazz tunes this was the per­fect place to get back after a long and stress­ful day. Well, don’t get me wrong, Vienna surely can be frantic at times, but you’ll have to go for it.

The best oppor­tun­ity to exper­i­ence Vienna’s vivid sides is to plunge into the more than a kilo­meter span­ning Naschmarkt, the city’s most renowned mar­ket for fresh veget­ables and fruits, exquis­ite del­ic­acies from all over the world and what­not. Be it forty types of vin­egar, a vast col­lec­tion of rare Chinese spices or Italian ravi­oli in fla­vours you prob­ably never heard about – name it, they got it. This mild mould cheese you had at this pic­tur­esque res­taur­ant in Britanny? Sure, they sell it over there. You’d like the spin­ach Börek you always enjoyed at Mehring­damm? Excel­lent choice, do you like some refresh­ing Anato­lian moun­tain water with that? I’d reckon it was hand-bucketed by a Turk­ish beauty and care­fully trans­por­ted by a pace of don­keys to Vienna’s Naschmarkt, just for your pleas­ure. (Look, there’s a greet­ing card attached to it, hand-written by said beauty!)

After these way too short days in Vienna, that had an enorm­ously cap­tiv­at­ing influ­ence on us, one thing is sure: We’ll return on a warm summer’s day, as a crew of at least five, get some bikes and just keep rid­ing through the empty streets from one café to the next, hav­ing one sort of cake at a time, to fully merge in what we’d approv­ingly coined the Vien­nese art of living.