The only thing I can think of is the film Before Sunrise. Months before visiting Vienna, when we were still in Spain, we stayed with a couch host who watched this movie with us. As we walked around the city all I could think of were the sites I had seen in the film. I think it is this association that created my infatuation with Vienna. It just goes to show how subjective our opinions of places can be.
If I had not seen this film, I would probably not have very fond memories of Vienna. On the first night we arrived, we were greeted by the nice young man who had accepted our couch request. We had a lovely evening chatting at his dining room table.
The next morning things were not so bright. We left the house to find our car had been towed. We have handicapped parking from Spain, because of Javier's disability. Because we were coming to a big city, we asked our host in advance about handicapped parking around his area. He was very helpful and even asked his father - who worked for the police department - about how the spaces worked. It seemed we would have no problem parking right outside his house.
This was wrong, Wrong, WRONG! His father had told him quite incorrectly that the numbers on the handicapped parking sign were just i.d. numbers for the spot. Wrong. They were actually indicating that the spot was specifically designated for someone.
It became a huge fiasco for us to get our car back. We had to go to the far outskirts of the city to get it, and despite our pleas of mercy about the fines we still had to pay quite a lot. Fortunately we did not have to pay the fine for parking in a handicapped spot - we generally had the right to - but we did have to pay the towing fees. To make this even more ridiculous, the time of towing was only 10 or 15 minutes before we had stepped out of the apartment and saw the car was missing.
If only we had been a little quicker in leaving.
The rest of our time in Vienna was rather uneventful. We enjoyed walking around the city. It really is an elegant place.
