vienna

vienna's beautiful, in a graceful, beautiful kind of way.  it has that slow charm, the beauty of the old days when carriages rumbled through the streets and men and women walked about, the men swinging canes, perhaps, and the women holding the long skirts of their dresses as they crossed the cobblestone walks.  it has the enchantment of days gone by, of bells almost a thousand years old pealing for grandfather and son and grandson, forever and ever, of men in tailcoats and women in ball gowns dancing to a strauss waltz as the candlelight reflects in the gilded mirrors, of processions and plumes and golden carriages and kings and queens.  

the schloss schonbrunn palace and gardens, summer home of the hapsburgs, the reigning monarchs of the holy roman empire, and later, the austrian empire.  

the cafe central - perhaps the most famous cafe in vienna and the center of european philosophical, literary, and political thought. 

saint stephen's cathedral - stephansdom, since the 1100s.  the old bells are especially beautiful.  remember that those bells have rung for over eight hundred years, sorrowfully, prayerfully, and joyously.