Most people visit Vienna with a vivid image of the city in their minds: a monumental vision of Habsburg palaces, trotting white horses, old ladies in fur coats and mountains of fat cream cakes. And they’re unlikely to be disappointed, for the city positively feeds off imperial nostalgia - High Baroque churches and aristocratic mansions pepper the Innere Stadt, monumental projects from the late nineteenth century line the Ringstrasse, and postcards of the Emperor Franz-Josef and his beautiful wife Elisabeth still sell by the sackful. Just as compelling as the old Habsburg stand-bys are the wonderful Jugendstil and early Modernist buildings, products of the era of Freud, Klimt, Schiele, Mahler and Schönberg, when the city’s famous coffeehouses were filled with intellectuals from every corner of the empire. Without doubt, this was Vienna’s golden age, after which all has been decline: with the end of the empire in 1918, the city was reduced from a metropolis of over two million, capital of a vast empire of fifty million, to one of barely more than 1.5 million and federal capital of a small country of just eight million souls. Given the city’s twentieth-century history, it’s hardly surprising that the Viennese are as keen as anyone to continue plugging the good old days. The visual scars from this turbulent history are comparatively light - even Hitler’s sinister wartime Flacktürme (anti-aircraft towers) are confined to the suburbs - though the destruction of the city’s enormous Jewish community, the driving force behind the city’s fin-de-siècle culture, is a wound that has proved harder to heal. The city has struggled since to live up to the glorious achievements of its past, and has failed to shake off a reputation for xenophobia. Yet for all its problems, Vienna is still an inspiring city to visit, with one of the world’s greatest art collections in the Kunsthistorisches Museum , world-class orchestras and a superb architectural heritage. It’s also an eminently civilized place, clean, safe (for the most part) and peopled by citizens who do their best to live up to their reputation for Gemütlichkeit , or “cosiness”. And despite its ageing population, it’s also a city with a lively nightlife, with plenty of late-opening Musikcafés and drinking holes. Even Vienna’s restaurants, long famous for quantity over quality, have discovered more innovative ways of cooking and are now supplemented by a wide range of ethnic restaurants.

Most first-time visitors spend the majority of their time in Vienna’s central district, the Innere Stadt . Retaining much of its labyrinthine street layout, it’s the city’s main commercial district, packed with shops, cafés and restaurants. The chief sight here is the Stephansdom , Vienna’s finest Gothic edifice, standing at the district’s pedestrianized centre. Tucked into the southwest corner of the Innere Stadt is the Hofburg , the former imperial palace and seat of the Habsburgs, now housing a whole host of museums, the best of which is the Schatzkammer, home to the crown jewels.

The old fortifications enclosing the Innere Stadt were torn down in 1857, and over the next three decades gradually replaced by a showpiece boulevard called the Ringstrasse . Nowadays, the Ringstrasse is used and abused by cars and buses as a ring road, though it’s still punctuated with the most grandiose public buildings of late-imperial Vienna, one of which is home to the city’s new cultural centre, the Museumsquartier , and another of which houses the famous Kunsthistorisches Museum . Beyond the Ringstrasse lie Vienna’s seven Vorstädte , or inner suburbs, whose outer boundary is marked by the traffic-clogged Gürtel (literally “belt”), or ring road. The highlight out here is the Belvedere , where you can see a wealth of paintings by Austria’s pre-eminent trio of modern artists - Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka - followed by the Prater , east of the Danube Canal, with its famous Ferris wheel and funfair. On the whole, there’s little reason to venture beyond the Gürtel into the Vororte , or outer suburbs, except to visit Schönbrunn , the Habsburgs’ former summer residence, a masterpiece of Rococo excess and an absolute must if only for the wonderful gardens.

Demel
Vienna is famous for its coffeehouse culture and the best coffee and cakes in town are at the former imperial confectioner’s, Demel. The cake display is a work of art in itself.

Café Berg
Relaxed modern mixed gay/straight café with an attractive assortment of chairs and good food.

Schönbrunn Palace
Much better than a tour of the imperial apartments in the Hofburg is a trip out to Schönbrunn Palace - the splendid Baroque decor of its rooms is unsurpassed anywhere, and the park is great for a picnic.

Sightseeing by tram
Take tram #1 or #2 for a free sightseeing tour of the grandiose late-nineteenth-century architecture of the Ringstrasse boulevard.

Musikcafés
Check out one of the city’s ambient Musikcafés like the Blue Box, which has resident DJs and great brunches.

Schatzkammer
The Schatzkammer in the Hofburg contains one of the finest collections of medieval craftsmanship and jewellery in Europe, plus the imperial regalia and relics of the Holy Roman Empire.

Zentralfriedhof
The Zentralfriedhof boasts more inhabitants than the city itself and ranks as one of the largest cemeteries in the world: star corpses include Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and the Strauss family.

Riesenrad
Take a ride on the renowned Riesenrad, the giant Ferris wheel which was built in 1898 and featured in the film, The Third Man. Due to its old age, the wheel staggers round rather slowly but it’s definitely worth a go.

Trzesniewski
Sample a bite-size Brötchen washed down with a Pfiff (fifth of a litre) of beer at the famous stand-up snack bar Trzesniewski.

Vienna Sightseeing Tours run a variety of bus tours around the city and surrounding districts. Their standard city tour (daily 9.30am, 10.30am & 2.30pm; öS400/¬29.07) takes around three and a half hours; pick up a leaflet at the tourist office or any hotel or pension. They also run a hop-on hop-off bus hourly (daily 9.30am-4.30pm), with running commentary in English and German; tickets cost öS250/¬18.17 and are valid for two days. Alternatively, you can save yourself the relentless commentary by hopping on tram #1 or #2, which circumnavigate the Ringstrasse clockwise and anticlockwise respectively. Every Saturday (11.30am and 1.30pm) and Sunday (9.30am, 11.30am & 1.30pm) from early May to early October, you can also leap aboard a beautiful 1920s tram outside the Otto-Wagner-Pavillon on Karlsplatz and go on an hour-long tram tour , run by Wiener Linien ; tickets cost öS200/¬14.54 and are available from Karlsplatz U-Bahn.

Even more appealing are the walking tours organized by Vienna’s official tourist guides - you’ll find details, such as whether the tours are in German or English, in the monthly Wiener Spaziergänge leaflet from the tourist office ( www.wienguide.at ). These cover a relatively small area in much greater detail, mixing historical facts with juicy anecdotes in the company of a local specialist. Subjects covered range from Jugendstil architecture to Jewish Vienna - the weekly Third Man tour takes you round the locations associated with the eponymous 1948 film (tel 774 8901). Tours cost around öS140/¬10.17 and last between one and a half and two hours. Simply turn up at the meeting point specified.

The main tourist office of the Vienna Tourist Board or Wiener Tourismusverband is behind the opera house on Albertinaplatz (daily 9am-7pm; tel 21114-222; phone enquiries Mon-Fri 8am-4pm only; www.info.wien.at ). There are only a few leaflets on open display, but if you have a specific enquiry the staff will happily help out. It’s worth asking for the latest Museums leaflet, listing all the current opening times. Other leaflets include the tourist board’s monthly Programm for opera, concert and theatre schedules, and upcoming exhibitions and events. Depending on your age, you might prefer to try the youth-oriented tourist office, Jugendinfo , at Babenbergerstrasse 1 (Mon-Sat noon-7pm; www.jugendinfowien.at ), on the corner of the Ringstrasse. There are also information desks at the airport (daily 8.30am-9pm) and at the Westbahnhof (daily 7am-10pm).For the most comprehensive and critical listings , you need the weekly tabloid Falter (öS28/¬2.03; www.falter.at ), which comes out on Wednesdays. Even if your German isn’t great, you should be able to decipher the pull-out Wienprogramm & Lexicon section, which contains the week’s listings. A cheaper alternative is the free weekly, Winside ( www.winside.cc ), which comes out every Thursday, or the monthly Wien Magazin (öS28/¬2.03; www.wienmagazin.at ), which gives you a whole month’s listings.