By Melissa Rossi

EXCERPTED FROM THE PRINT EDITION

My first night I did what’s expected in this Old-World city noted for waltzes, opera, and Freud: Not knowing what lurked in the shadows, what wound under my feet like a subterranean snake, or what might lay hidden under my hotel bed, I sought out a café.

Whether you take your coffee in a velvet chair in an austere, dark-wooded café or over newspapers in a sweet shop stocked with art deco-boxed chocolates, Viennese java is a major production. It arrives on a silver tray, and no matter if you order a melange, a cappuccino, or a brauner, it invariably comes slathered with whipped cream. It may cost you four [U.S.] dollars or as much as eight, but that’s a trifle for the privilege of soaking up the high culture of this city, which is filled with moody, brooding residents—many carrying cellos, and many more wearing the pained, self-absorbed look of someone composing symphonies or film noir scripts in their heads.

And then there are the spies. Not the least of whom was the 17th-century Franz Kolschitscky, who was paid in coffee beans for spying on the Turks and who opened Vienna’s first café.

Get the complete story in the September 1999 issue of TRAVELER.