Austria is uneasily located at the heart of Europe, flanked by Italy and Germany on the one side and by Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia on the other. It is a natural bridge between prosperous Brussels and impoverished Tirana, between a towering Germany and a cowering Serbia, between the Balkan and central Europe. In its former incarnation as the Habsburg and capital of the Holy Roman Empire, Vienna ruled all these regions. Today still Vienna itself is still like a medieval bastion. Anachronisms abound, from antique decorations in otherwise ultra-modern buildings to forgotten catacombs beneath bank vaults and subway tunnels. Honest-to-goodness castles and imperial palaces still exist and stand side by side with ancient cathedrals, modern shopping malls and sky scrapping...
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