Having ended the section on Prague with a lovely, historic cafe, I think it’s only appropriate to begin the section on Vienna with one. Continuity, and all that. So…

Welcome to the Cafe Central!

This appears to be a place favored by its regular habitues. This gentleman, for example, probably hasn’t left his seat for months.

In fact, Dan and I were seated at a table normally occupied by a regular. We had to assure the maitre d’ that we would be leaving well before 1pm (easy, since it was only 10am at the time).

The coffee was excellent–a quality we’d come to expect in this region–and the pastries were exquisite.

And–what we loved as much as anything–the physical space was magnificent.

It turned out that they also serve lunch in an intimate and charming courtyard that was part of the same building–at the very end of an arcade we’d walked the day before.

More about this arcade in the next post…