There were carriages everywhere we looked in Vienna as if part of the city had got stuck in the 17^th century, although the prices they quoted for a short ride were very much 21^st century.

All the museum and art galleries were sensibly grouped together, so it was easy to walk from one to the other. In between hot dog stalls were very popular, with every variety of sausage and every condiment you could think of. We were frequent visitors.

One place we had to eat though was Café Central. A revolutionary (Trotsky), a psychoanalyst (Freud), several writers and poets (including Polgar, Zweig, and Altenberg) and an architect (Loos) walked into a café. What sounds like the start of a joke was an everyday occurrence at Café Central (est. 1876). Over coffee, cake and the odd cigar, some of the greatest poets, philosophers and – it has to be…