If any European capital knows how to enjoy the good life, it’s Vienna. Compared to most modern urban centers, the pace of life here is slow. Locals linger over pastry and coffee at cafés. Concerts and ...

At Vienna’s Hofburg Palace complex, ground zero of the Habsburg Empire, I’m particularly entertained by its butterfly house, a tropical wonderland on the Danube. In this community of royal butterflies ...

If any European capital knows how to enjoy the good life, it’s Vienna. Compared to most modern urban centers, the pace of life here is slow. Locals linger over pastry and coffee at cafés. Concerts and ...

Vienna ranks right at the top of my list of elegant European cities. Once the capital of the mighty Habsburg empire, this imperial city has an enduring grandeur and an easy livability that I admire.

Music lovers find special delights in Austria. In Salzburg at my favorite hotel, I lie in bed a hundred meters from Mozart’s dad. He’s just outside my window in the graveyard of the St. Sebastian ...

Two centuries ago, there were dozens of independent states in the part of Europe that was German-speaking. Today, there are only four: Germany, Austria, Switzerland … and Liechtenstein.

If you could take a road trip with your younger self, how well do you think the two of you would get along? Would you have an admiration for each other? Would you even recognize each other? Rick ...

Rick Steves, perhaps America’s most accomplished European tourist, was looking for a cheap but charming steak place in the ancient Tuscan town of Montepulciano last month. Following a local lead, he ...

Located where the Germanic, Mediterranean and Slavic worlds come together, Slovenia enjoys a happy hodgepodge of cultures while also presenting plenty of its own unique character. And much like the ...