I stepped off a train in Vienna three decades ago and have been finding my way back to it ever since. Some cities seem to encapsulate a feeling, a mood; Vienna has inspired countless artists, not least Billy Joel, who in the 1970s named a song after the city. “Slow down, you’re doing fine,” goes the refrain. “You can afford to lose a day or two….” Vienna makes it easy to do those things. In the beloved indie romance Before Sunrise, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meet on a train, then alight in Vienna, where they shoot the breeze and meander the streets until dawn. Rarely crowded, the city offers space to think, the potential for chance encounters. And while some European cities clear out in summer, leaving the door open for visitors to shut behind them, Vienna is always itself.

I’ve done a lot of meandering here myself, passing curlicues of violin and contraltos that spiral out from behind shuttered windows. Some Polaroids: in the winter, snow crisping the old rooftops like cake frosting, skating the frozen pathways of the town hall with my young son. Me, in black tie after a classical ball, shoes as shiny as eels, devouring hot dogs and Champagne; dangling my legs over the Donaukanal with a beer in hand, sunshine on the graffiti. One time, on my way to the Leopold museum, I squeeze through a street choir from Beijing, dressed in pink and singing “Edelweiss.” When wanting a coffee, I choose a bent-wood chair in the ’60s time capsule Café Korb, its waiters reliably indifferent, watched over by portraits of its owner, the redoubtable actor Susanne Widl; for schnitzel, I go to Glacis Beisl, submerged in foliage just feet from the upcycled Hapsburg pomp of the MuseumsQuartier.