The United Nations is one of the most prestigious organisations in the world. They ratify International Trade Laws, deal with our human rights and it is the UN who provide us with International security.

You enter through a simple doorway. You proceed through a hall, until - suddenly - you feel you have stepped onto a stage, or onto a broad plain after passing through a narrow gorge. You have a sense of space and depth and, above all, of clean, bright whiteness.

No matter how heavy the traffic in modern Vienna, there always is room for the horsedrawn cab known as the Fiaker. The German word " Fiaker’ refer to both the two-horse cab itself and to the cabby, who is generally dressed in pepita-check trousers, a velvet jacket and derby hat.

Heimito von Doderer seems to personify the classic image of the writer. He never earned his living through a "prosaic" profession but struggled for many unsuccessful and difficult years in his chosen vocation before finally, and somewhat late in the day, achieving a breakthrough with his epic novel Die Strudlhofstiege ("The Strudlhof Steps").

Christopher Columbus first brought the pumpkin to Europe, Styrian people cultivated the unique special variety of seeds without shells during the next 300 years. Pumpkin seed oil is a true member of the community of spirit and tradition. It is an example of something that started out small and, throughout the centuries, has expanded into a widespread commodity. In Austria, pumpkin seed oil is as treasured as truffles in France or olives in Italy.

Thomas Bernhard was born in Heerlen, Netherlands Herta Fabjan (1904-1950) and the carpenter Alois Zuckerstätter (1905-1940). He spent a considerable time of his early childhood at his maternal parents' in Vienna and Seekirchen, Salzburg (state). Later, after his mother's marriage (1936), Bernhard lived in Traunstein, Bavaria.

For those of you choosing to fully integrate your families in the Austrian life and educate your children in German, or for the VIC Austrian, Swiss or German families, please, allow me to introduce you to a fine school (Gymnasium) in the Embassy quarter of the 4th District.  It is a private Austrian School that provides an excellent co-ed education taught in the German language within a five day school week. It is an Episcopal School with a large Catholic attendance and provides religious studies in both these disciplines, however any and all children are welcome at the school and the mix of students is international.

“Hands on, minds on, hearts on!” At ZOOM Children’s Museum, children are welcome to ask questions, to touch and to feel, to examine and to play to their hearts’ desire. At ZOOM, children explore the world with all their senses ? on their own or in small teams.

Pattern and design cards dating back as far as the 16th century were used, and magazines contained petit-point instructions and designs to copy. As early as 1770, Charles Germain was reporting in his " L’art du brodeur " that semi-finished embroidery patterns were for sale, and they were eagerly snapped up.

Lainzer Tiergarten Nature Preserve located in Hietzing, the 13th district of Vienna, is a part of the southern Vienna Woods. The former imperial hunting reserve covers 2500 hectares of the most natural landscape located within the city and is home to a variety of wildlife including wild boar and deer. 1935 hectare of the preserve is forested (mainly oak and beech trees). At the Johannser Kogel the remainder of 400 year-old oaks can still be found - some of the trees'' trunks have a circumference of more than 4 meters!

"Any girl can be glamorous," Hedy Lamarr once said. "All she has to do is stand still and look stupid." The film star belied her own apothegm by hiding a brilliant, inventive mind beneath her photogenic exterior. In 1942, at the height of her Hollywood career, she patented a frequency-switching system for torpedo guidance that was two decades ahead of its time.