Flights from Podgorica to Vienna: A City Written in Strauss’s Notes
A CITY WRITTEN IN STRAUSS’S NOTES
FLIGHTS PODGORICA – VIENNA
An elegant imperial capital where the centuries have left their mark… Not empty, dull centuries, but ones full of drama and events… The seat of a mighty empire could hardly look anything but refined and lavish, down to every inch of its old cobblestones… The Habsburgs made sure the city embodied their great and powerful empire in every way, hiring a host of exceptional architects and artists to build and beautify it… Throughout the 19th century, and above all during the reign of Franz Joseph, Vienna took on a sumptuous look that left everyone who came here breathless…
You can travel to Vienna by car, train or bus, but if you want a fast and comfortable trip, direct Podgorica – Vienna flights are available too. A Podgorica – Vienna flight gets you there quickly and comfortably.
TRAVEL TO VIENNA
We usually describe a city through its buildings, streets and parks… But Vienna has been described in so many books, sung about in so many songs, shown in so many films, retold, disputed and praised… so much has been said about it that any description of the city and its sights would be pure plagiarism. So I’ll single out just one museum, by no means unique in concept or the first of its kind in the world, but remarkable for a different reason…
The wax museum on Riesenradplatz in Vienna’s Prater features just over 70 figures spread across two thousand square meters on three floors. Here you’ll find Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife Elisabeth (Sisi), Prince Eugene of Savoy and Maria Theresa, as well as Albert Einstein, where you can try your hand at an IQ test, dance a waltz to “The Blue Danube” with Johann Strauss, or try to beat Hans Krankl in a penalty shootout. You can also spend your time taking photos with lifelike replicas of Gustav Klimt, Mozart, Falco, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, as well as Nicole Kidman, Johnny Depp, Michael Jackson and many others… Each figure takes about six months of painstaking work, or roughly 800 hours, and costs around 200000 euros!
Why this particular wax museum in Vienna? Because it features some of the historical figures without whom Vienna wouldn’t be what it is, and the buildings it is so proud of today wouldn’t exist… So let me introduce them.
The most important female ruler of the “modern era” is undoubtedly Maria Theresa, the empress who had an undeniable influence on the development of my hometown, Novi Sad, and the whole northern part of our country. In various stories you’ll come across rather racy and perhaps slightly scandalous accounts of this remarkable ruler’s behavior, but that’s no surprise: being a woman and the ruler of the most powerful state of the 18th century was no easy task. Many tried to challenge her, but history has had its say. She was born in 1717 and was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions. She reigned as Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary, Bohemia, Croatia, Galicia and Lodomeria, Duchess of Mantua, Milan, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, and ruler of the Austrian Netherlands and numerous counties. By marriage she was Holy Roman Empress, German Queen, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and, briefly, Duchess of Lorraine. She came to the throne after the death of her father, Emperor Charles VI, in October 1740. After his death, Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria and France, which had promised Charles VI to support Maria Theresa’s succession to his crowns, went back on their word. Prussia invaded Austria, sparking an eight-year conflict known as the War of the Austrian Succession. With the help of her ministers, Maria Theresa encouraged and carried out many wide-ranging reforms. She reformed education and finance and promoted trade and agriculture, which greatly strengthened Austria. She brought torture and witch trials under her own control, which soon led to the final end of that bloody medieval legacy. Under the pressure of a new age, she sought to prevent the excessive exploitation of serfs by capping their obligations to their lords, so that a feudal lord could no longer demand levies from his subjects at will but had to abide by the so-called Urbarium of Maria Theresa. She introduced compulsory schooling, so that all children aged 6 to 14 had to attend school. She also encouraged the development of manufacturing in Austria. Although she was expected to leave power to her husband Francis I and later to her son Joseph, who were formally her co-rulers in Austria and Bohemia, Maria Theresa was the absolute ruler of her lands. She had sixteen children, among them a Queen of France, a Queen of Naples, a Duchess of Parma and two Holy Roman Emperors. Her sons Joseph II and Leopold II were the direct heirs to the throne, while her daughter Marie Antoinette ended up on the guillotine as the wife of King Louis XVI of France. It is recorded that Maria Theresa loved her husband dearly, but that their marriage suffered from his infidelity. Maria Theresa was crowned King of Hungary on June 25, 1741, after several months of negotiations with the Hungarian nobility and riding lessons needed for the ceremony. To appease those who saw her sex as the greatest obstacle to her rule, Maria Theresa used masculine titles. Officially, she was Archduke of Austria (not Archduchess), King of Hungary (not Queen) and King of Bohemia (not Queen). No 18th-century writer called this use of titles inappropriate or impossible. Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, died on August 18, 1756, while the court was in Innsbruck for the wedding of their second son, Leopold. In mourning for her husband, Maria Theresa stopped wearing jewelry of any kind, cut her hair, had her rooms painted black and dressed in mourning for the rest of her life. She withdrew completely from court life, public events and the theater. She died in 1780, and her eldest son ascended the throne. Today we can admire her summer residence, Schönbrunn, the imperial palace that is open to visitors 365 days a year…
Empress Sisi entered the historical stage in the 19th century. As a younger daughter of a noble family of the Wittelsbach dynasty, she was not raised for life at the imperial court, since no such future was planned for her. But fate had other ideas… Franz Joseph I, the future Austrian emperor, had an arranged marriage with her older sister. But when he saw Elisabeth at the ball where the engagement was to be announced, Franz Joseph, instead of proposing to her sister, turned to the beautiful, intelligent and sparkling Elisabeth, caring nothing for the scandal… And what’s done is done! Elisabeth ascended the Habsburg throne, completely unprepared for the rigid court rules and way of life. From the start she faced her mother-in-law’s hostility, but, ignoring etiquette, she enjoyed the first years of marriage with her husband. Soon, however, she realized the emperor was unfaithful and slowly grew apart from him, and after the death of her little daughter Sophie, who was only 3, she withdrew even further from the court and from Vienna. She traveled widely across the vast empire, building numerous summer residences. She was especially fond of the Hungarian people and actively supported their struggle for autonomy, maintaining a particularly close relationship with Count Andrássy, who became the first Hungarian prime minister. Some say it was the beautiful Sisi’s influence on Franz Joseph that led him to finally give in and allow the creation of the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which gave the Hungarians their autonomy. The life of this woman, considered the most beautiful in Europe, could be the stuff of opera. She met a tragic end in Geneva, where she died completely needlessly at the hands of an anarchist whose intended target she wasn’t even meant to be (read our article on Geneva to learn more). The woman who reigned over the most powerful empire spent the only happy years of her life before she ever set foot in Austria… For although beautiful and clever, she was neither respected nor loved, and she endured the death of two of her children, a three-year-old daughter and her grown son Rudolf, who reportedly took his own life. Yet today she is celebrated and loved by Hungarians, and some of the most beautiful parts of the Hofburg tell her story…
Much more could be written about the many people who left their mark on Vienna, but I’d like to devote just a few more lines to Prince Eugene of Savoy, the famous military commander and nobleman who gave Vienna the magnificent Belvedere Palace, where today you can visit a very rich collection of paintings, with special focus on the life’s work of Gustav Klimt…
The Austrian-French Prince Eugene of Savoy is famous for his victories over the Ottomans, which marked the beginning of their end in our part of the world too. This scion of the House of Savoy, considered the greatest military commander of his time, was born in Paris in 1663. He studied mathematics and natural sciences, but then chose a military career. However, he was not accepted into the French army, so, determined to pursue his goal, he joined the Austrian army and eventually became a field marshal. His first great victory over the Ottomans came at the Battle of Zenta in 1697, where he crushed the army of Sultan Mustafa II, inflicting the Ottomans’ heaviest defeat up to that time with 30000 soldiers killed, while the Habsburg side lost only a few hundred men. The Ottomans were forced to sign the Treaty of Karlowitz (Sremski Karlovci) in 1699, also famous as the first time in diplomatic history that a round table was used for negotiations. The terms were very unfavorable for the Ottomans, ending their dominance in Central Europe. Eager for revenge, the Ottomans tried to defeat Prince Eugene at Petrovaradin in 1716 and Belgrade in 1717, but failed. After his campaigns in the Balkans, Prince Eugene also defeated the French in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–09, establishing Austria as a power in Western Europe as well. But, as the saying goes, a good horse always kicks up dust: rumor had it that this nobleman was gay, since he never married or had any seemingly serious relationship, but the truth is that he was married to, and in love with, his career…
And so one could go on writing about the many writers and musicians, about the time Vuk Karadžić, Branko Radičević and many other distinguished Serbs spent in Vienna, about Sacher torte and Wiener schnitzel… But I’ll leave it to you to discover the many charms of this capital on the beautiful blue Danube…
FLIGHTS PODGORICA – VIENNA
Podgorica – Vienna flights start from around 140 euros. Flights from Podgorica to Vienna are available with a connection or, on certain dates, as a direct flight – check our search for current flights and prices. Podgorica – Vienna flights are available seven days a week. If you’re searching for deals yourself, the airport code is VIE, and Vienna is written as Vien or Wien
Vienna-Schwechat Airport is located 18 kilometers from Vienna, in the town of Schwechat, which belongs to the Vienna metropolitan area. It is the largest airport in Austria and the biggest air traffic hub between Western and Eastern Europe. From the airport you can take the CAT (City Airport Train), which runs every half hour to the Wien Mitte metro station. You can also reach the center by suburban rail (ÖBB S-Bahn/S7) or by bus to Schwedenplatz and the Südbahnhof and Westbahnhof stations.
To find a good fare, a Podgorica – Vienna flight should be booked a couple of months in advance…
Spend a wonderful romantic weekend to the sounds of Strauss and the taste of Sacher torte!
