My latest tour around Europe

Here I am, following a long absence due to a tough travelling schedule during the last two weeks. After passing by Athens for a weekend, I left for Paris on February 13th, for Vienna on the 15th, back to Athens - through Paris - on the 16th, back to Cyprus on the 17th, on a plane to England - through Athens - on the 19th (yesterday) and tonight I am in Warsaw, Poland. Tomorrow morning I'll take the train for Krakow, back to Warsaw on Wednesday and back to Athens the same night....

I rarely go to a restaurant when I am on my own. But it was my first visit ever to Vienna and I decided to find a characteristic Viennese restaurant and have dinner. The hotel recommended the Griechenbeisl, which turned out to be Vienna's oldest restaurant. I highly recommend it if you ever go to Vienna! The environment and decoration are charming, the service and the food are very good. The building itself is very interesting, and very old!

Here is their web page http://www.griechenbeisl.at/lang_en/page.asp/index.htm
from where I copy the following information:

Welcome to the Griechenbeisl, Vienna’s oldest inn

The Griechenbeisl (The Greek Inn) is one of Vienna’s oldest inns. Artists, scholars and politicians would congregate in the Griechenbeisl to eat, drink, debate and reflect – often into the early hours. From the world famous balladeer ‘Der lieber Augustin’ to later figures of the stature of Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Strauss, Brahms, the painters Waldmüller and Schwind, the opera singer Schaljapin, writers Mark Twain, Grillparzer and Nestroy, and political personalities such as Karl Lueger and Graf Zeppelin have all appreciated its traditional Viennese cuisine and creature comforts. The framed autographs on the walls of the famous Mark Twain room ensure that their presence lives on here.

History of the Griechenbeisl

The Griechenbeisl is first mentioned in the registry of the City of Vienna in 1447. From around 1500, the present Griechenbeisl appears as an inn by the name of ‘The Yellow Eagle’ and later as ‘The Red Roof’ and ‘The Golden Angel’. In the mid 17th Century numerous tradesmen from Greece and the Levant settled around the area of Fleischmarkt which became known as the Greek quarter. Beside the inn stands the Greek Orthodox Church, the seat of the diocese.

Completed in 1861, the church is the only ecclesiastical work by Theophil von Hansen, architect of the Austrian parliament. It was around this time that the inn adopted the name ‘Griechenbeisl’. In 1852 the then landlord Leopold Schmied introduced Pilsner Urquell beer, a novelty at the time. From then on, the Griechenbeisl started to acquire a reputation that made it known all over the world.

I ate in the Karlsbader room.