The recent spy scandal has plunged us back in to the Cold War, it sometimes seems. In particular the swap of spies between Russia and the US is reminiscent of the international tension that was present throughout so much of the sixties and seventies.
I was interested to note that the swap was made at Vienna airport. It's not that Vienna airport is particularly nice, in fact it's pretty horrible and anyone arriving for a Vienna city break would be advised to get through it as soon as possible and take the city train into town.
But as we explain in our Vienna audio tours, the city has long been a centre for espionage. Our mp3 tour of Imperial Vienna makes the point that because of its location the city has been used for negotiations and spying for both the West and the Soviet Bloc in the past. Orson Wells' the Third Man brilliantly captures the mood of the fifties and sixties when spies set up in flats in the city and secret agents observed each other in Vienna's grand cafes.
Doing a Vienna city tour today you can still get a feel of that.
After the Nazis and the Austrians who ended up fighting for them were both defeated Soviet troops marched into Vienna to liberate it raping and pillaging on the way. As politicians from the wining nations tried to decide what to do with Austria, post war, Vienna was divided up into five sections one each for the Russians, the British, the Americans and the French plus an international zone. This awkward arrangement continued right up in 1955 until Austria was given its independence.
But even today, over half a century after this independence Vienna is still a centre of espionage which is partly what makes it such a fascinating city break, as our Vienna mp3 tour shows.