A Sunday in Vienna, with Zweig and Napoleon

It was a Sunday morning in Vienna, and the sun had taken possession of most of the sky. He laid a golden net over the Burggarten, sparking off dew-jeweled grass and glinting on the glass curves of the Palm House. I sat near the fountain, book in hand, steeped in the day’s loveliness. I’d set out in a good mood brought on by a hearty vegan breakfast.

The book was Stefan Zweig’s Shooting Stars, and I was halfway into the chapter on Waterloo. The Burggarten, where I sat, was created right after those wars. Once imperial, it became republican, like so much of Europe’s faded grandeur repurposed for modern times.

Victor Hugo, in Les Misérables, blamed the early-morning rain for Napoleon’s defeat. Zweig faults the lack of initiative from General Grouchy. In either case, Blücher's Prussians arrived just when Wellington's and Napoleon’s forces had exhausted each other in equal measure and neither seemed sure of victory. The moment turned, and with it, the tide of history.

Reading that part, I felt a tremor. My heart fell—a mirror to Napoleon's own, I imagined, at that hour of fatal clarity. On the bench to my left, a woman read as if her life depended on it. Perhaps she was at a climax herself. She had not moved since I arrived. On my right, a Chinese couple were locked in a seemingly endless pursuit of the perfect selfie. They adjusted angles, switched places, giggled. The rest of the benches were sparsely occupied—mostly men, mostly alone.

I looked again at Zweig’s tone. He admired Napoleon, despite Austerlitz. Europeans do this: revere genius even when it destroys. These cerebral people who honed the fugue and the fresco, who sip wine with ceremony and greet with grace, have also slaughtered millions of themselves.

Back home, my country is at war too—but our skirmishes feel feeble beside Europe’s cataclysms. And yet the West shows such deep concern for our wars.

A group of tourists filed in and filled the empty benches. One of them plopped beside me. I shifted, and he said, smiling, “No need, no need.” Their guide, a reed-thin youth in a snug white T-shirt and cropped jeans, swung a tote bag over one shoulder. His smooth face glowed, untouched yet by disillusion.

He spoke of Kaiser Franz Josef, Empress Maria Theresa, and Empress Sisi. “She is very dear to us,” he said. “Like Princess Diana to you.” There were nods and gentle smiles. I admired him—a young man not disillusioned by monarchy, who carried his country’s layered past as though it were a tote of treasures.

The group moved on. The woman beside me read on. She remained unmoved, deep in her book, while I’d let the whole morning rearrange my attention. The Chinese couple was still perfecting the selfie. I began to crave coffee. And not just any coffee—I wanted it at Café Landtmann.

You can walk everywhere in Vienna. Trams glide, buses whisper, the underground breathes in rhythm. The city runs like, yes, clockwork. At Café Landtmann, a vegan mango torte waited with my name on it. To be had with a verlängerten espresso, drawn long, like the growing shadows across the gravel paths of the Burggarten.

I’d return if I could—but perhaps I’m blessed enough to have sat here once, book in hand, while the city moved around me in measured grace.

Have you ever had a book shape the way you saw a city? I’d love to know your own travel moments where place and page came together.