The City That Whispers
I’ve lived in Vienna for more than thirty years. And yet—this city still surprises me.
Not in the way that guidebooks hope for. Not with flashy events or postcard perfection. But in the quiet, slow, almost imperceptible way that ivy overtakes stone. That memory settles into architecture. That stories rise, again and again, in places where no plaque marks their existence.
Vienna doesn’t shout. It murmurs.
Sometimes I hear it in the hush of a tram late at night, passing empty through streets lined with baroque façades and closed shutters.
Sometimes it’s in the sudden warmth of a hidden courtyard, or a brass doorbell that hasn’t been touched in decades.
Other times, I find it in the labyrinth of my own remembering—walking through the hedge maze at Schönbrunn, thinking of a boy who never left.
I started Understanding Vienna because I wanted to share that kind of listening.
To help others—travelers, teachers, parents, wanderers—slow down long enough to feel the layers beneath the city.
Not to consume a place, but to belong to it for a moment.
Storytelling is how we belong.
And that’s why I’ll be telling more stories in the coming weeks.
Not just about Vienna, but about the people and moments that make it echo.
A boy in a maze. A letter that waited to be found.
And maybe something by the sea, too.
📬 Something is coming soon.
A story hidden in a maze.
Stay close.
Yolanda
Are you an educator or teaching through place-based narratives?
I wrote a separate version of this story for Medium—focused on how we use storytelling in education.
→ Link to Medium post