Everything in Vienna is very big. My first impression was of Rome's Trevi Fountain, which had taken a generous swig of Alice in Wonderland's magnifying glass, rising and disintegrating above Vienna.

Apparently, the Habsburgs were simple guys - the bigger, the more majestic (gross and gross :)).

All the palaces in Vienna are very large. The largest are the Hofburg, and each one houses some kind of museum.

Vienna's museums are also very large. The Natural History Museum, for example, is, if you combine both its collections and its space, the Zoological Museum, the Kunstkamera, and the Mining Institute Museum. The restaurant in this museum is enormous, so parents have somewhere to wait for children who get lost among the exhibits. Children are admitted to this museum free of charge. Austrians are considered children up to the age of 19.

The monuments in Vienna are simply enormous. The babies with wings are clearly overdue, the knight on the town hall has a size 63 shoe, the Pallas Athena near the Austrian Parliament feels a bit short of the Statue of Liberty, and our Catherine the Great in Katya's Garden is simply Thumbelina compared to the similar monument to Maria Theresa.

The Habsburgs favored eagles, lions, and horses as their preferred creatures in stone. Eagles and lions are represented individually and in compositions, naturally very large, but the eagles are larger than the lions. Horses are either ridden by emperors or, in far greater numbers, as chariots on the roofs of palaces. On some, such as the Parliament building, there are so many of them on a single roof that one is instantly reminded of Malevich's painting "Red Cavalry."

Vienna's city hall is also large. I saw the first city hall I ever saw in Tallinn; all subsequent city halls were only slightly different. Vienna's neo-Gothic city hall is very tall, one and a half times taller than our Admiralty.

The main cathedral in Vienna, St. Stephen's Cathedral, is enormous. It's the tallest building in the city, almost one and a half times taller than St. Isaac's Cathedral. This is clearly visible from the Gloriette triumphal arch at Schönbrunn – the entire city seems to reach the waist of St. Stephen's Cathedral.

Vienna has very large parks. They occupy 25 percent of the city's area. What I liked most about them was the huge number of benches.

The largest park is in Schönbrunn. At the park's highest point is the large, yet very light, almost floating Gloriette Arch. A winding path leads to it, which, according to legend, Empress Sisi loved to walk. The path is very wide, as wide as our Basque Lane, and quite long. How the empress managed to reach the arch in her elegant shoes and long dress is a mystery.

The park features a large green labyrinth (2000 square meters), a huge greenhouse, and a very large and spacious zoo—one of the oldest in Europe. I'm not much of a zoo enthusiast, but I've fallen in love with this one and I think I'll be visiting it every time I visit.

Viennese sausages in Vienna come in regular sizes, but they also have larger ones. Or rather, longer ones. At the Centimeter cafe, the minimum order is 2 meters.

In Vienna, there's a very large coffee shop called "Central." It's a coffee shop, its size, interior, and the primly dressed waiters make it more reminiscent of a posh restaurant. There's some food on the menu, and it's even reasonably priced, but we didn't see anyone eating there. The multi-page menu consists mainly of hot and cold drinks. And the prim waiters don't bother you at all, allowing you to sit there for as long as you like with a cup of Melange, reading a book, or surfing the internet.

It's all the more surprising that all this grand Viennese splendor fits into a small area; the main attractions are within walking distance, even the country residences of Belvedere and Schönbrunn. Vienna's metro system is extensive and convenient. Vienna's trams are even more convenient; there are plenty of them, and some can reach distant suburbs, such as Baden, Vienna, with its thermal springs.

It's also surprising that the Viennese seem completely unconcerned about their imperial past. They treat tourists with a welcoming and slightly ironic air. Perhaps because they have much to be proud of in the present.

The factories we saw on the way to the airport were very large, the vineyards were vast, the Vienna Woods were vast but incredibly clean, as if 333 Austrians came out every morning to clear fallen branches and cut down dead trees. And Austrian dairy and meat products are delicious.