Vienna

Berlin: Put Berlin next to Paris and you have both sides of the coin: romance, which occasionally appeals, and eros, which never fails. "Berlin is sexy," said the German capital's openly gay Mayor Klaus Wowereit, and it's been that way since the iniquitous Weimar Republic of Marlene Dietrich and cabaret, when only verboten was a naughty word. Recent influxes of German hipsters and clued-in foreigners are (as the song says) "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)" with Berlin's outré art scene, drinking in all-night bars where mind-numbing absinthe is the poison of choice, and dressing in provocative Weimar styles for Bohème Sauvage, an on-going series of nightclub parties with dancing to hot jazz, backroom poker and floor shows featuring scantily clad performers of undetermined sex. Most romantic season: Winter, perversely Where to set the mood: Newton Bar, back-dropped by German photographer Helmut Newton's "Big Nudes" What to wear: Something that's fun to take off - Susan Spano Havana: You can fly across the ocean, but you won't get farther from American ways than the casas and cafes of Old Havana.

Hedda Bolgar, a psychologist old enough to have attended Sigmund Freud's lectures in Vienna but youthful enough to have treated patients until just a few weeks ago, has died. She was 103. Her mind was sharp, her zest for work keen, and her social calendar full until shortly before her death on Monday, said Allen Yasser, her longtime friend and colleague. "It took me a month to get a dinner date with her, and we were virtually family," said Yasser, a psychologist and psychoanalyst.

Christmas markets, like this one in Vienna, date to the Middle Ages but are a hit with modern-day visitors.  John Plummer of Pasadena snapped this late-in-the-day photo in December 2010. He was on a Viking River cruise from Budapest, Hungary, to Nuremberg, Germany. The markets are a tradition in the German-speaking world, but the practice has spread to Britain, Romania and the U.S. Shoppers can find handcrafted gifts, of course, but the fairs are also a good place to find favorite holiday foods.

WASHINGTON - It is rare for a museum to lend the heart of its most prized collection to another museum, but the Albertina in Vienna has done just that by shipping almost a hundred watercolors and drawings by Albrecht Dürer to the National Gallery of Art here for an exhibition. Dürer, a German born in Nuremberg in 1471, is the great master of the Northern European Renaissance, akin to Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo of the Italian Renaissance. Dürer's greatness, according to Andrew Robison of the National Gallery, curator of the show, is based on his watercolors, drawings and prints, just as Da Vinci and Raphael are identified with painting and Michelangelo with sculpture.

Arab terrorists who attacked passengers last week at the Vienna airport's El Al airline counter intended to take Israeli hostages and hijack an El Al jetliner, a senior Austrian official said Monday. Interior Minister Karl Blecha also said called it "very likely" that the terrorists belonged to a group headed by Abu Nidal, a Palestinian extremist who split with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat in the 1970s while accusing Arafat of being too moderate.

VIENNA - The Hotel Sacher will never be mistaken for a hip hotel. The elaborate gilt trim in public rooms, the old-school celebrity photos that adorn the walls and the tourists in line to sample Sacher torte - all evidence that guests are unlikely to think of Philippe Starck or Shawn Hausman as they explore the place. What's more, everything about the hotel is expensive - overpriced some might say. It's easy to imagine the Sacher's halcyon days are over. And yet. The fin de siècle charm of the place is undeniable.

Following is a preliminary list of Americans killed or wounded in the the terrorist attacks Friday on airports at Rome and Vienna. The list was compiled by the Associated Press based on reports from local police and government offices, U.S. diplomatic missions and the State Department. Killed in Rome: John Buonocore, 20, Wilmington, Del.; Frederick Gage Jr., 29, Madison, Wis.; Don Maland, 30, New Port Richey, Fla.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz apparently has decided to snub Austrian President Kurt Waldheim during a scheduled visit to Vienna next week to attend a European security conference. State Department spokesman Charles Redman said Shultz has no plans to make a courtesy visit to Waldheim, who was elected chief of state earlier this year despite charges that he was involved in Nazi war crimes while serving as a junior officer in the German army in World War II.

The J. Paul Getty Museumis having a Vienna moment, with two historical exhibitions of work by two artists whose profiles have gone from relatively obscure to popular favorite only in recent decades. Partly that's because of their eccentricity: It hasn't always been easy to know quite how they fit into established art historical narratives. Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736-83) was an accomplished German Baroque sculptor who, when he moved from Bavaria to Austria, set aside expressive drama for the newly fashionable revival of sober classicism sweeping Europe.

"Welcome in Vienna" (Fine Arts), the concluding portion of Axel Corti's superb, six-hour "Where To and Back" trilogy, is a bittersweet valentine to Austria, at once an expression of love of one's homeland--and hate for its pervasive and enduring anti-Semitism. It is set in Vienna just as World War II ends, but its implications for Kurt Waldheim's Austria are clear and devastating. "Welcome in Vienna," however, resists the judgmental and is above all a quest for identity.

New details about the Vienna Philharmonic's past Nazi ties have come to light, with research showing that the venerated orchestra contained its fair share of party members during World War II. The new research was carried out by an independent group of historians and has been published on the orchestra's website. The researchers also reported that in 1938, all of the orchestra's Jewish musicians were dismissed. Five of these musicians died in prison or concentration camps. Nearly half of the musicians of the Vienna Philharmonic were members of the Nazi Party in 1942, with 60 out of 123 musicians identified as party members, according to the study.

What the above photograph doesn't show is that shoes were allowed during a recent naked art tour held at Vienna's Leopold Museum. The highly unconventional gallery excursion -- in which guests were invited to strip down and walk about -- was tied to the exhibition "Nude Men," a survey of art dealing with the nude male form. Since opening last year, "Nude Men" has sparked a good deal of conversation in Vienna, particularly surrounding its promotional poster, which depicts three fully frontal nude soccer players.

An art exhibition in Vienna dedicated to the male nude is reportedly welcoming nudists to experience the galleries au naturel after public hours.  A spokesman for the Leopold Museum in Vienna told Reuters that there was a request by an association from Germany for a nude guided tour. "We thought about it, and decided it would be a good idea to have a special nude viewing open to the public," the spokesman told the news service. "Nackte Manner" -- "Nude Men" -- features depictions of male nudity in art from the 19th century to the present day. The show caused a stir in Vienna with a promotional campaign that featured a photograph titled "Vive La France" depicting three completely naked soccer players, save for their footwear.

The 60th season of the Philharmonic Society of Orange County will feature an array of international orchestras, recitals by two of the world's preeminent female pianists and tap into the Benjamin Britten centenary. Among the highlights for 2013-14:   --The season's opening night on Oct. 4 features a recital by Van Cliburn gold-medal-winning pianist Olga Kern performing the complete Rachmaninoff Preludes.   --Pianist Yuja Wang will give an Oct. 13 recital of material yet to be announced.

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has garnered a loyal television audience around the world with its annual New Year's concert broadcasts, which air in the U.S. on PBS. But this New Year's celebration was somewhat marred by attacks made on the orchestra concerning its past sympathies to the Nazi party. The venerated orchestra has also found itself under renewed attacks for being the least diverse musical ensemble in the western world in terms of race and gender equality. In past years, the orchestra has been picketed during overseas tours by those who perceive its practices to be discriminatory.

CZECH REPUBLIC, HUNGARY AND AUSTRIA Slide show Roberta Kritzia will speak about her travels to Prague, Budapest and Vienna. When, where: 7:30 p.m. Monday at Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. Admission, info: Free. RSVP to (626) 449-3220. SNOWSHOEING Workshop Experts will offer tips on snowshoeing basics, gear and where to go to get started. When, where: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the REI store in Tustin, 2962 El Camino Real. Admission, info : Free.

It's a concert venue fit for a king -- even the self-proclaimed King of Pop. Vienna's majestic Schoenbrunn Palace, once home to Emperor Franz Joseph and his wasp-waisted consort, Empress Sisi, will serve as the backdrop for what organizers billed Monday as a "global" farewell tribute to Michael Jackson next month. World Awards Media GmbH, the promoter, said members of Jackson's family and a "high-profile lineup of international stars" would perform on a multimedia stage built in the shape of a giant crown on the palace's sculpted grounds.

Walter Cronkite may be a major television figure in this country, but he found he didn't impress his European friends until he hosted the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Day broadcast. The concert, to be carried on U.S. public television stations today, could be the most-watched television broadcast in the world next to the Olympics, Cronkite said in an interview at his office at CBS. "It's possible because it's so widely broadcast," Cronkite said.

WASHINGTON - Austrian-born Daniel Frosch was only 23 when U.S. officials first realized that he had become a small but important cog in Iran's illicit weapons programs. In October 2005, Austrian authorities intercepted a parcel containing graphite cylinders, which can be used in ballistic missiles, addressed to Iran from Frosch's tiny export company in Graz. In late 2006, they tried to arrest him for allegedly attempting to sell valves and other components with military applications to Iranian state-owned companies.

Turhan Bey, 90, an actor whose exotic good looks earned him the nickname of "Turkish Delight" in films with Errol Flynn and Katharine Hepburn before he left Hollywood for a quieter life in Vienna, died Sept. 30 in the Austrian capital after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease. His friend Marita Ruiter, who exhibited Bey's photos in her Luxembourg gallery, confirmed his death, according to the Austria Press Agency. Born in Austria as Gilbert Selahettin Schultavey, the son of a Turkish diplomat, Bey assumed his stage name shortly after moving to the United States from Vienna with his Jewish Czech mother to escape the Nazis and being discovered by talent scouts from Warner Bros.