Baden is a cute Vienna suburb with big city attractions; an opera, symphony and a classy casino. Pension Amadeus has everything we need at a reasonable price. It is also conveniently near the Austria-Hungary border so it was easy for us to visit the Neusiedlersee Cultural WHS and the Esterhazy Palace, "the Hungarian Versailles,” in Sopron.
Good luck, Santa
We couldn’t even buy a cup of coffee in Sopron; Hungary uses it own forint and not the euro. So, when it was time for lunch, we returned to Austria and the land of the euro. We ate lunch in Rust, another medieval town, best known for its wine and the stork nests perched on the chimney tops. We ate lunch in a lovely restaurant where we were the only customers, so we didn’t have to put up with smokers. For some reason (stubborness?) Austria doesn't enforce the EU's no smoking policy, Very annoying.