Pack Your Baggage

A new hotel, Freud at 150—Vienna awaits

May 12, 2006—There's never been a better time to pack up your id, superego, and assorted hang-ups and head for Vienna. Not only is this month the 150th anniversary of native son Sigmund Freud's birth, but—just a bit less significantly—next week marks the opening of the stylish new Levante Parliament Hotel. The 74-room property began life as a medical clinic in 1911, and it retains many of the materials typical of the Bauhaus era—dark mahogany, rich Turkish marble, endless, angular glass panels. ("From the inside out, nothing here is round," says GM Alexander Plappart.) That certainly goes for the Nemtoi, the Euro-Asian bar/restaurant designed by the Romanian glass artist of the same name. The stunning space is shrouded in towering glass walls and anchored by a 45-foot glass bar. Try not to break anything.

While you're in town, be sure to check out the festivities pegged to the Good Doktor's birthday. The Freud Museum has just opened a furniture exhibit called "The Couch: Thinking in Repose," while next month the Sigmund Freud Park serves as one of the locations for "Paths Leading to the Unconscious Mind," a display of poster art emblazoned with Freudian theories, quotes, photos, and sayings. Sounds to us like the makings of a perfect mother-son trip—and you've still got time to pick up airline tickets before Sunday.
The Levante Parliament, opens Monday, Auerspergstrasse 9, (11) 43-1-228-280, www.thelevante.com; "The Couch: Thinking in Repose" at Sigmund Freud Museum runs through November, Bergasse 19, (11) 43-1-319-1596; "Paths Leading to the Unconscious Mind" at Sigmund Freud Park opens in June.