We are suckers for a room with a killer view.  We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.

Vienna is an artsy city -- and, above all, a city of music -- so we figure a hotel that can offer

They may be rowdy, drunk and disruptive, but football fans are generally welcomed with open arms for the sheer economic force they bring to host cities. But not everyone in Vienna is stoked about the UEFA Football Championship and its assorted mayhem: The Vienna State Opera has canceled a concert scheduled the night of the final, and attendance is down by nearly a third overall since the footballers came to town.

Given how much singing goes on at European football matches--albeit in profane ways too complex to explore here--one would think a love of opera and the Euro Cup need not be mutually exclusive. The European championship continues through June 29, and tickets can still be had through the national organizations in competition. (That includes for matches involving teams from Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain at this writing.)

If you'd rather go highbrow, you can buy tickets by phone to the Vienna State Opera's performances or try for €30 ($46) rush tickets to shows like Verdi's "La Forza Del Destino" and Tchaikovsky's "The Queen of Spades."

Related Stories:
· Soccer 1, Opera 0 [Canadian Press, via Google]
· Culture Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Sports Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: station_nord]

And the hotel bathrobes are made of curtains: The home that the Von Trapp family, the inspiration for "The Sound of Music" musical and movie, will become a "Sound of Music" themed hotel this July.

Tourists have come from as far away as New Zealand to see the house that a young nun once went to live in, and now the bus-tour demographic will have somewhere to stay!

Julie Andrews die-hards take note, the house is not the home that was depicted in the movie, although scenes for it were shot in real houses in Salzburg and in Bavaria. You can buy your own gazebo to build and sing in, though!

Related Stories:
· Von Trapp's "Sound of Music" Villa to Become Hotel [Reuters]
· The Constant Sight of the Sound of Music [Jaunted]
· Movie Set Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: xni]

It seems the hills are alive again with the Sound of Music with the home of the famed von Trapp family singers being refashioned into a new 14-room hotel named Trapp Villa

Located on the outskirts of Salzburg and once filled with all of the family's favorite things, the property hasn't changed much over the years. But there's no call for major alterations with the conversion, just some new paint, rewiring of the building and guest room furnishings. In a perfect world, they'll have wi-fi access, too.

The hotel will open July 25th with a big reception, where fans of the Trapp family singers and the movie can tuck themselves in for the night in the very

Any idea what a "casual luxury" hotel is? We're not sure either, but apparently Vienna's new The Ring Hotel is a shining example of one. We have a feeling it doesn't mean that you can run around in your oldest shorts and flip-flops, but instead it sounds like they're trying to saying The Ring is a place where you can get everything you want but without any snootiness. Sound okay?

It's called The Ring--not the name we'd choose thanks to the scary movie franchise, but there is a reason--because it's located on Kaerntner Ring, one of the streets that forms a loop around the center of Vienna. Actually it's in a great spot, almost opposite the

The Langerado Music Festival starts tomorrow in the Florida Everglades, with all your favorite jam bands--from Beastie Boys to Gov't Mule--making appearances. So what's the Ferris wheel connection? There'll be one on the festival grounds, giving bird's-eye views of the bands.

If you prefer your music a bit more proper, maybe a trip to Haydn's hometown would suit you better. Vienna, Austria's opera capital, also claims one of the world's first Ferris wheels, the Riesenrad. (That's German for "giant wheel.")

The ride, above, towers 200 feet into the air, and even showed up in the film noir classic "The Third Man." If you can't snag a seat on one of the Riesenrad's 15 gondolas, there's a smaller wheel on the outskirts of town at the Böhmischer Prater.

Related Stories:
· Langerado Music Festival [Official Site]
· Vienna Prater, Home of the Riesenrad [Official Site]
· Ferris Wheels coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Wikipedia]

Where would humble lil' Austria be without its musical history? Probably way off the tourist radar, we think. So it's no surprise that the Austrians are already starting the hype for 2009: Haydn Year.

Haydn Year is timed to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the composer's death. Haydn started out as a choir boy in Vienna's gorgeous Stephansdom and eventually became one of Austria's most prominent classical composers. That makes him worth celebrating, Austrian style.

All manner of events are planned to excite locals and tourists alike. Apart from tons of exhibitions in Vienna and Eisenstadt, there will be (seemingly) endless performances of Haydn's music, especially in the capital. The creepiest one is the performance of "The Creation" at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. It'll take place on March 27, 2009, exactly 201 years after Haydn made the oratorio his last public performance before his death. Even Beethoven was in the audience.

If you want to be in the audience this time round, get planning now. If you're lucky they might even throw in a seance and free chat with Haydn himself.

Related Stories:
· Haydn Year 2009 [Official Site]
· The Constant Sight of the Sound of Music [Jaunted]
· Vienna to Fight Junkies With Opera [Jaunted]

[Photo: josquin2000]

Cubicle Dreamin' is a feature in which we ask the hotel mavens to take some time out of their busy work day, surf the Internet, and tell us what hotel they wish they could beam themselves to right that very second--all on the slave driving companies dime, of course. Oh, like these people aren't surfing aimlessly anyway--at least now their purposeless clicking will be cobbled together into useful hotel stories--we hope. Have a destination hotel you are just dying to leave your cube for? Send the story our way.

In this episode, editor Juliana fantasizes about the perfect place for a drink. Enjoy.

Lately, I haven't had time for much Cubicle Dreamin' but today it's finally

Depending on your destination, a number of Eurail trains in and out of Vienna stop at Wien Westbahnhof, loosely translated as the West Vienna rail station. Directly opposite the Europaplatz side of Westbahnhof, you can find the Mercure Wien Westbahnhof which as well as being handily located to a main train station is also served by the underground train, airport bus and trams.

Apart from the great location and reasonable price (you can often get a room for around $100 a night), the Mercure Wien Westbahnhof isn't really a special hotel. There are about 250 roooms and sometimes large tour groups are put up there, and the central transport location can mean it's sometimes a

While the locals in the beautiful Austrian city of Salzburg barely know this film from a bar of soap, a huge percentage of foreign tourists visit Salzburg because it's the home of the soppy The Sound of Music.

Whether it's "The Hills are Alive" or "My Favorite Things", if you're visiting Salzburg in the future you'll be able to tap into some Sound of Music fever 24 hours a day, now that a new TV channel has been launched. It plays The Sound of Music non-stop, 24/7, so you've got no excuse not to catch it. Unless, of course, the sappy songs and trite storyline make you want to puke. Personally, though, we love it.

Related Stories:
· Sound of Music Bus Tour [Albus]
· Salzburg Hotel Reviews [HotelChatter]

[Photo: zh1yong]