Waltz This Way

Hotel Imperial (Kaerntner Ring 16, 800-325-3589,

www.luxurycollection.com/imperial

) is a wedding cake of a former palace on the boulevard that loops around the city's old quarter. Its royal suites run in the thousands, but off-season Web deals dip to the low $200s next ball season. (Keep an eye on

www.starwood.com

for packages.)

The

Hotel Sacher (Philharmonikerstrasse 4, 011-43-1 -514-560,

wien.sacher.com

) is another Vienna classic, famous for its chocolate Sacher tort, with rooms in about the same range as the Hotel Imperial. The Austrian tourism site (see below) lists a broad range of centrally located hotels and special offers.

WHERE TO EAT: Vienna's food is hearty and Germanic. My favorites -- aside from the never-ending parade of tortes and chocolates in this sweets-loving city -- were

wurstelstands, all-night sausage stands where a flavorful bratwurst on a paper plate with mustard and a hunk of dense bread costs about $5. But there is higher-end food as well. One of the city's best meals may be in the new

Palais Coburg (Coburgbastei 4),

a mansion sleekly modernized into a hotel and restaurant with a vast wine cellar, a hip cocktail bar and an ambitious, inventive take on Austrian cooking.

INFO:

Austrian National Tourist Office, 212-944-6880,

www.austria-tourism.at/us

.

-- Steve Hendrix