Vienna’s signature hotels are in glorious-traditional style. Why not try something different? At 25hours Museums Quartier you can expect a paparazzi welcome. Vienna’s so-fun hotel has a glass porch with an entire wall of cameras, Kodaks and more, jammed together and stuck on firmly to prevent’em walking.
Arrivals have probably smiled already, at metre-high orange wording WE ARE ALL MAD HERE above the entrance of the dark grey Brutalist building. 25hours stands out from the immediate crowd of pale cream stone classics, museums and-the-like (the hotel is only 1.5 km, by the way, from the Opera House, and there are plenty of bikes to borrow to get there).
Thanks to designer Armin Fischer of Augsburg-based Dreimeta, reactions work overtime inside the hotel. Elevators’ back walls have cell-like grills. The 217 bedrooms have hilarious acrobatic clowns on bedhead walls. But, and a big but, these rooms work, really work, both from business and leisure angles.
Take #711, a ‘spectacular view’ room. The all-wall window looks down at well-tended Weghuberpark immediately below. Wood flooring complements deliberately-rough wood doors – the mirrored closet door slides open on pram-sized wheels. Another door hides the refrigerator, with a big ‘free’ sign hanging on it. There’s also a full working kitchenette, with microwave, induction hob, hanging utensils and quartets of china, cutlery, glassware. Yoga mats and hula hoops are there awaiting use. Oh yes, there are, bedsides and elsewhere, enough USB ports and sockets to satisfy Musk and Zuckerberg both.
Der Dachboden, on the eighth floor rooftop, often has happenings but at all times the ground floor Ribelli is meeting place for nearby residents. Devour enormous portions of truffle-cheese specials at Sunday pizza nights, baked in the oven right in front of you. Don’t miss breakfast, any morning. Viennese return for the buffet, hot and cold. Try dark or milk chocolate spreads or Austria’s famous Staud’s jams, on the country’s superbly-healthy bread rolls, or perhaps on a slice of Gugelhof, the tall tubular cake promoted when Austria held the 2006 EU Presidency. The coffee’s Caffe Musetti, from Piacenza (napkins announce, boldly, ‘life is too short for shitty coffee’).
There’s lots to smile about, here. As GM Martin Schrödl says, this place is fun. He cycles to work every morning feeling excited.
Mary Gostelow publishes the daily girlahead.com and a unique weekly 15-minute industry Mary Gostelow Girlahead Podcast, both part of Almont Global.
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