That may be true but at least to me it was more obvious in Vienna because it's someplace that was clearly once a lot more important than it is now. Cities like London or Paris are still growing and changing. In Vienna I had the sense that this was someplace that was once the centre of an empire, and whose heyday has clearly passed (for now, who knows?) but has still retained a lot of what made it such a great city during the time period described in the article.