Café Landtmann

This guide to Cafe Landtmann in Vienna follows Sigmund Freud's Wednesday-night ritual, walking here from his Berggasse apartment with a crowd of doctors still arguing about dreams to claim his usual seat at the back of the main salon. It traces the habit that made the spot useful to him, watching Vienna's anxious bourgeoisie sip coffee just a few tables from the man reading their every gesture, and reaches back to 1873, when Franz Landtmann built the cafe across from a Ringstrasse that was still a construction site.