BADEN, Austria -- More than most European capitals, Vienna, which bears a rich legacy as the one-time heart of the old Austro-Hungarian empire, has enough monuments and museums (not to mention restaurants and coffee houses) to keep you hopping from morning until night.

But as I discovered recently during a weeklong, whistle-stop trip of Austria, there comes a time when sanity and self-preservation require easing up on the reins. Only 25 km from Vienna's rush and jumble, Baden bei Wien, the 19th-century spa town once frequented by Hapsburg emperors, turned out to be the answer to my prayers.

Compact, lively and as elegant as a minuet, the city of 24,000 inhabitants sits on the eastern edge of the Vienna Woods, less than a half-hour bus or tram ride from the capital. Trams, in fact, run every 15 minutes from the Vienna State Opera to Baden's Josefplatz, and buses are almost as frequent.