Possible move to Vienna

[Pnong]

We're considering a possible move to Vienna. Currently living in Asia and have older kids at uni in the UK and not loving being so far from them! Also have kid in year 6 in international school who is very happy and settled.
None of us speak any German.
The pickings for international schools seem very weak - does anyone have any experience of VIS? The reviews are very very mixed,
How is the expat community? We probably wouldn't be in Vienna for ever but a good chunk of time if we did like it.
I am really torn about this potential move. I can't say it fills me with joy as we really like where we live right now. Career wise it's not an advancement, just a transfer at my request. And the only reason is to be closer to the UK and a 2 hour flight away from our kids rather than a 12 hour flight. DH also has elderly mother to whom it'd be good to be closer too. Plus potentially being a better place for younger DC to be a teenager rather than where we live right now which has some challenges that we experienced with the older kids (easy availability of drugs and alcohol, over entitled expat/local rich kids with a lot of money compared with the local population, poor and corrupt law enforcement).

No direct experience but I thought I'd help bump you.
Very good friend has lived there for decades and brought up children there - an international school, but I don't know which one. The kids are London-bound for university so friend is thinking of moving back. But I believe she's had a good life there, and has certainly showed us a good time when we've visited!
Great city for art if that's your thing, ans great access to the great outdoors.
I'd live there!

I havent lived there but travelled on business and it struck me as a wonderful and very livable city - beautiful wide streets, trees, good public transport and wonderful restaurants, in summer all the young people and couples out walking by the canal etc. I would certainly be interested in living there - although I think property in the beautiful centre of the city is very expensive.

Why Vienna? Wouldn't UK be more logical?

My only experience of Vienna has been as a tourist, and the public transport is just superb. However, I'd disagree that the whole city is beautiful and tree lined. We were doing our trip on the cheap, and the area we stayed was neither! Just a word of warning that it's not all like in the movies (of course!). The city centre is gorgeous though!

It would but my company doesn't have an office in the UK. My field is quite niche and there are very few opportunities in the UK although I do shoot off applications if I see something pop up.

I live in another cheaper part of Austria.
Austria has a lot of problems at the moment. Money was spent willy nilly during covid. There were corruption scandals. We have had a useless government for the last 4 years who have overseen a significant increase in the cost of living and a decline in the standard of living. We had an election where the far right party actually won but the president didn't give them permission to form a government and asked the previous Kanzler to do so. That means there's a lot of anger in the population among the people who voted for the far right party. The negotiations to form a coalition are still ongoing and everything is a bit chaotic.
Everything is incredibly expensive. Fuel and electricity bills are through the roof. Petrol is very expensive and will become more so in January because of the CO2 tax on it. You would be ok in Vienna with the very good public transport but for the rest of us the public transport is very poor and cars are becoming unaffordable. Everytime you go to the shops the price of food has gone up.

I'm being very negative here but it really isn't great at the moment and you might find it very expensive. Accommodation in Vienna is hard to come by and expensive. There are a lot of issues in Vienna regarding lack of integration of some refugee groups and some areas are no-go areas, such as Favoriten or Simmering. Always trouble there. I suppose it's like anywhere really but you do need to do your research.

I wouldn't move to Vienna if you are happy where you are and the only issue is the 12 hour flight. Obviously it's a long flight and it's expensive but you're only 10 hours faster back to the UK from Vienna if you were needed urgently which in most scenarios makes very little difference.

I was there for a few weeks in the summer and considered moving there, it would be easy because every speaks English but the vibe seemed a little rigid, even a bit dour and pretty homogeneous.