Chaps,

i may have an opportunity to take a posting to Vienna with wife and kids for a few years. It's not a part of the world I'm familiar but and I know we have some European members on here that may be able to give some advice/pointers/hints..

Anyone ever lived there or can comment on what its like as a place for family with young kids under 6? I'm not too worried about me and kids, more the missus and the ability to build network of friends etc as she is quite sociable and would hate feeling cut off and isolated which in turn would make my life hell...

Am looking for pointers for best areas to live without a huge commute to city centre for me, or places to avoid? Worth taking a car over or is public transport the way to go?

would be a big move for the family but I'm used to moving around and did it when i was young but wife's never left the UK so needs a bit of convincing, anything (good!) you can share would be really appreciated! '08 Audi S6 Avant 5.2 V10 with Milltek non-resonated. Vrrrrrrmmmmmph
'59 Ford Kuga Diesel (boring but AWD and 40mpg...)
2007 (07) Subaru Forester XTen 2.5 Turbo. (Roundabouts are fun again!)
2007 (07) 4.4 V8 Vogue (gone)

Don't know Vienna itself well at all, only had one visit of a few days quite some time ago, lovely city, friendly people.

As for working as an expat, we do have a bit more experience with that and how to adjust. Trick is to get international school for the kids paid for (so you don't have to worry about the very high fees most of them charge). At the school is where your missus will meet the other expat (mostly wifes) partners and the kids get to play with other kids of their age group. We met a lot of people that way (well my wife met them and i tagged along happily) and especially for our little one was great (she is a bit reserved when meeting new people, unlike our eldest ).

The next thing is find the local online expat social groups like Internations (www.internations.org), British Expat forum (usually one in every country), the Caldonian Society (also a standard in most expat cities) etc.. That will tap into the network of people you won't meet on the school run.

Lastly is leisure activities, like sports/yoga/handycrafts/bookclubs/historical societies etc. Just pick one or two and presto, another set of potential contacts opens up.

Especially since your wife is sociable, she will have friends and acquaintances in no time at all and you will be moving from dinner party to birthday party to BBQ and so on.

The forums you can start trawling right now to get a feel for things, hints and tips for the move, where to live, where to get certain things typical for the UK but not easy to get abroad etc. etc.

We find that an expat community is actually very nice to be part of (especially since my wife and I are already from different countries) and the different nationalities, plus people that have been expats themselves for a while. It makes easy conversation and you'd be amazed how easy social life gets since you are all in the same boat, away from home/extended family/familiarity and exposed to the same non familiarity/odd things in the new host country. Expats are usually quite open to different looks on things and different customs and you get to learn a lot about other cultures that you would not get by going on vacation in the countries of origin.

So from my/our perspective, a golden opportunity (and I'm not just talking about extra uplift on pay, tax benefits etc.). MY 2010 5.0 SC Galway green and sand interior!!
Have the Faultmate MSV2 Extreme to be tinkering with the settings etc. !!

Can't add any thing to the above except Vienna always scores exceptionally high in the liveability chart published every year in the Economists Intelligence Unit . 2008 MY Supercharged
Rimini Red / Jet
four zone climate
remote park heater
and no ugly kid windows.
magnus satis quod turpis satis

Thanks for the feedback guys. Have been considering an expat move for a while, but Vienna never appeared on the radar till recently so haven't done much research on it - always assumed I'd be heading somewhere a bit further afield and warmer!

Ebajema - private schooling in included (when kids are old enough), as well as a healthy accommodation allowance and net of tax salary, so there are significant economic as well as family lifestyle benefits to be had. All that counts for nothing though if its difficult to adjust and make connections. That said its only a couple of hours from UK, so easy enough to maintain connections with home... '08 Audi S6 Avant 5.2 V10 with Milltek non-resonated. Vrrrrrrmmmmmph
'59 Ford Kuga Diesel (boring but AWD and 40mpg...)
2007 (07) Subaru Forester XTen 2.5 Turbo. (Roundabouts are fun again!)
2007 (07) 4.4 V8 Vogue (gone)

Wonderful clean City with very friendly people and oodles of historical character.  If you have nothing nice to say,say nothing at all.