This blog post was published under the 2015 to 2024 Conservative government

Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna

Part of UK in Austria

4th October 2017 Vienna, Austria

A year of my regional visits

Since starting my posting as Ambassador in Vienna in September 2016, I have had the pleasure of visiting almost every Austrian state, from Vorarlberg to Lower Austria.

Along the way, I have met dozens of businesses, including importers of British products to Austria, and Austrian companies with a significant presence in the UK. I have met politicians from different parties, students of all ages, journalists from Austria’s thriving regional press and many others. In Tyrol, I learned a little of the ‘bärig’ local dialect half way up a snowy mountain.

Travelling outside of the capital city is an important part of my work as I seek to understand Austria and its wonderful people. Austria is not just Vienna, any more than the United Kingdom is just London. I look forward to further regional visits in future!

You can see the immense variety of Austria in the videos of the visits so far:

Lower Austria

Carinthia

Tyrol

Vorarlberg

Upper Austria

Salzburg

Graz & Styria

About Leigh Turner

I hope you find this blog interesting and, where appropriate, entertaining. My role in Vienna covers the relationship between Austria and the UK as well as the diverse work of…

I hope you find this blog interesting and, where appropriate, entertaining. My role in Vienna covers the relationship between Austria and the UK as well as the diverse work of the UN and other organisations; stories here will reflect that.

About me: I arrived in Vienna in August 2016 for my second posting in this wonderful city, having first served here in the mid-1980s. My previous job was as HM Consul-General and Director-General for Trade and Investment for Turkey, Central Asia and South Caucasus based in Istanbul.

Further back: I grew up in Nigeria, Exeter, Lesotho, Swaziland and Manchester before attending Cambridge University 1976-79. I worked in several government departments before joining the Foreign Office in 1983.

Keen to go to Africa and South America, I’ve had postings in Vienna (twice), Moscow, Bonn, Berlin, Kyiv and Istanbul, plus jobs in London ranging from the EU Budget to the British Overseas Territories.

2002-6 I was lucky enough to spend four years in Berlin running the house, looking after the children (born 1992 and 1994) and doing some writing and journalism.

To return to Vienna as ambassador is a privilege and a pleasure. I hope this blog reflects that.