Lonely Planet Vienna

Vienna

Contents

Plan Your Trip

Welcome to Vienna

Vienna’s Top 10

What’s New

Need to Know

First Time Vienna

Top Itineraries

If You Like…

Month By Month

With Kids

Like a Local

For Free

Guided Tours & Walks

Eating

Coffee Houses & Cake Shops

Drinking & Nightlife

Entertainment

Shopping

Sports & Activities

Explore Vienna

Neighbourhoods at a Glance

The Hofburg & Around

Top Sights

Sights

Eating

Drinking & Nightlife

Entertainment

Shopping

Stephansdom & the Historic Centre

Top Sights

Sights

Eating

Drinking & Nightlife

Entertainment

Shopping

Sports & Activities

Karlsplatz & Around Naschmarkt

Top Sights

Sights

Eating

Drinking & Nightlife

Entertainment

Shopping

Sports & Activities

The Museum District & Neubau

Top Sights

Sights

Eating

Drinking & Nightlife

Entertainment

Shopping

Sports & Activities

Alsergrund & the University District

Sights

Eating

Drinking & Nightlife

Entertainment

Shopping

Schloss Belvedere to the Canal

Top Sights

Sights

Eating

Drinking & Nightlife

Entertainment

Sports & Activities

Klimt in Vienna

Prater & East of the Danube

Top Sights

Sights

Eating

Drinking & Nightlife

Entertainment

Shopping

Sports & Activities

Schloss Schönbrunn & Around

Top Sights

Sights

Eating

Drinking & Nightlife

Entertainment

Shopping

Sports & Activities

Day Trips from Vienna

Two-Day Trip to Salzburg

Krems an der Donau

Melk & Around

Sleeping

Understand Vienna

Vienna Today

History

City of Music

Visual Arts & Architecture

Vienna in Print & on Film

Survival Guide

Transport

Arriving in Vienna

Air

Boat

Bus

Car & Motorcycle

Train

Getting Around

Bicycle

Bus

Car & Motorcycle

Train

Tram

Taxi

Directory A–Z

Accessible Travel

Discount Cards

Electricity

Emergency

Insurance

Internet Access

LGBT+ Travellers

Medical Services

Money

Opening Hours

Post

Public Holidays

Safe Travel

Taxes & Refunds

Telephone

Time

Toilets

Tourist Information

Visas

Language

Vienna Maps

Stephansdom & the Historic Centre

Hofburg & Around

Karlsplatz & Around Naschmarkt

Museum District & Neubau

Alsergrund & the University District

Prater & East of the Danube

Schloss Belvedere to the Canal

Schloss Schönbrunn & Around

Table of Contents

Behind the Scenes

Our Writers

Welcome to Vienna

Baroque streetscapes and imperial palaces set the stage for artistic and musical masterpieces, alongside and vibrant epicurean and design scenes.

Imperial Architecture

Vienna’s imperial grandeur is the legacy of the powerful Habsburg monarchy. Their home for more than six centuries, the Hofburg palace complex, incorporates the Burgkapelle (Imperial Chapel) and the famed Spanish Riding School along with a trove of museums, including in the chandeliered Kaiserappartements (Imperial Apartments). Other immense palaces include the baroque Schloss Belvedere and Schloss Schönbrunn, while 19th-century splendours such as the neo-Gothic Rathaus (City Hall) line the magnificent Ringstrasse encircling the Innere Stadt (city centre).

Masterpiece-Filled Museums

One of the Habsburgs’ most dazzling palaces, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, houses the imperial art collection. It’s packed with priceless works by old masters, and treasures including one of the world’s richest coin collections. Behind the Hofburg, the Museums-Quartier has a diverse ensemble of museums, showcasing 19th- and 20th-century Austrian art at the Leopold Museum to often-shocking avant-garde works at the contemporary MUMOK. Meteorites, fossils and prehistoric finds fill the Naturhistorisches Museum, while exquisite furnishings at the applied-arts Museum für Angewandte Kunst are also among the artistic feasts in store.

Soul-Stirring Music

With a musical heritage that includes composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss (father and son), Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler, among countless others, Vienna is known as the City of Music. Incredible venues where you can catch performances today include the acoustically renowned Musikverein, used by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the gold-and-crystal main opera house, the Staats-oper, and the multistage Konzerthaus. Music comes to life through interactive exhibits at the captivating Haus der Musik museum.

Renowned Drinking & Dining

The Viennese appreciation of the finer things in life extends to its opulent coffee-house ‘living rooms’ serving spectacular cakes; its beloved pub-like Beisln dishing up hearty portions of Wiener schnitzel, Tafelspitz (prime boiled beef) and goulash; elegant restaurants; and its fine Austrian wines served in vaulted Vinothek (wine bar) cellars, and in rustic vine-draped Heurigen (wine taverns) in the vineyards fringing the city. Local and international delicacies fill the heady Naschmarkt stalls, and creative chefs are experimenting with local produce and fresh new flavour combinations in innovative, often repurposed venues.

Statue of Johann Strauss in the Stadtpark | PFEIFFER/SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Why I Love Vienna

By Catherine Le Nevez, Writer

With its rambling palaces, winding cobbled lanes, grand Kaffeehäuser (coffee houses) and cosy wood-panelled Beisln (taverns), Vienna is steeped in history. Yet it’s also at the cutting edge of design, architecture, contemporary art, and new directions in drinking and dining. What I love most about the city is that not only does it hold on to its traditions, it incorporates them in everything from high-fashion Dirndls (women’s traditional dress) through to sweets made from resurrected recipes and third-wave coffee served at neo-retro-inspired cafes. Vienna’s past is alive in its present, and, by extension, its future.

For more, see Our Writers

Vienna’s Top 10

Schloss Schönbrunn

1The magnificent rococo former summer palace and gardens of the Habsburgs are a perfect place to experience the pomp, circumstance and gracious legacy of Austria’s erstwhile monarchs. A visit to 40 of the palace’s lavishly appointed rooms reveals the lifestyle and the eccentricities of Europe’s most powerful family. Beyond the palace, Schloss Schönbrunn Gardens invite a stroll past pseudo-Roman ruins, along bucolic paths winding through leafy woods and a stopover in the gardens’ highlight, the Gloriette, with mesmerising views of the palace and city beyond.

CGE2010/SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Vienna’s Top 10

Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna

2The jewel in Vienna’s artistic crown is its Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. As well as accumulating vassal lands, the Habsburgs assembled one of Europe’s finest collections of art and artefacts. Housed inside a majestic neoclassical building, the highlight of this incredible cache is the Picture Gallery, an encounter with a vast and emotionally powerful collection of works by grand masters, such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s evocative and ‘industrial’ Tower of Babel from the 16th century or the bright plenitude of Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s Summer.

Anton_Ivanov/Shutterstock ©

Vienna’s Top 10

The Hofburg Palace

3The imposing former wintering ground of the Habsburg monarchs for over 700 years not only has a fine collection of museums, it’s also a living palace that today is home to the Austrian president, Austria’s National Library and public offices (and is the temporary home of the Austrian Parlament; parliament). A leisurely stroll through the palace complex is an encounter with one gracious building, statue and square after another, taking in highlights such as the Swiss Courtyard, the grotesquely proportioned Heldenplatz and diminutive arches of the Outer Palace Gate.

Dome of the Nationalbibliothek. | MINOLI/SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Vienna’s Top 10

Stephansdom

4A Gothic reminder of another age, the Stephansdom is Vienna’s heart and soul. The awe-inspiring cathedral lords over the city, topped by an intricately tiled roof, with its distinctive row of chevrons and Austrian eagle. Below the cathedral are the Katakomben (catacombs), with their eerie collection of the deceased; inside, a magnificent Gothic stone pulpit presides over the main nave; and rising above it to dizzying heights is the South Tower with its viewing stage offering dazzling views over town.

BLUEJAYPHOTO/GETTY IMAGES ©

Vienna’s Top 10

Ringstrasse Tram Tour

5For a spin around Vienna’s architectural highlights, jump on a tram and travel along the Ringstrasse, one of Europe’s most magnificent streets. This circular boulevard of imposing state buildings, palaces and majestic hotels was carved out of the space once occupied by fortifications protecting Vienna from Ottoman Turk attack in the 16th century. The monumental 19th-century masterpieces now rise up along the flanks, encircling most of the central Innere Stadt and separating the centre from the character-laden Vorstädte (inner suburbs).

TRABANTOS/SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Vienna’s Top 10

Prater & Ferris Wheel

6Rising above the beautiful green open spaces of the Prater, the 1897-built Riesenrad Ferris wheel, where Graham Greene sent his fictional character Harry Lime for a slow rotation in the 1949 film The Third Man, is a Viennese icon. A ride takes you high above the Prater, giving you a bird’s-eye view of the city and the expanse of wooded parkland and meadows, which you can explore on inline skates, by bicycle or on a walk after hitting ground level.

MAYLAT/SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Vienna’s Top 10

Schloss Belvedere

7Living up to its Italianesque name ‘beautiful view’, this 18th-century palace and garden ensemble is deceptively close to Vienna’s city centre while still creating a feeling of being worlds apart. Symmetrical, finely sculpted and manicured gardens overlooking Vienna’s unfolding skyline connect two exquisite palaces dedicated to a who’s who of Austrian art. Gustav Klimt’s painting The Kiss is a highlight. The masterpieces on display are complemented by interiors so stately that they’re worthy of a visit in their own right.

CANADASTOCK/SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Vienna’s Top 10

Vienna Boys’ Choir

8When Maximilian I founded the Wiener Sängerknaben (Vienna Boys’ Choir) in 1498 he replaced castrati with young boys whose voices had not broken, creating the world’s most celebrated choir. Today the celestial tones of this choir echo through the Burgkapelle (Imperial Chapel) of the Hofburg, where the choir performs classical music from Schubert, Mozart and other musical greats during Sunday Mass; it also stages an eclectic program of classical and contemporary music across town in MuTh, its own dedicated performing space.

BAZZA/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO ©

Vienna’s Top 10

Coffee Houses

9Great works of art have been created in these ‘living rooms’ of the Viennese. Patronised by luminaries such as Mahler, Klimt, Freud, Trotsky and Otto Wagner in their day, Vienna’s Kaffeehäuser (coffee houses) were added to the Unesco list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2011. Many retain their opulent original decor, and often specialise in a particular cake, such as the Sacher Torte, an iced-chocolate cake with apricot jam once favoured by Emperor Franz Josef, at Café Sacher. New-wave coffee houses are putting their own twist on the tradition.

Café Sacher | FRANK FELL MEDIA/SHUTTERSTOCK ©

Vienna’s Top 10

Beisln

10 A Viennese tradition, a Beisl is akin to a bistro pub, dishing up heaping portions of goulash, Wiener schnitzel, Tafelspitz (prime boiled beef) and other favourites along with wine and/or beer on unadorned tables in wood-panelled surrounds. In the warmer months, many Beisln open onto terraces or lantern-lit cobbled courtyards. Linger over a drink, enjoy the classic Austrian fare and soak up the unique atmosphere at stalwarts such as Griechenbeisl. These institutions have inspired a new breed of neo- Beisln, with an upmarket edge and often organic produce.

Griechenbeisl restaurant | HERACLES KRITIKOS/SHUTTERSTOCK ©

What’s New

Digital Detox

‘See Klimt. Not #Klimt’ is the hashtag of Viennese initiative Unhashtag Vienna (www.unhashtag.vienna.info), aimed at luring travellers away from their smartphones and encouraging digital detox. The city’s gardens, markets and coffee houses, such as institutions like Café Leopold Hawelka, are just perfect for this.

Contemporary History Collections

Austria’s first museum of contemporary history, the Haus der Geschichte Österreich, opened in the Hofburg in 2018. Starting from the mid-19th century and continuing to the present day, its evolving collection provides an insight into what makes the country tick.

Multisensory Illusions

Interactive exhibits at the 2018-opened Museum der Illusionen challenge your senses through a range of optical and spatial illusions, including a tunnel with spinning images on the walls that disrupt your balance.