Vienna's imperial core — the Hofburg, Schönbrunn, the Ringstrasse — absorbs almost all of the city's visitors. Which leaves the rest of Vienna remarkably quiet: vineyard villages inside the city limits, radical architecture, and green space on a scale few capitals can match.

Key facts

  • Vienna grows wine within its city boundaries — one of the few capitals in the world that does
  • Heurigen (wine taverns) traditionally serve the current year's wine with simple buffet food
  • The city's public transport network reaches every corner mentioned here
  • Autumn is heurigen high season, when the new wine arrives

The vineyard villages: Grinzing, Nussdorf and the hills

Ride a tram to the city's northwestern edge and you are suddenly among vines. The old winemaking villages of Grinzing and Nussdorf are dotted with heurigen — family wine taverns where you drink the house's own vintage under chestnut trees. Go on a weekday evening and you will hear far more German than English.

Kahlenberg: the view the postcards miss

Above the vineyards rises Kahlenberg hill, with a sweeping panorama over the Danube and the whole city. Walk down through the vines toward Nussdorf for one of Europe's most underrated urban hikes.

The Zentralfriedhof: a city of the dead worth a morning

Vienna's Central Cemetery is vast, park-like and strangely uplifting. Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Strauss lie in the composers' section, and pop icon Falco is here too. Locals come to stroll, not only to mourn — deer are sometimes spotted among the graves.

Karl-Marx-Hof: the workers' palace

In the Heiligenstadt district stands one of the world's most famous social housing blocks — a kilometer-long, salmon-colored monument to 1920s 'Red Vienna'. Architecture lovers make pilgrimages; most tourists ride past without knowing.

Hundertwasserhaus and the anti-straight-line

Friedensreich Hundertwasser's undulating, tree-sprouting apartment house draws photographers, but few continue into the surrounding third district, where quiet cafés and the artist's museum reward a slower wander.

The green Prater and the Danube Island

Everyone photographs the giant Ferris wheel; almost nobody walks the Hauptallee, the Prater's chestnut-lined avenue running arrow-straight through kilometers of parkland. In summer, join the Viennese on Danube Island — 20-odd kilometers of riverside beaches, bike paths and barbecue lawns.

Augarten: baroque hedges, concrete giants

This formal baroque park in the second district pairs manicured avenues with two hulking WWII flak towers — Vienna's history in one uncanny frame. The famous porcelain manufactory and the Vienna Boys' Choir both call the park home, and on weekday mornings you may have the long gravel avenues almost entirely to yourself.

Tip: Combine Kahlenberg, the vineyard walk down to Nussdorf and a heuriger dinner into a single golden afternoon — it is the best half day in Vienna that most visitors never take.