ViennaTravel Guide
Vienna wears its imperial past lightly: Habsburg palaces and a ring of grand boulevards frame a city that today tops global quality-of-life rankings. Its signature institution is the coffeehouse — marble tables, bentwood chairs, newspapers on wooden racks — a culture so distinctive that UNESCO added it to its intangible cultural heritage list in 2011. Between Klimt at the Belvedere, the opera and the world's most serious cake tradition, the city rewards slow travel.
Is Vienna right for you?
April–June, September–October
Mid-range. Comfortable without planning around money, expensive if you stop counting.
No hour-by-hour route here yet — the guides below cover it by subject instead.
April–June, September–October
Mid-range
Typical cost profile for visitors
- Budapest, Hungary210 km
a short hop — comfortable overland · both good in April, May, June · a different price level (budget)
- Prague, Czech Republic250 km
a short hop — comfortable overland · both good in April, May, June
- Salzburg250 km
a short hop — comfortable overland · both good in May, June, September
- Lake Bled, Slovenia270 km
a short hop — comfortable overland · both good in June, September · a different price level (mixed)
Budapest
Prague
Salzburg
Lake BledFinding Vienna
Reading Vienna
Vienna's Unmissable Experiences, Ranked
The Storied Hotels of Vienna
- DestinationsImperial Vienna for less: the smart budget playbook2 min
- FoodBreakfast to midnight: eating your way through Vienna2 min
- Hidden GemsVienna's market streets and backstreets, beyond the Ringstrasse13 min
- Hidden GemsVienna Beyond the Crowds2 min
- DestinationsVienna in Every Season: When to Go and What Changes2 min
- FoodThe Grand Coffeehouses of Vienna: Where to Sit and What to Order3 min
Vienna, place by place
Everything below is named in one of our own stories about Vienna. The line under each is the sentence that recommended it, and the link goes to the piece it came from.
Where to stay
The areas and addresses our writers put first
Arno Senoner
The Ringstrasse
When the old city walls came down in the nineteenth century, the boulevard that replaced them sprouted palaces, several of which became hotels.
Innere Stadt backstreets
ViennaInside the Ring, the medieval lanes around St Stephen's Cathedral hide small historic houses in centuries-old buildings - vaulted breakfast rooms, crooked corridors, rooms that were never designed to be rectangular.
MuseumsQuartier and Neubau
ViennaWest of the Ring, the seventh district pairs the MuseumsQuartier's contemporary art campus with Neubau's independent shops, record stores and cafe culture.
Leopoldstadt and the Prater
ViennaAcross the Danube Canal, the second district offers newer hotels at gentler prices, with the Prater's parkland and Ferris wheel nearby and the centre a few minutes away on the U1 or U2.
Where to eat
Tables worth crossing the city for
Cafe Central
ViennaUnder the vaulted ceiling of the Palais Ferstel on Herrengasse, Cafe Central was the haunt of Freud, Trotsky and half of fin-de-siecle intellectual Vienna.
Cafe Sacher
ViennaInside the Hotel Sacher behind the State Opera, red velvet and chandeliers set the stage for the Original Sacher-Torte — the dense chocolate cake with apricot jam invented for Prince Metternich's court in 1832, served…
Demel
ViennaOn Kohlmarkt, a short walk from the Hofburg, Demel was purveyor to the imperial court and still makes its cakes in an open kitchen you can watch.
Cafe Hawelka
ViennaJust off the Graben on Dorotheergasse, Hawelka is small, dim, smoke-stained and gloriously unrestored — the postwar artists' cafe par excellence.
Cafe Sperl
ViennaOn Gumpendorfer Strasse near the Naschmarkt, Sperl has kept its 1880 interior — billiard tables included — and a neighbourhood clientele.
Cafe Landtmann
ViennaOn the Ringstrasse beside the Burgtheater, Landtmann has served ministers, actors and Freud (again) since 1873.
Cafe Pruckel
ViennaAcross from the MAK museum on Stubenring, Pruckel swaps marble grandeur for 1950s pastel interiors.
Graze the Naschmarkt
ViennaVienna's best-known market runs in a long ribbon of produce stalls, spice sellers and small eateries.
What to see
The things that justify the trip
Akshaye Sikand
Schönbrunn Palace and its gardens
The Habsburgs' summer residence, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the city's western edge, is Vienna's single most visited attraction — and still worth it.
Daniel Deiev
The Kunsthistorisches Museum
One of the world's great art collections, built by an empire that collected on an imperial scale: Bruegel's peasant scenes, Vermeer, Raphael, Velázquez's Habsburg portraits.
Alessandra Verre
The Prater and the Riesenrad
Vienna's old amusement park is anchored by the giant Ferris wheel that starred in 'The Third Man'.
St Stephen's Cathedral
ViennaThe Gothic heart of the city, its zigzag-tiled roof and soaring south tower visible from across Vienna.
Belvedere and Klimt's 'The Kiss'
ViennaTwo baroque palaces joined by formal gardens, with the Upper Belvedere holding the world's largest Klimt collection — including the gold-leafed 'The Kiss', the painting most visitors cross the city for.
Things to do
Walks, tours and days out we would book again
Loop the Ringstrasse
ViennaThe grand boulevard that replaced the medieval walls in the 19th century strings together the Parliament, City Hall, Burgtheater, the museums and the Hofburg.
What we'd do in Vienna
See and do
- Schönbrunn Palace and its gardens
The Habsburgs' summer residence, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the city's western edge, is Vienna's single most visited attraction — and still worth it.
Read: Vienna's Unmissable Experiences, Ranked - Culture without the full-price ticket
The Vienna State Opera sells standing-room tickets for a small fraction of a seat — typically released shortly before each performance; check the official site for the current system.
Read: Imperial Vienna for less: the smart budget playbook - Brunnenmarkt and the streets of Ottakring
Out in the sixteenth district, the Brunnenmarkt stretches nearly a kilometre down a pedestrianised street - the city's tourist board calls it the longest permanent street market in Europe, with something over 170 stalls - past Turkish greengrocers, Balkan bakers and Viennese grandmothers negotiating in three languages.
Read: Vienna's market streets and backstreets, beyond the Ringstrasse - 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.
Read: Vienna Beyond the Crowds - St Stephen's Cathedral
The Gothic heart of the city, its zigzag-tiled roof and soaring south tower visible from across Vienna.
Read: Vienna's Unmissable Experiences, Ranked
Eat and drink
- Cafe Central — the showpiece
Under the vaulted ceiling of the Palais Ferstel on Herrengasse, Cafe Central was the haunt of Freud, Trotsky and half of fin-de-siecle intellectual Vienna.
Read: The Grand Coffeehouses of Vienna: Where to Sit and What to Order - Cafe Sacher — for the torte
Inside the Hotel Sacher behind the State Opera, red velvet and chandeliers set the stage for the Original Sacher-Torte — the dense chocolate cake with apricot jam invented for Prince Metternich's court in 1832, served properly with a cloud of unsweetened whipped cream.
Read: The Grand Coffeehouses of Vienna: Where to Sit and What to Order - Demel — the imperial confectioner
On Kohlmarkt, a short walk from the Hofburg, Demel was purveyor to the imperial court and still makes its cakes in an open kitchen you can watch.
Read: The Grand Coffeehouses of Vienna: Where to Sit and What to Order - Cafe Hawelka — the bohemian one
Just off the Graben on Dorotheergasse, Hawelka is small, dim, smoke-stained and gloriously unrestored — the postwar artists' cafe par excellence.
Read: The Grand Coffeehouses of Vienna: Where to Sit and What to Order
Where to stay
- Value with character
Neubau, Leopoldstadt and the outer districts, one U-Bahn hop away
Read: The Storied Hotels of ViennaCheck ratesad · Booking.com - Trade-off to know
Innere Stadt romance versus quieter, cheaper streets ten minutes out
Read: The Storied Hotels of ViennaCheck ratesad · Booking.com
Practical essentials for Austria
Euro (EUR)
German; English is widely spoken in tourist settings in Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck.
Type C/F, 230V 50Hz
OeBB trains link the cities, and each runs its own network on validated time-based tickets — in Vienna that is the Wiener Linien U-Bahn, trams and buses.
Round up or add about 5-10% in a restaurant, handed to the server as you pay rather than left on the table.
Tap water is safe to drink everywhere; in Vienna it is piped in from Alpine springs.
Right-hand side; an EU or EEA licence is enough, and other visitors should carry an International Driving Permit with their national licence.
112; also 133 police, 144 ambulance, 122 fire
Country-level guidance, checked against official sources. Currency, fares and entry rules change — confirm anything time-critical before you travel.
Croatia
Poland
Germany
Italy
Serbia