25 Best Things to Do in Vienna

Vien­na is one of the most pic­turesque cities in Europe. It attracts with medieval archi­tec­ture, and count­less muse­ums, palaces, the­aters and ele­gant parks give it addi­tion­al charm.

What to do in Vienna

The city has pre­pared many sur­pris­es for admir­ers of ancient archi­tec­ture: mag­nif­i­cent palaces, the famous impe­r­i­al res­i­dence, medieval stat­ues — all these objects are wor­thy of atten­tion.

Vien­na is a city with majes­tic tem­ples, the beau­ty of which is unpar­al­leled any­where else in the world. Many of them are includ­ed in the UNESCO World Her­itage List. His­to­ry and art lovers are rec­om­mend­ed to vis­it local muse­ums.

Active tourists and adven­tur­ers go to the zoo, get acquaint­ed with its inhab­i­tants, swim and sun­bathe on the Danube Island, lis­ten to ancient leg­ends in the Vien­na Woods.

Architectural monuments

Schönbrunn Palace

The palace itself and the park area bor­der­ing it are among the pop­u­lar tourist routes in Vien­na. Every year Schön­brunn is vis­it­ed by 3 mil­lion peo­ple.

The con­struc­tion of the future palace began with a hunt­ing cas­tle in the 17th cen­tu­ry. And the beau­ty of the sur­round­ings and con­ve­nient loca­tion became the rea­son for the con­struc­tion of the impe­r­i­al sum­mer res­i­dence. This is how the cur­rent appear­ance of the palace appeared, and at the same time the foun­tain of Nep­tune and Roman stat­ues.

The inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion is notable for its refined inte­ri­ors. There are no less than 1440 rooms, includ­ing the pri­vate cham­bers of the Empress. It will take a whole day to explore the palace and gar­den.

Hofburg

The impe­r­i­al res­i­dence in Vien­na embod­ies the his­to­ry of the Aus­tri­an state. On the ter­ri­to­ry of the res­i­dence there are 19 palaces built at dif­fer­ent times. In addi­tion, two parks Burggarten and Volks­garten, the roy­al trea­sury and library, the famous gates and sta­bles await vis­i­tors.

To get the most out of the palace com­plex, it is bet­ter to view it from the side of the square, which over­looks the semi­cir­cu­lar empire facade. Dur­ing its exis­tence, the res­i­dence was recon­struct­ed more than once, and acquired its cur­rent appear­ance in the 20s of the last cen­tu­ry.

town hall

This is not just a build­ing, but the admin­is­tra­tive cen­ter of the city. To get an idea of ​​its size, it is enough to imag­ine that the Town Hall occu­pies the area of ​​the for­mer sta­di­um. It was built in 1883 along with a tow­er and an iron fig­ure car­ry­ing a ban­ner.

The arched court­yard is nev­er emp­ty in the sum­mer — con­certs are reg­u­lar­ly held here. The tour also includes a tour of the Schmidt-Halle — the entrance where the car­riages stopped by to put pas­sen­gers on. Two main stair­cas­es adjoin it.

Exhibition Center “Secession”

In addi­tion to the famil­iar Goth­ic and Baroque build­ings, Art Nou­veau struc­tures occu­py a sig­nif­i­cant place in Vien­nese archi­tec­ture. Mar­ble, glass, tiles, met­al appliqués, col­or­ful pieces and gild­ing enno­bled the hous­es. Flo­ral orna­ments are found on one of the most impor­tant Art Nou­veau build­ings, the Vien­na Seces­sion.

Built by Joseph Olbrich in 1898, it was the first exhi­bi­tion build­ing in Cen­tral Europe ded­i­cat­ed to con­tem­po­rary art.

Palace Belvedere

A suc­cess­ful com­bi­na­tion of archi­tec­ture and art. The park, with two palaces, is still admired today. In the cool halls of the expo­si­tion, they intro­duce you to the 800-year peri­od of the devel­op­ment of art — from the Mid­dle Ages to the present day.

The most attrac­tive part of the Upper Palace is the first floor, with stat­ues and a carved stair­case, amaz­ing fres­coes. There is also an old hall with an art gallery and small sculp­tures. The Low­er Palace is famous for the Mar­ble Gallery, which hous­es majes­tic stat­ues.

Parliament

The Par­lia­ment in Vien­na has been oper­at­ing since 1918. The build­ing itself belongs to the 19th cen­tu­ry, although its Greek columns give the build­ing an old look. The carv­ings on the out­er facades are note­wor­thy. Anoth­er strik­ing dec­o­ra­tion is the foun­tain of Athena Pal­las, which is guard­ed by four sym­bol­ic fig­ures rep­re­sent­ing full-flow­ing rivers.

Par­lia­ment is not only the heart of polit­i­cal activ­i­ty — the his­toric build­ing lit­er­al­ly breathes his­to­ry and noble archi­tec­ture. Alas, inspec­tion of the inte­ri­or is not avail­able to every­one.

Esterhazy Palace

This is one of the attrac­tions of Eisen­stadt, the cap­i­tal of the province of Bur­gen­land. In the for­mer prince­ly res­i­dence, you can look at the glam­orous life of the Ester­hazy princes. Ball­rooms, crys­tal chan­de­liers, exquis­ite can­dle­sticks and art objects — much has been pre­served or restored for dis­play.

In 1622, Prince Ester­hazy became the ruler of Eisen­stadt and received the palace into his pos­ses­sion. The build­ing has been expand­ed and ren­o­vat­ed sev­er­al times to keep up with the spir­it of the times. Since 1945, it has housed gov­ern­ment offices.

Interesting places

campus

World-renowned archi­tects have designed the new build­ing of the Vien­na Uni­ver­si­ty of Eco­nom­ics and Busi­ness, which is open to stu­dents and those inter­est­ed in sci­ence. There is room for 25,000 stu­dents and 1,500 employ­ees.

The impres­sive build­ing of the library stands out in par­tic­u­lar — the rest of the build­ings are grouped around it. Futur­is­tic archi­tec­ture has become an orig­i­nal solu­tion in the spir­it of new gen­er­a­tions. Thanks to this, the cam­pus has become a land­mark of Vien­na.

Main public library

Direct­ly above the metro sta­tion is the new library, opened in 2003 and designed by archi­tect Ernst Mayr. The load-bear­ing struc­ture span­ning three floors makes the build­ing look like it was sus­pend­ed above the tracks of the old Otto Wag­n­er sta­tion pavil­ions.

An open stair­case con­nects to the roof of Urban-Loritz Square. The Library, 150 meters long and 26 meters wide, has a use­ful area of ​​6,000 square meters and pro­vides access to 240,000 copies of print­ed pub­li­ca­tions.

Prater park

The nature park is a pop­u­lar recre­ation­al area in Vien­na, where every­one will find a cor­ner for them­selves. Extreme enter­tain­ment, cozy restau­rants and dance floors await guests. No oth­er place exudes as much ener­gy and joy of life as the Vien­na Prater. An excit­ing world awaits vis­i­tors and guar­an­tees enter­tain­ment for peo­ple of all ages: roller coast­ers, ghost trains and all kinds of attrac­tions.

Churches and cathedrals

St. Stephen’s Cathedral

The bright roof of a slen­der majes­tic struc­ture is vis­i­ble from afar — the spiers of an unimag­in­able build­ing can be seen from any­where in Vien­na. On the side there is an entrance to the obser­va­tion deck of the tow­er. Although the climb is dif­fi­cult, the views are worth the effort.

The cathe­dral was almost not dam­aged in the wars, but was bar­barous­ly set on fire after it end­ed. He lost the North Tow­er and the famous bell. How­ev­er, the restora­tion work returned the build­ing to its for­mer glo­ry, keep­ing the image almost unchanged.

St. Peter’s Church

Peter’s Church dates back to the sec­ond half of the 14th cen­tu­ry and is believed to be the old­est in Vien­na. At the end of the 17th cen­tu­ry, the dilap­i­dat­ed church and the sur­round­ing ceme­tery were demol­ished. The con­struc­tion of the new baroque build­ing began under Gabriel Mon­tani, who was lat­er replaced by the famous Aus­tri­an archi­tect Lucas von Hilde­brandt.

Karlskirche

The exte­ri­or of the church is a fine exam­ple of baroque archi­tec­ture. The build­ing has not only a large dome, but also two tall columns on the sides of the entrance, which are dec­o­rat­ed with spi­ral images of scenes from the life of St. Charles Bor­romeo.

Upon enter­ing the church, it is worth pay­ing atten­tion to the ceil­ing to admire the lux­u­ri­ous fres­coes under the dome, paint­ed by Johannes Michael Rottmayr. Huge paint­ings praise the patron saint of Karl­skirche, who saved the city from the plague with his prayers.

Church of Saint Jerome

The church belongs to the 17th cen­tu­ry. Quite mod­est from the out­side, it impress­es with rich inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion in the Baroque style. The main altar with the image of the Vir­gin Mary was designed by Andrea Poz­zo in 1707.

The tem­ple hous­es the old­est organ in Vien­na. The carved instru­ment was designed by Johann Wack­erl in 1642. And today it attracts peo­ple who are far from faith, but who are inter­est­ed in art, archi­tec­ture and ancient musi­cal instru­ments.

Parks and natural attractions

vienna zoo

Emper­or Fran­cis I had a pas­sion for ani­mals, and in 1752 he built a small court menagerie. Much has changed since then, but the ter­ri­to­ry and even some of the orig­i­nal build­ings that have sur­vived intact have remained the same. Despite the fact that dozens of species of ani­mals live in the zoo, clean­li­ness reigns here, and lush veg­e­ta­tion gives shade and cool­ness.

The pride of the Vien­na Zoo is giant pan­das and their cubs.

Volksgarten

The pub­lic park is locat­ed on the Ringstraße in Vien­na’s first dis­trict. It was cre­at­ed from 1819 to 1823. The Hof­burg side was cre­at­ed in the Eng­lish style, with shady alleys, while on the Ringstrasse side, the park was designed in the French Baroque style with detailed plan­ning of every meter.

Vis­i­tors will find here the memo­r­i­al of Empress Elis­a­beth and Franz Gryll­parz­er, as well as the The­seustem­pel, which is a small­er ver­sion of the Tem­ple of Hep­haes­tus in Athens. And lovers of flow­ers will be delight­ed with lux­u­ri­ous rose gar­dens.

Stadtpark

The city park in Vien­na lives up to all expec­ta­tions from an “arti­fi­cial land­scape in the city”. The court painter Joseph Sel­l­eni and the direc­tor of the gar­den Rudolf Siebeck designed the city park, where the alter­na­tion of small groves and lawns divid­ed the space into zones.

As was typ­i­cal for the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry, the plant­i­ngs were select­ed in such a way as to pro­vide a flow­er­ing per­spec­tive all year round. The land­scape changes com­plete­ly not only in cer­tain zones, but also depend­ing on the time of year.

Danube Island

The island is a nature reserve and 42 kilo­me­ters of beach­es in the cen­ter of a Euro­pean city that pro­tects Vien­na from floods. In addi­tion, it has become a favorite vaca­tion spot for tourists and a home for plants and ani­mals. There are sports facil­i­ties, swim­ming areas with gen­tly slop­ing beach­es.

The island has an exten­sive net­work of trails for strollers, jog­gers, cyclists and rollerbladers, as well as pic­nic areas. And there are also mead­ows, play­grounds with mark­ings, ten­nis and beach vol­ley­ball courts. A vari­ety of bars and restau­rants com­plete the range of enter­tain­ment.

Wienerwald

The Vien­na Woods is locat­ed 24 km south­west of the city. The trip takes half an hour. At the edge of the for­est is the cozy vil­lage of May­er­ling, where leg­ends about the ghosts that live in these forests still live.

Wiener­wald still keeps the sad secret of the hunt­ing hut. In 1889, Crown Prince Rudolf of Aus­tria was found dead here with his mis­tress, Baroness Maria Vet­sera.

Museums and theaters

Vienna Opera House

The lead­ing opera house in the world, whose past is steeped in tra­di­tion, and whose present is replete with per­for­mances and events. Every sea­son there are about 350 per­for­mances, more than 60 dif­fer­ent operas and bal­lets. Tick­ets have to be bought sev­er­al months in advance, because there are world-class artists on the stage.

In 2013, the dig­i­tal out­reach project was launched. Now fans of opera and bal­let will have a chance to see the per­for­mances of out­stand­ing artists on the Inter­net.

National Theater

The mag­nif­i­cent build­ing oppo­site the Vien­na City Hall was built in the Ital­ian Renais­sance style with many sculp­tures adorn­ing the façade. The cen­tral stat­ue depicts Apol­lo seat­ed sur­round­ed by the mus­es of tragedy and com­e­dy.

Here are busts of famous writ­ers such as Molière, Shake­speare, Schiller and Goethe. The balustrade is adorned with fig­ures of Put­ti, each play­ing a dif­fer­ent musi­cal instru­ment. Inside are grand stair­cas­es with a long foy­er that curves around a cen­tral the­ater hall.

Art and History Museum

The Muse­um of Art His­to­ry hous­es impor­tant exhibits, includ­ing paint­ings, sculp­tures, and tex­tiles. Not far from the entrance is a recent­ly acquired rar­i­ty, a 15th-cen­tu­ry Goth­ic Madon­na and Child by Jakob Kaschauer. The expo­si­tions change every year.

Here you can see the monas­tic attire of dif­fer­ent peri­ods. The col­lec­tion includes the so-called Geb­hardsmiter of the 19th cen­tu­ry and Totenkasel of the 16th cen­tu­ry. A spe­cial place is occu­pied by the work of Admon­ter Ben­no Haan, who cre­at­ed many litur­gi­cal dress­es of the high­est qual­i­ty.

Albertina

The art muse­um, locat­ed in the Albrecht Palace, has become the repos­i­to­ry of an excep­tion­al col­lec­tion of graph­ic art. Today, its per­ma­nent exhi­bi­tions alone include hun­dreds of paint­ings. The­mat­ic exhi­bi­tions cov­er all schools and move­ments: French impres­sion­ists, Russ­ian avant-garde, expres­sion­ists.

All the mas­ter­pieces hang in the palace where the Hab­s­burg arch­dukes lived for cen­turies. The lux­u­ri­ous fur­nish­ings have been com­plete­ly restored and are in keep­ing with a bygone era.

Johann Strauss Apartments

The great com­pos­er Johann Strauss lived in this apart­ment for sev­en years. At that time Prater­strasse was a fash­ion­able and ele­gant sub­ur­ban street. It was in this place that in 1867 he wrote the “Blue Danube” waltz, Aus­tri­a’s favorite unof­fi­cial anthem.

The apart­ment fea­tures Strauss’ per­son­al col­lec­tions, instru­ments and fur­ni­ture that give vis­i­tors a glimpse into the musi­cian’s life. The com­poser’s admir­ers even today reg­u­lar­ly vis­it the house-muse­um, bring flow­ers on anniver­saries.

Natural History Museum

A curi­ous place that will appeal to chil­dren and adults. The Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um in Vien­na is famous for its dinosaur exhi­bi­tion and the world’s largest col­lec­tion of mete­orites. The lat­ter even includes the Tissint mete­orite from Mars that fell in Moroc­co in 2011.

The 39 exhi­bi­tion halls high­light the ori­gin and devel­op­ment of humans and the evo­lu­tion of human cul­ture since ancient times. The list of espe­cial­ly rare trea­sures includes the Venus of Wil­len­dorf, a clay fig­urine dat­ing back to 28–25 mil­len­ni­um BC.