Where To Go in Vienna
27 places across 9 categories — the landmarks on the postcards, the observation decks, the museums, the parks, and the neighborhoods where the city actually lives.
Landmarks
TODO — what landmarks in Vienna are actually worth the time.
St Stephen's Cathedral
A tiled roof of a quarter of a million glazed tiles, a tower you climb by 343 steps, and catacombs full of Habsburg organs.
Schönbrunn Palace
Fourteen hundred rooms of Habsburg summer residence, a garden you can walk for free, and the oldest zoo in the world.
The Hofburg
The Habsburgs' winter residence for six centuries, now holding the Sisi Museum, the imperial silver and the crown jewels.
The Belvedere
Two Baroque palaces on a slope, with Klimt's Kiss in the upper one and the best view of Vienna's skyline from between them.
Vienna State Opera
Three hundred performances a year, standing tickets for the price of a coffee, and a building the Emperor's opinion nearly killed its architect over.
Karlskirche
A Baroque church with two Trajan-style columns and, for now, a lift that puts you within touching distance of the dome fresco.
Museums
TODO — what museums in Vienna are actually worth the time.
Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Habsburg collection: the largest group of Bruegels anywhere, a Vermeer, and a staircase Klimt painted before he broke with the establishment.
The Albertina
A million prints and drawings, Dürer's hare, and a permanent Monet-to-Picasso collection in the old Habsburg state rooms.
Leopold Museum
The largest Egon Schiele collection in the world, assembled by an ophthalmologist who started buying when nobody wanted them.
Sigmund Freud Museum
The consulting rooms at Berggasse 19, kept deliberately empty because the furniture went to London in 1938 and never came back.
Natural History Museum
The Venus of Willendorf, a hall of meteorites, and a nineteenth-century museum that has kept its own cabinets on display.
History
TODO — what history in Vienna are actually worth the time.
Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial
A sealed concrete library turned inside out, standing on the excavated foundations of a synagogue burned in 1421.
Zentralfriedhof
Three million graves, Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert in one plot, and a section that has been left to the foxes on purpose.
Parks & Outdoors
TODO — what parks & outdoors in Vienna are actually worth the time.
Food & Drink
TODO — what food & drink in Vienna are actually worth the time.
The Naschmarkt
A kilometre and a half of market between two roads, half of it genuine and half of it aimed at you.
Café Central
Vaulted ceilings, a papier-mâché poet at a table by the door, and a queue outside that Trotsky did not have to join.
The Heurigen of Grinzing
Wine taverns in the vineyards at the edge of the city, where the tram terminates and Vienna stops being a capital.
Culture & Music
TODO — what culture & music in Vienna are actually worth the time.
Hundertwasserhaus
A municipal housing block with no straight lines, uneven floors and trees growing out of the windows — and people still live in it.
The Secession Building
A white cube with a gilded dome of laurel leaves, built in 1898 as a manifesto, holding Klimt's Beethoven Frieze in the basement.
The Spanish Riding School
Four and a half centuries of classical dressage, performed by Lipizzaner stallions in a white Baroque hall.
The Musikverein
The Golden Hall, where the New Year's Concert is broadcast from, and an acoustic that was arrived at largely by accident.
Shopping
TODO — what shopping in Vienna are actually worth the time.
Day Trips
TODO — what day trips in Vienna are actually worth the time.
Neighbourhoods
TODO — what each part of Vienna is like to walk around, and who lives there.
