As a first time visitor to Vienna, it makes good sense to see the major landmarks but it doesn't mean you can't also venture away from the historic city center (District 1) and glimpse everyday Vienna. The list below includes both options, and this map will help you find each specific location.
1. Visit the Kunsthistorisches Museum: No doubt, a trip to Vienna for its museums alone is worth it. Above all stands the Kunsthistorisches, showcasing masterpieces by old masters such as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Giovanni Bellini, Raphael, Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Peter Paul Rubens, and Diego Velázquez. (Here, some of my favorites.)
The museum consists of Habsburg collections, especially from the art-loving Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612), and the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (1614-1662). The Kunstkammer, on the ground floor, features strangely wonderful objects that fascinated the royal family, and marble busts to study the famous "Habsburg Jaw."
2. Visit the Leopold Museum: The Leopold Museum celebrates Vienna 1900, the city's flourishing period that produced pioneering artists and art movements. Those interested in the paintings of Richard Gerstl, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Oskar Kokoschka shouldn't miss out. Visitors can also learn about the architecture of Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos, as well as the Austrian arts and craft workshop, the Wiener Werkstätte.
3. Visit the Albertina Museum: The Albertina Museum holds Central Europe's leading collection of modern art, covering the period from impressionism to 1930s surrealism. There are holes and gaps, but you'll find paintings by Manet, Matisse, Modigliani, Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Paul Klee, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Egon Schiele, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, René Magritte, and Marc Chagall among others.
The museum is also known for its drawings by old masters that were purchased by the passionate collector Duke Albert of Saxen-Teschen (1738-1822), whose former residential palace houses the museum today.
4. Visit the Austrian Gallery at the Belvedere: You don't need me to tell you that Gustav Klimt's widely famous painting, The Kiss, is located in the Belvedere Gallery. I'm here to remind you that this stunning Baroque palace, once the summer home of Prince Eugene Savoy, is an Austrian National Gallery of sorts with other treasures, too. For example: charmingly imperfect medieval paintings; Gothic winged altars; strange Biedermeier works by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller; masterpieces by the brilliant Richard Gerstl. And so much more!
5. Experience Vienna’s traditional cafe culture: Ornate interiors fitted with high ceilings and oversized windows, suit-and-tie-wearing waiters, elegant customers lingering with the physical paper over a cup of coffee and an apple strudel. This isn’t a portrayal of long-ago Vienna, but a scene from the present day. Countless traditional coffeehouses still serve as important social hubs for local residents. Journalists, artists, politicians, businesspeople – everyone has their go-tos. These are my favorites.
6. Tour the Austrian Parliament for free: After a five-year renovation, the Austrian House of Parliament has recently reopened to the public and offers free guided tours upon advance registration. The tours take about an hour and show visitors the striking Hall of Pillars and both of the main chambers. Built in the 1870s, the Greek style of the building together with the statue of Pallas Athena and ancient historians outside it betray the secular liberal culture of its time (this period of liberal constitutionalism didn't last very long).
7. Walk around the Imperial Palace (Hofburg): The seat of the Habsburg court and the political center of the Monarchy for centuries, the enormous Imperial Palace dominates the heart of Vienna. Today, these spacious Baroque and neo-Baroque halls are home to nearly a dozen museums, such as the Imperial Treasury, the House of Austrian History, the Austrian National Library, the Sisi Museum, and the Spanish Riding School. Since 1946, the Leopoldine Wing houses the office of the Austrian President.
8. Try a traditional Austrian restaurant: Viennese food is a collection of dishes from territories once under the Habsburg imperium: schnitzel from northern Italy, knödel from the Czech parts, goulash from Hungary, and so on. Many restaurants – gasthaus or beisl – serve up excellent versions of these hefty plates. Delicious offal dishes, such as roasted veal liver (kalbsleber), also prominently feature on menus and no meal is complete without a Kaiserschmarrn or a palatschinken dessert with a side of fruit preserves. My favorites.
9. Roam Vienna’s Baroque City Center: People think of Rome as the capital of Baroque, but Vienna isn’t far behind. Fueled by the counter-reformation movement and a general sense of euphoria after the 1683 defeat of Ottoman Turkey, stunning churches and Baroque palaces sprung up in Vienna’s city center (District 1). Roaming the streets will give you a sense, but specific examples include the Karlskirche, the Court Library, Eugene Savoy’s summer palace (Belvedere), Palais Kinsky, Palais Liechtenstein, and Palais Trautson. They were designed by the two court architects and arch-enemies: Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt.
10. Visit the Habsburg summer palace: If you haven’t tired of the Habsburgs yet, I recommend you take the half-hour journey by public transport to Schönbrunn, the ruling family’s summer residence on the Vienna outskirts. The endless Baroque and Rococo halls are predictably grand and glamorous, and the living quarters can be notably revealing – such as the subdued study of the workaholic Emperor, Franz Joseph (1830-1916). The palace’s enormous garden is accessible for free and fun to explore, especially the Gloriette and the “Roman ruin,” and there’s even a zoo there.
11. Kohlmarkt – Graben – St Stephen’s Church: These Viennese landmarks near one another appear in every guide book for good reason. The Kohlmarkt and the Graben, two upscale shopping streets, connect the Imperial Palace (Hofburg) with St. Stephen’s cathedral. The church is free to enter and the beautifully carved Gothic-style pulpit and the Baroque altarpieces, including the exuberant high altar at the end of the nave, are more than worth going inside.
12. Take in Vienna’s architecture: Vienna has a layered architectural past, ranging from Gothic churches to slick contemporary buildings by the likes of Zaha Hadid. I’m most taken by the Baroque palaces of the city center, by Otto Wagner’s brand of Viennese Secession, by the early modern houses of Adolf Loos, and by the funny and daring postmodern style of the recent past. Here, you can find all of my favorites.
13. Stroll through the Ringstrasse: In the 1850s, Emperor Franz Joseph decided to knock down the medieval city walls and fortification bastions to make space for an elegant boulevard – Ringstrasse – between the historic city center and what used to be the suburbs.
The architectural style was a mishmash from earlier periods, as evidenced by the Greek style Parliament building, the Renaissance university, and the Gothic City Hall. At a leisurely pace, it takes less than an hour to walk from one end (Shottenring) to the other (Otto Wagner’s famous Postsparkasse building). There are plenty of cafes in between, both prominent (Cafe Landtmann) and under-the-radar (Aggys).
14. Visit the smaller museums: In addition to the great museums of Vienna, see above, it’s also worth venturing to the less popular collections. The Austrian History Museum presents the country’s post-Habsburg period, the Architecture Center sheds light on Vienna’s successful social housing system, the Beethoven Museum brings alive the life of the composer, while the Jewish Museum details Vienna’s long and tragic Jewish past.
15. Go to a classical music concert: You shouldn't leave the city of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Strauss, Mahler, and Schönberg without attending a classical music concert or an opera. The Musicverein, known for its famous New Year's concert of the Vienna Philharmonic, is a good place to start, but the Wiener Konzerthaus and the State Opera also have excellent performances.
16. Stroll through the Central Cemetery (Zentralfriedhof): If you enjoy roaming among the graves of the famous, add Vienna’s picturesque garden cemetery to your itinerary. Some of the heavyweights who rest here include composers Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert, Arnold Schönberg, György Ligeti; architects and designers Michael Thonet, Theophil Hansen, Friedrich Schmidt, Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos; writers Arthur Schnitzler and Franz Werfel; and politicians Bruno Kreisky and the controversial Karl Lueger.
A few tips: take the tram to Tor 2, the main entrance; the scenic graves line the main path in sections 14, 15 and 32, 33; round out your visit at Concordia Schlössl, with famously good schnitzels, or at the excellent pastry chain Oberlaa, right within the cemetery.
17. Pay tribute to Vienna’s Holocaust memorials: Before the Holocaust, Vienna had the third largest Jewish community in Europe (after Warsaw and Budapest). As elsewhere, Jews punched above their weight, giving the country countless scientists, intellectuals, artists, and businessmen, people such as Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Arthur Schnitzler, Joseph Roth, and Stefan Zweig.
Austria has just recently started to grapple with its complicity in the Shoah, when 65,000 Viennese Jews were murdered in death camps with active support from the local population and many more expelled from the country. These memorials serve as reminders.
18. Spend time in the Volksgarten: Vienna's most precious park, the Volksgarten, can feel like being in a fairy tale. But those dramatic backdrop buildings – the Burgtheater, the Imperial Palace, the Thesuses Temple, the Court Museums – turn out to be more than just stage design. Not to mention that incredible sycamore tree in the center. There are hundreds of roses, each with a short and often poignant message provided by its patron ("Mom, we miss you every day."). In the warmer months, the park doesn't close until 10 p.m. Take advantage of that, perhaps with beer in hand.
19. Beers and pork knuckles in the Prater: Even if ferris wheels and noisy amusement parks don't get you excited, there are valid reasons to visit the Prater in good weather. This enormous public park is home to the Schweizerhaus, for example, an oversized and perennially busy beer garden famous for its Czech Budweiser, crispy pork knuckles, poppy seeds dumplings, and other delicious local favorites. (Here, more Prater recommendations from a local.)
20. Watch The Third Man at the Burg Kino: Based on a Graham Greene script, The Third Man (1949) features post-WWII Vienna under British, French, Soviet, and American occupation. The movie delivers quotable lines by the black-market hustler Harry Lime, played memorably by Orson Welles, but it's also a shocking visual portal into the war-ravaged city. Pristine Vienna reduced to so much rubble by American bomber jets and Soviet troops? You're bound to wonder. The Third Man plays every Tuesday at the charming Burg Kino movie theater (in English, with German subtitles).
21. Visit a Heuriger: Wines may not be the first thing you conjure up about Vienna, but the Austrian capital is the only metropolis in the world with sizable vineyards – 650 hectares or 1,600 acres – right within its city limits. Imagine if grapes for wine were grown in Manhattan. The places to try them in the outdoor season are the Heurigers, unpretentious wine taverns, some of them high up on the hillside. Gemischter Satz is the local specialty, made from different grape types (Grüner Veltliner, Riesling, Weissburgunder) that were grown and harvested together.
22. Experience Vienna's new-wave coffee culture: Vienna’s traditional cafe culture is alive and well, see above, but the city isn’t immune to global trends. Third-wave coffee shops are rapidly increasing in number, exhibiting the typical trappings of such establishments: light-roasted coffee beans, sleek minimalist interiors, fashionable baristas sporting tattoos and a mustache. It’s fun to compare and contrast old and new.
23. Enjoy the Viktor-Adler Market: Spending time only in downtown, you wouldn’t think how diverse Vienna is. For a glimpse of the less well-known side of the city, head to the Viktor Adler market in District 10 where Yemeni cafes, Turkish köfte vendors, Bulgarian grocery stores, Afghani spice retailers, and low-priced sausage stands share the lively premises alongside sellers of fruits and vegetables.
Grab a lahmacun – flatbread topped with minced meat, veggies, and spices – and tea at Aliman, then crown your trip with snacks and a wine spritzer at Prokes bar. If you like the vibes here, note two other similar markets: Brunnenmarkt and Hannovermarkt.
24. Enjoy the farmers' market at Karmelitermarkt: Parts of Leopoldstadt (District 2), Vienna's old Jewish quarter near the city center, are today hubs of gentrification. The upscale farmers' market on Karmelitermarkt is symbolic of the neighborhood's transformation from its post-war working-class origins.
Every Saturday morning, an army of artisan vendors camp out here, including bread, cheese, and honey producers, high-end butchers, makers of fruit juices and preserves, bio vegetable farmers, and winemakers. Compared with the Viktor Adler market, above, things are more polished and pricey here. (Speaking of Viennese markets, most famous is the Naschmarkt, which I find overpriced and overtouristed.)
25. Go to a sausage shop: Sausages are essential to Central European food culture as a trip to Vienna can quickly manifest. Würstelstands are food kiosks where people stand elbow-to-elbow while wolfing down a roast pork sausage with a side of mustard, kaiser roll, and a can of beer. These low-priced establishments are open until the wee hours and often most frequented well past midnight. These are a few of my favorites.
26. Prep with a book for your Vienna trip: Whether it's juicy gossip about the family that ruled the city for more than six hundred years; a haunting novel about the twilight years of the monarchy; or a book about the toxic Viennese intellectual climate that shaped the young Adolf Hitler – a bit of prep reading can make your trip more meaningful and contextual. Here are ten titles that helped me most. (You can also buy many of these books in Vienna, at the frustratingly pricey English-language bookstore, Shakespeare & Company.)
27. Grab a drink at a local bar: One of the best ways to gauge a city and its people? Visit a local bar (or supermarket)! Vienna offers plenty of inviting drinking joints. Many are located outside the historic city center (District 1) – most Viennese don’t live there – but easily accessible on foot or by public transport.
28. Picnic at the Augarten: Sitting in the grass, reading, and basking in the sun – if this sounds nice, you might want to stop by Augarten during the warmer months. It was the benevolent people’s emperor, Habsburg Joseph II (1741-1790), who turned the royal hunting ground into a public park anchored by the Baroque Augarten Palace (home to the Vienna Boys' Choir) and the neighboring Augarten Schloss (home to the famed porcelain manufacturer). Those two giant grim concrete towers? They’re a relic from WWII: air-defense structures erected during the Nazi rule.
29. Visit the Donau City: A flood zone for centuries, the northern bank of the Danube River was developed only in the 1970s, starting with a headquarters for the United Nations. The area has since transformed into a major corporate center, with soaring office buildings of banks, insurance companies, and consulting firms.
The 60-story DC Tower, Vienna’s tallest, is also here. These steel-and-glass skyscrapers can feel soulless and dystopian, but this too is contemporary Vienna. The area is easily accessible with the U1 subway line from downtown.