Welcome to Vienna
With its imperial palaces, baroque streetscapes, chandelier-lit Kaffeehuser (coffee houses) and wood-panelled Beisln (bistro pubs), Vienna is infused with history. Yet not only does Austria's capital hold on to its traditions, it incorporates them in everything from design, architecture and contemporary art to eco initiatives and culinary innovations. Vienna's past is alive in its present, and, by extension, its future.
Rooftop view of Vienna | Adisa/Getty Images
ViennaTop Sights
Hofburg
Home to the mighty Habsburg Empire for six and a half centuries, today this monumental palace complex harbours magnificent museums and mesmerising attractions including the Spanish Riding School and the Burgkapelle's Vienna Boys Choir Sunday Mass.
Oliver Haller/500px
Vienna Top Sights
Stephansdom
Gothic architecture reaches its dizzying peak in Vienna's glorious cathedral, which rises in the city's historic heart. Tour the awe-inspiring interior, climb its south tower for radiating views or delve into its skull-and-bone-packed catacombs.
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Vienna Top Sights
Kunsthistorisches Museum
A treasure trove of art amassed by the Habsburgs fills Vienna's artistic jewel, the neoclassical Kunsthistorisches Museum. Its pice de rsistance is its Picture Gallery, which is packed with priceless Old Master paintings.
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Vienna Top Sights
MuseumsQuartier
Former imperial stables have been transformed into Vienna's MuseumsQuartier. It brings together museums showcasing a wide spectrum of art, innovative performing arts venues and public spaces including courtyards, cafes and bars.
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Vienna Top Sights
Naturhistorisches Museum
Sitting opposite the Kunsthistorisches Museum in a matching neoclassical building, the Naturhistorisches Museum time travels through four billion years of fascinating natural history illustrated through meteorites, dinosaurs and prehistoric and zoological displays.
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Vienna Top Sights
Staatsoper
A roll-call of composers, including Mozart, Beethoven and Mahler, lived and worked in Vienna, and this City of Music's premier opera house, the lavish neo-Renaissance Staatsoper, is the ultimate place to catch a performance.
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Vienna Top Sights
Schloss Belvedere
A baroque masterpiece, Schloss Belvedere lives up to its name 'beautiful view' in its tiered gardens overlooking Vienna's skyline and in the dazzling palace itself, which shelters the world's largest Klimt collection.
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Prater
Amid the rambling woodlands, meadows and chestnut-shaded avenues of central Vienna's largest park are the Wrstelprater's whirling fairground attractions crowned by Vienna's iconic 1897-built Ferris wheel, the Riesenrad.
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Vienna Top Sights
Schloss Schnbrunn
Painted a sunny 'Schnbrunn Yellow', the Habsburgs' 1441-room summer palace is a Unesco World Heritage-listed wonder with opulent baroque interiors and spectacular formal gardens.
Schlo Schnbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H./Koller
ViennaLocal Life
Insider tips to help you find the real Vienna
With its fairytale palaces and horse-drawn Fiaker carriages, all of Vienna could be a film set. Behind the scenes you'll encounter Viennese locals at design ateliers, backstreet boutiques, hidden venues, hip cafes, canal-side beaches and Schanigrten (pavement terraces).
Other great places to experience the city like a local:
An Evening Out on the Town
Illuminated streetscapes
Local specialities
Vienna's historic centre overflows by day with workers, shoppers and sightseers but come nightfall, the crowds abate and the area offers a slice of Viennese life, when locals stroll the sepia-lit streets, stopping for a glass of regional wine, hearty Austrian cuisine, and strudel in a classic Kaffeehaus (coffee house).