Austria fits in a week. Choosing what to book does not.
Which Schönbrunn ticket skips the right queue. What a seat in the Musikverein really costs. Whether Hallstatt is worth eleven hours out of Vienna. Reviews of every tour and ticket you can book in Austria.
On the coverSchönbrunn Palace & Gardens Skip-the-Line Tour
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · from $63
A concert, the Lipizzaners, Hallstatt and the Salzburg the film left behind.
The four bookings most Austrian weeks are built around. What each costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The concert nightVivaldi’s Four Seasons Concert in KarlskircheVivaldi under the frescoes at the Karlskirche. The hall is small, the programme is short, and the seats behind the pillars go last.
02The early morningSpanish Riding School TrainingThe Lipizzaner stallions at work in the Hofburg riding hall. Training costs a fraction of the gala and it is the same horses in the same arena.
03The long day outHallstatt & Alpine Peaks Day Trip with Skywalk LiftHallstatt, the Skywalk lift and the lake country, eleven hours out of Vienna. Leave at seven if you want the village before the coaches.
04The Salzburg dayThe Original Sound of Music Tour in SalzburgMirabell, the Leopoldskron terrace, the abbey gate and the gazebo. Sing along or do not, the bus is going either way.
Vienna first, then Salzburg, then whatever the Alps will let you reach.
An imperial capital, a baroque town under a fortress, a valley of ski resorts an hour from the Brenner, a lake district, the Danube vineyards and a second city nobody expects. Six places to build a trip on, and the best day out in each.
In Vienna the evening is the ticket you book first.
Four kinds of concert night sell in this country and they are not the same purchase. What each costs to walk into, and which hall it happens in.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · Mozart Concert at the Golden Hall
Mozart in costumePowdered wigs and arias between the movements, at Schönbrunn or the Golden Hall.
Strauss and the waltzesBallroom programmes with dancers, built for a first night in the city.
A night at the operaFrom a box at the Staatsoper to the standing rail at the back.
MarionettesThe Salzburg puppet stage doing The Magic Flute at full length.
All 77 concert nights in Austria →
The Austrian days out more travellers book than any others.
Every Austrian tour and ticket →One church concert, two palaces and a riding hall carry more bookings than anything else in the country. What each of them costs, and why the order looks like this.
1
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concert in Karlskirche
Spend 75 minutes inside Vienna’s Karlskirche with Orchestra 1756, a period-instrument ensemble performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Expect Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, plus changing works by Mozart, Bach, Biber, or other major composers. Choose your seat carefully, arrive early, and dress for the church’s cold winter air.
From · $40
Read our review →
2
Spanish Riding School Training
from $20
3
Skip-the-cashier-desk-line Giant Ferris Wheel Ride
from $17
4
Schönbrunn Palace & Gardens Skip-the-Line Tour
from $63
5
Light of Creation Votive Church Immersive Light Show
from $25
6
Vienna Spanish Riding School Guided Tour
from $28
7
Classical Concert in the World-Famous Musikverein
from $17
8
The Original Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg
from $90
Vienna: the palaces before lunch, the music after dark.
All of Vienna, reviewed →
Schönbrunn and the Hofburg take a morning each, the Ringstrasse takes an afternoon, and then the city changes shift. These three carry more travellers than anything else inside the Gürtel.
Grand Tour, or the Imperial rooms and out
Twenty-two rooms or forty. The Imperial ticket covers the state apartments; the Grand Tour adds Maria Theresa’s own wing and the Millions Room. The gardens, the Gloriette and the maze cost nothing, so keep them for afterwards.
Bruegel, Vermeer and a basement of Habsburg loot
The Kunsthistorisches holds the largest Bruegel collection anywhere, two floors above an Egyptian and classical antiquities basement nobody warns you about. Go late in the day, once the coach groups have moved on to the Belvedere.
The Naschmarkt, then a wine tavern
Through the Naschmarkt stalls and the delis behind them, then out to a Heuriger where the wine is poured by the quarter litre and the food is sold by weight. Vienna eats late, and so does this.
West of Vienna the country stands up on end.
A fortress over a baroque old town, salt mines cut into the Dürrnberg, an ice cave the size of a cathedral, and lake water that stays cold through August. Salzburg is the door most people use.
Vienna’s best days happen two hours from Vienna.
Hallstatt and the Salzkammergut lakes, the Wachau vineyards by boat, the Danube downstream past Melk, and three foreign capitals close enough to do and be back for dinner. Vienna is a good base partly because of how much is not in it.
What a day out in Austria actually costs.
Every tour and ticket on the site, sorted by price. A surprising number of the best Austrian afternoons come in under the price of lunch on the Ring.
Church concerts, palace admissions, museum entry and the walking tours of the old towns.
The full days out: Hallstatt and the lakes, the Wachau by boat, the Sound of Music run, guided palace mornings.
Private guides, a car over the passes, box seats, and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Six hundred years of one family, and the buildings they left in Vienna.
Schönbrunn was the summer house, the Hofburg the office, the Belvedere a soldier’s trophy and the Treasury the strongroom. Sisi’s apartments are in there too, smaller and sadder than the films suggest.
All Austrian tickets and passes →
Four Austrian bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on performance calendars, mountain seasons and a riding school that trains to its own timetable.
- 01Spanish Riding School TrainingThe stallions perform on a handful of mornings a month and the training sessions sell out first. Nothing extra is added when demand rises.
- 02The Original Sound of Music Tour in SalzburgOne route, two departures a day, and the Salzburg outing everybody else has also planned. Summer mornings go weeks ahead.
- 03Skip-the-Line: Eagle’s Nest in Berchtesgaden Tour from SalzburgThe road up opens around mid-May and closes with the first snow. Out of season there is no way to the top at all.
- 04Private Werfen Ice Cave and Golling Waterfall from SalzburgEisriesenwelt runs May to October, the last cable car down is early, and the ice galleries shut in bad weather.
The Lipizzaners, the ice cave and the gazebo.
Concert halls and mountain views exist all over Europe. A stallion school inside a palace, a cave of ice under the Tennengebirge, and a town that turned one film into an industry do not.
The Spanish Riding School
The Lipizzaner stallions have been schooled inside the Hofburg since the sixteenth century, in a white baroque hall built for nothing else. The horses arrive dark and turn white somewhere around their seventh year. Morning training is the same animals, the same riders and the same arena as the gala performance, at a fraction of the seat price, and you can come and go as you like.
- 1Spanish Riding School Training★★★★★★★★★★ 3.9 · 9,281 reviews
- 2Vienna Spanish Riding School Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 6,765 reviews
- 3Performance Of The Lipizzans At Spanish Riding School★★★★★★★★★★ · 4,190 reviews
Eisriesenwelt
Forty kilometres of cave run into the mountain above Werfen and the first kilometre of it is solid ice, formed where trapped winter air freezes the meltwater that seeps in each spring. You climb roughly seven hundred steps behind a carbide lamp, cameras stay in the bag, and the temperature sits at freezing in the middle of August. Take a coat.
- 1Private Werfen Ice Cave and Golling Waterfall from Salzburg★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 15 reviews
- 2Werfen World’s Largest Ice Caves and Golling Waterfalls Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 7 reviews
- 3Hallstatt & Ice Cave & 5 fingers Private Trip From Salzburg★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 6 reviews
The Sound of Music Tour
The film barely registered in Austria and conquered everywhere else, and Salzburg has been driving the route ever since: Mirabell Gardens, the lake terrace at Leopoldskron, the Nonnberg abbey gate and the gazebo, which had to be moved to Hellbrunn because too many people kept climbing into it. The singing on the bus is not strictly optional.
- 1The Original Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 6,129 reviews
- 2Original Sound of Music Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 5,059 reviews
- 3Hallstatt and Sound of Music Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 522 reviews
Austrian winter shuts the mountain and opens the concert hall.
From November the Eagle’s Nest road is under snow, the ice caves are closed and the lake boats are tied up. Vienna barely notices. The season that empties the Alps is the one that fills the Musikverein, the market stalls on the Rathausplatz and every coffee house with a marble table.
Vienna, the Wachau, Salzburg, Hallstatt, Innsbruck: the run most first trips take.
Vienna
The Wachau
Salzburg
Hallstatt
Innsbruck
GrazBy place, capital to alpine valley
By kind of day, concert hall to cable car
Newly reviewed, Vienna to the Tyrol.
Further back in the reviews →
Zurich: Liechtenstein, Austria and Germany Private Day Tour
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Zurich: Private Liechtenstein, Austria, and Germany Day Trip
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World War II History Vienna Old Town Private Walking Tour
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Villach/Ossiachersee: Paragliding “Action” Tandemflug
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Villach/Ossiachersee: Paragliding “Panorama” Tandemflug
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