Vienna keeps the palaces. The rest of Austria keeps the water.
Which Schönbrunn ticket actually skips the queue. What a seat in the Golden Hall costs. Whether Hallstatt is worth the long day out of Vienna or the short one out of Salzburg. Reviews of every tour you can book in Austria.
A concert, a palace, a lake and a riding school.
The four bookings a first week in Austria is built around. What each costs, and what the travellers who went say about it.
01The first nightVivaldi’s Four Seasons Concert in KarlskircheVivaldi played by a small ensemble under the dome of Karlskirche. Take the early sitting and eat afterwards.
02The palace morningSchönbrunn Palace & Gardens Skip-the-Line TourTimed entry into the state rooms, then the parterre and the walk up to the Gloriette. Go at opening; the coaches land at eleven.
03The day outHallstatt & Alpine Peaks Day Trip with Skywalk LiftThree hours each way to a lake village, with the lift up to the Skywalk on the same ticket. The long day that earns itself.
04The cheap seatSpanish Riding School TrainingMorning exercise instead of the full performance. Same stallions, same hall under the chandeliers, a fraction of the price.
Vienna and Salzburg do most of it. Innsbruck, Hallstatt and Graz do the rest.
An imperial capital, a baroque old town under a white fortress, a valley city with a cable car at the end of the tram line, a lake village on every postcard, and a southern town with red roofs and a serious market. Five bases, and the best day out from each.
In Vienna the evening comes with a ticket, and the ticket comes with a hall.
Mozart in powdered wig, Vivaldi under a baroque dome, a Strauss orchestra with dinner in front of it. Three kinds of Austrian evening, what a seat costs in each, and which city they happen in.
The best Austrian day usually starts with a three-hour drive.
Hallstatt wedged between a lake and a cliff, the abbey at Melk looking down the Wachau vineyards, the Eagle’s Nest on its ridge over the Bavarian border, and the Danube running east past all of it. None of them are close. All of them go out and back inside a day.
Vienna: the palace before ten, the concert hall after seven.
Everything in Vienna →
Schönbrunn opens at eight and stays calm for about an hour. The Hofburg holds the crown jewels and the Sisi rooms in the middle of town. Between the two sit the riding school, the coffee houses and a concert every night of the week.
Schönbrunn: state rooms, or the whole estate
The shorter tour covers twenty-two rooms, the longer one forty. Either way the parterre, the maze and the climb to the Gloriette sit outside the ticket and stay open late.
The Lipizzaners, at training prices
The full performance runs a handful of times a month and sells out. Morning exercise runs most weekdays in the same white hall with the same stallions, for a fraction of the seat price.
A church, an ensemble, ninety minutes
Karlskirche, the Musikverein, St Anne’s and a dozen palace halls all sell tickets for the same night. The hall decides the sound, the ensemble decides the programme, and the price follows both.
Four Habsburg addresses, and two of them fit in one day.
Schönbrunn out at the edge of the city, the Hofburg and its treasury in the middle of it, the Belvedere holding the Klimts, and the Kunsthistorisches holding everything else the family collected. Buy the entries separately and pick the two you actually want.
The days out more travellers book than any other in Austria.
Every Austrian tour we have reviewed →The tours that carry the most travellers in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
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 vivid violin playing, church acoustics, and changing works by Mozart, Bach, or Biber. Choose seats carefully, arrive 30 minutes early, and dress for the temperature.
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
What a day in Austria actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A concert seat and a palace entry both come in under the price of dinner.
Church concerts, palace entries, walking tours and the long coffee-house afternoons.
The full days out: Hallstatt and the Wachau by coach, the Sound of Music round, dinner with an orchestra.
Private drivers, small-group day trips over the border, and the one evening in a proper box seat.
Three things that only happen in Austria.
Palaces and orchestras exist all over Europe. A stallion school still training the way it did in 1565, a film tour a whole city plays along with, and Mozart performed in wig and breeches do not.
The Spanish Riding School
The white stallions come from Piber in Styria, learn for six years and perform under the chandeliers of a hall Charles VI built for horses. Full performances run a few times a month and go early. Morning exercise runs most weekdays to piano music, and the guided tour of the stables and hall runs when neither does.
- 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
The Sound of Music Round
The film was shot across half of Salzburg and the lakes east of it, and the city has run the circuit since 1965: the Mirabell steps, the Leopoldskron lake, the gazebo at Hellbrunn, and the church at Mondsee where the wedding was filmed. Austrians mostly have not seen the film. They will still sing on the bus.
- 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
Mozart in Costume
Vienna sells two different evenings under one word. The costumed Mozart and Strauss concerts in the palace halls play the greatest hits in period dress with singers and a couple of dancers. The church and Musikverein concerts play a straight programme in a hall built for the sound. Both are real orchestras; only one is a show.
- 1Mozart Concert at the Golden Hall★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,986 reviews
- 2Mozart Concert at Mirabell Palace★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 3,498 reviews
- 3Mozart and Strauss Concert at Schönbrunn★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,364 reviews
Four things in Austria you cannot book on the day.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on performance calendars, mountain road seasons and half-hour entry slots that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Spanish Riding School TrainingThe stallions perform a handful of times a month and the hall seats a few hundred. Training mornings sell out too, only later.
- 02Skip-the-Line: Eagle’s Nest in Berchtesgaden Tour from SalzburgThe bus road up to the Kehlsteinhaus runs from late spring to late October. Outside that window there is no way up.
- 03Schönbrunn Palace & Gardens Skip-the-Line TourEntry runs on timed half-hour slots with a cap on each one. The quiet slots, early and late, go first.
- 04Mozart Concert at the Golden HallOne hall, one orchestra, one night. When a date is gone there is no second sitting.
Salzburg is a fortress, a river and a film set the city still plays along with.
The old town fits inside a bend of the Salzach and takes an afternoon on foot. What takes longer is the ring around it: Mondsee and its church, the lake road east, the salt mines, and the Bavarian border twenty minutes west.
Every Salzburg day out →
Innsbruck puts a cable car at the end of the tram line.
The old town is small, painted and covered in baroque signage. Twenty minutes above it the Nordkette drops straight away into the Inn valley, and the snow line sits over the rooftops into May. West of the city the Ötztal handles the rafting and the paragliding, and Wattens does the crystal.
- 1Tyrolean Evenings Family Gundolf in Innsbruckfrom $45
- 2Swarovski Crystal Worlds Admission Ticket in Wattensfrom $30
- 3Top of Innsbruck: Roundtrip Cable Car Ticketfrom $59
Rain over Vienna, snow on the passes: the day moves indoors.
Austria gets weather, and it arrives fast. A wet afternoon in the capital and a closed mountain road in the Tyrol have the same answer: a gallery, a palace, a church with a concert in it, or a marble table where nobody minds how long you sit.
Vienna, the Wachau, Hallstatt, Salzburg, Innsbruck: the line almost everybody follows.
Vienna
The Wachau
Hallstatt
Eagle’s Nest
InnsbruckBy place — the capital, the lakes and the Tyrol
By kind of day — hall, palace, lake or table
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