Vienna Travel Guide

Hallo Vienna 👋🏻 I think I love you! My first time visiting this city and already dancing through the streets 💃🏼✨

A photo posted by Alex | California (@alexandra_carson) on Sep 22, 2016 at 7:51am PDT

Vienna, Austria offers travelers the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of all those dead guys you read about in your freshman year university classes. Home of Freud, Beethoven, Mozart, Mendel, Vienna (known to the locals as Wien) straddles the line between history and modern life.

The feeling one gets from walking through the city is quite unique. You can look to the left and see a building that was erected more than 700 years ago and then look to your right and see a brand new Dolce & Gabbana store.

Our time in Vienna was amazing thanks to our friend, and Vienna local, Vivian! Vivian not only hosted us at her lovely apartment but also played tour guide for us all around the city of Wien.

Gathering our favorite parts of our trip, we put together this Vienna Travel Guide that ought to help you have an amazing experience when you visit Vienna!

Vienna Travel Guide

What to do in Vienna

• Schonbrunn Palace
• Hofburg Palace
• St. Stephen’s Cathedral
• Vienna Museum of Natural History
• Imperial Treasury
• Austrian National Library
• Volksgarten
• Imperial Butterfly House
• Check out this random array of umbrellas (above and below photos)

Having you to walk through life with is the best gift I could ever imagine @alexandra_carson

A photo posted by ✈️ Couple’s Coordinates (@michael_j_gallagher) on Oct 11, 2016 at 6:24pm PDT

Where to eat in Vienna

Vienna is great for finding simple foods like schnitzel all around town. Fortunately for us, every meal that we had in Vienna was delicious, especially the gelato! The gelato almost made us feel like we were back in Italy for a minute.

Here are our favorite restaurants in Vienna:

• 7stern – Our favorite breakfast cafe in town. For those of you with an appetite, get the Big Easy. It comes with a “breakfast burrito” (more like an omelet, though, not sure why they call it a burrito), smoothie and some other treats
• Fuhrich – This restaurant is actually owned by the aunt of our friend Vivian! They serve traditional Viennese plates such as schnitzel with potatoes. Another delicious option includes their risotto. You’ll also be very pleased if you sit down extremely hungry because they offer you a plate of bread, veggies, thick cut bacon, and olive oil with a carafe of water with basil and lemon to wash it down.
• Eissalon Tuchlauben – HANDS DOWN the best gelato we have found outside of Italy. This place is remarkable.

Perfect spot on a rainy day! ☺️☔️ Took a yoga class in Vienna with @surfing_pocahontas and @michael_j_gallagher and the whole class was taught in German! Such a wonderful experience! It’s amazing how it really doesn’t matter what language you speak, we all speak the language of the world. When you listen with your heart and soul that’s really all you need to understand one another. 🙏🏻💛✨

A photo posted by Alex | California (@alexandra_carson) on Sep 23, 2016 at 7:17am PDT

Where to stay in Vienna

As mentioned, we got a bit of a local experience, staying with our friend Vivian.

Although, Airbnb is a great option, as are these hotels:

• Vienna Marriott
• Hotel Altstadt
• Hotel Sans Souci
• The Guesthouse
• Hotel Rathaus
• Palais Hansen Kempinski

Getting around Vienna

Vienna is wonderfully walkable. However, if you’re not so keen on walking, Vienna’s got your back. Vienna’s public transportation system is fantastic. Both above and below ground trains are both on time and efficient.

You can buy day passes to ride public transportation (although they do not check tickets or patrol for riders without tickets.