Vienna
An imperial capital on the Danube, its old town ringed by a nineteenth-century boulevard, with two kitchens holding three stars and a train to the centre in sixteen minutes.
- Arrival
- Vienna International · VIE
- To the city
- About 16 minutes to Wien Mitte by City Airport Train
- Private jets
- General Aviation Terminal at VIE, three FBOs
- Best time
- May to September
The city
The Ring, the palaces and the opera.
In the second half of the nineteenth century Vienna pulled down its bastions and laid the Ringstrasse in their place, a boulevard of opera, museums and palaces around the old town. The Habsburgs summered at Schönbrunn, and Klimt's The Kiss hangs at the Belvedere.
May to September is the season, warm without being heavy, with the longest evenings in June and July. Eighteen restaurants in the city hold a MICHELIN star, and the grand hotels of the Ring are still the places to stay.
Arriving
Schwechat, eighteen kilometres out.
Vienna International lies at Schwechat, 18 km south-east of the centre, with two runways of 3,500 and 3,600 metres and more than 32 million passengers in 2025.
- Rome 1 h 20
- Geneva 1 h 25
- Ibiza 2 h 25
- Marrakech 3 h 55
- Mumbai 8 h 00 long-range jet
When to go
May to September.
Continental: cold winters, warm summers. May to September is the season; July is the warmest month and June the wettest, and winter highs barely clear freezing.
- 2° J 31
- 4° F 32
- 10° M 35
- 16° A 43
- 20° M 62
- 23° J 72
- 26° J 68
- 25° A 61
- 21° S 42
- 15° O 37
- 8° N 46
- 3° D 36
What to see and do
Days in and around Vienna.
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Landmark
Schönbrunn
The summer palace of the emperors, and the most visited sight in the city.
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Landmark
The Belvedere
A baroque palace and gallery, home to The Kiss by Gustav Klimt.
-
Landmark
The State Opera
Burned in the war and reopened in 1955, on the Ring at the edge of the old town.
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Culture
Kunsthistorisches Museum
Opened on the Ring in 1891, the picture gallery holds ten paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, among them The Hunters in the Snow.
Official site -
Opera & music
Musikverein
Since its inauguration in January 1870 the Great Hall, with 1,744 seats, has been home to the Vienna Philharmonic and its New Year's Concert.
Official site -
Culture
Spanish Riding School
Lipizzaner stallions perform classical dressage, and train at morning exercise, in the baroque Winter Riding School of the Hofburg, built for Charles VI.
Official site -
Culture
Albertina
About 65,000 drawings and a million old master prints, Dürer's Young Hare among them, are kept in this former Habsburg palace by the Hofburg.
Official site -
Nature
Kahlenberg
At 484 metres in the Vienna Woods, this hill above Döbling gives a view over the whole city and is reached by the 38A bus.
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Food & wine
Mayer am Pfarrplatz
In Heiligenstadt since 1683, this Heuriger pours its own Viennese wines next to the house where Beethoven lived in 1817.
Official site
Where to stay
Palaces of the Ring.
Shown for information. We have no arrangement with any of these hotels.
- Hotel Sacher Wien Founded by Eduard Sacher in 1876 behind the State Opera, home of the original Sachertorte, and the only hotel in Vienna with three MICHELIN Keys.
- Anantara Palais Hansen Vienna Theophil Hansen designed the palais for the World's Fair of 1873; renovated and rebranded, it gained a second Key this year.
- Hotel Imperial Built on the Ring as the residence of Duke Philipp of Württemberg, with OPUS, starred again in 2026, on the ground floor.
- Mandarin Oriental, Vienna The Art Nouveau former Commercial Court of 1908, opened as a hotel in December 2025.
- Park Hyatt Vienna The former headquarters of the Austro-Hungarian bank, with a fifteen-metre pool in the old vaults.
- Rosewood Vienna A bank building of the 1830s, opened as a hotel in 2022, with the façades of the old town at the windows.
- Hotel Sans Souci Wien A minute from the MuseumsQuartier, with original Roy Lichtenstein works in the suites and a long pool beneath chandeliers.
- The Amauris Vienna Sixty-two rooms in a Ringstrasse palace near the Opera, the old staircase and its original lift kept.
- Palais Coburg Thirty-six suites in a neoclassical palace built on the old city walls, whose six wine cellars hold more than 60,000 bottles.
Where to dine
Two tables with three stars.
From the MICHELIN Guide 2026, shown for information. We have no arrangement with any of these restaurants.
- Amador Three Michelin stars Creative €€€€ Grinzinger Straße, Döbling
- Steirereck im Stadtpark Three Michelin stars Creative €€€€ Stadtpark, Landstraße
- Doubek Two Michelin stars Creative €€€€ Josefstadt
- Konstantin Filippou Two Michelin stars Modern €€€€ Dominikanerbastei, Innere Stadt
- Mraz & Sohn Two Michelin stars Creative €€€€ Brigittenau
- Silvio Nickol Gourmet Restaurant Two Michelin stars Modern €€€€ Palais Coburg
- Edvard One Michelin star Creative €€€€ Anantara Palais Hansen
- TIAN One Michelin star Vegetarian €€€€ Himmelpfortgasse, Innere Stadt
- Z'SOM One Michelin star South American €€€€ Wieden
Elsewhere in Austria
More reasons to come.
- Salzburg Mozart's birthplace, and the festival every summer.
- Kitzbühel The Streif, the most feared downhill of the World Cup, raced every January.
- Lech A village that caps the number of skiers on its slopes.
- St. Anton The cradle of alpine skiing, at the other end of the Arlberg.
- Innsbruck The golden roof of the old town, and Alps at the end of every street.
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