Lonely Planet Vienna , livre ebook

Vienna

Contents

Plan Your Trip

Welcome to Vienna
Vienna's Top 10
What's New
Need to Know
First Time Vienna
Top Itineraries
If You Like...
Month By Month
With Kids
Like a Local
For Free
Guided Tours & Walks
Eating
Coffee Houses & Cake Shops
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities

Explore

Neighborhoods at a Glance
The Hofburg & Around
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Stephansdom & the Historic Centre
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
Karlsplatz & Around Naschmarkt
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
The Museum District & Neubau
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
Alsergrund & the University District
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Schloss Belvedere to the Canal
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Sports & Activities
Prater & East of the Danube
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Sports & Activities
Schloss Schonbrunn & Around
Sights
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Day Trips from Vienna
Salzburg
Krems an der Danau
Melk & Around
Sleeping

Understand

Understand Vienna
Vienna Today
History
City of Music
Visual Arts & Architecture
Vienna in Print & on Film

Survive

Transport
Arriving in Vienna
Getting Around Vienna
Directory AZ
Discount Cards
Electricity
Emergency
Gay & Lesbian Travellers
Internet Access
Insurance
Money
Opening Hours
Public Holidays
Telephone
Time
Toilets
Tourist Information
Travellers with Disabilities
Visas
Language
Vienna Maps
Stephansdom & The Historic Centre
Hofburg & Around
Karlsplatz & Around Naschmarkt
Museum District & Neubau
Alsergrund & the University District
Prater & East of the Danube
Schloss Belvedere to the Canal
Schloss Schonbrunn & Around

Table of Contents

Behind the Scenes
Our Writers

Special Features

Klimt in Vienna
Welcome to Vienna

Baroque streetscapes and imperial palaces set the stage for Vienna's artistic and musical masterpieces alongside its coffee-house culture and vibrant epicurean and design scenes.

Café Griensteidl | Jorg Hackemann/Shutterstock ©

Imperial Architecture
Vienna's imperial grandeur is the legacy of the powerful Habsburg monarchy. Their home for more than six centuries, the Hofburg palace complex, incorporates the Burgkapelle (Imperial Chapel), where the Vienna Boys' Choir sings Sunday Mass, and the famed Spanish Riding School, where Lipizzaner stallions perform elegant equine ballet, along with a trove of museums, including in the chandeliered Kaiserappartements (Imperial Apartments). Other immense palaces include the baroque Schloss Belvedere and the Habsburgs' 1441-room summer residence, Schloss Schönbrunn, while 19th-century splendours such as the neo-Gothic Rathaus (City Hall) line the magnificent Ringstrasse encircling the Innere Stadt (inner city).

Masterpiece-filled Museums
One of the Habsburgs' most dazzling Rinsgstrasse palaces, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, houses the imperial art collection. It's packed with priceless works by Old Masters, and treasures including one of the world's richest coin collections. Behind the Hofburg, the former imperial stables have been transformed into the innovative MuseumsQuartier, with a diverse ensemble of museums, showcasing 19th- and 20th-century Austrian art at the Leopold Museum to often-shocking avant-garde works at the contemporary MUMOK. Meteorites, fossils and prehistoric finds fill the Naturhistorisches Museum, while exquisite furnishings at the applied-arts Museum für Angewandte Kunst are also among the artistic feasts in store.

Soul-stirring Music
With a musical heritage that includes composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Josef Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss (father and son), Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler, among countless others, Vienna is known as the City of Music. Its cache of incredible venues where you can catch performances today include the acoustically renowned Musikverein, used by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the gold-and-crystal main opera house, the Staatsoper, and the multistage Konzerthaus, as well as the dedicated home of the Vienna Boys' Choir, MuTh. Music comes to life through interactive exhibits at the captivating Haus der Musik museum.

Renowned Drinking & Dining
The Viennese appreciation of the finer things in life extends to its opulent coffee-house 'living rooms' serving spectacular cakes; its beloved pub-like Beisln dishing up hearty portions of Wiener Schnitzel, Tafelspitz (prime boiled beef) and goulash; elegant restaurants; and its fine Austrian wines served in vaulted Vinothek (wine bar) cellars, and in rustic vine-draped Heurigen (wine taverns) in the vineyards fringing the city. Local and international delicacies fill the heady Naschmarkt stalls, and creative chefs are experimenting with local produce and fresh new flavour combinations in innovative, often repurposed venues.


Why I Love Vienna
By Catherine Le Nevez, Writer
With its rambling palaces, winding cobbled lanes, elegant Kaffeehäuser (coffee houses) and cosy wood-panelled Beisln , Vienna is steeped in history. Yet it's also at the cutting edge of design, architecture, contemporary art, and new directions in drinking and dining. What I love most about the city is that not only does it hold on to its traditions, it incorporates them in everything from high-fashion Dirndls (women's traditional dress) with pop-art motifs or punk conical studs to handmade Sacher Torte –flavoured doughnuts and inspired neo-retro cafes. Vienna's past is alive in its present, and, by extension, its future.
Vienna's Top 10

Schloss Schönbrunn
1 The magnificent rococo former summer palace and gardens of the Habsburgs are a perfect place to experience the pomp, circumstance and gracious legacy of Austria's erstwhile monarchs. A visit to 40 of the palace's lavishly appointed rooms reveals the lifestyle and the eccentricities of Europe's most powerful family. Beyond the palace, Schloss Schönbrunn Gardens invite a stroll past pseudo-Roman ruins, along bucolic paths winding through leafy woods and a stopover in the gardens' highlight, the Gloriette, with mesmerising views of the palace and city beyond.


© Schloß Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H. / Koller

Vienna's Top 10

Kunsthistorisches Museum
2 The jewel in Vienna's artistic crown is its Kunsthistorisches Museum . As well as accumulating vassal lands, the Habsburgs assembled one of Europe's finest collections of art and artefacts. Housed inside a majestic neoclassical building, the highlight of this incredible cache is the Picture Gallery, an encounter with a vast and emotionally powerful collection of works by grand masters, such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder's evocative and 'industrial' Tower of Babel from the 16th century or the bright plenitude of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's Summer.


Hercules Milas/Alamy ©

Vienna's Top 10

Prater & Ferris Wheel
3 Rising above the beautiful green open spaces of the Prater, the 1897-built Riesenrad Ferris wheel, where Graham Greene sent his fictional character Harry Lime for a slow rotation in the 1949 film The Third Man, is a Viennese icon. A ride takes you high above the Prater, giving you a bird's-eye view of the city and the expanse of wooded parkland and meadows, which you can explore on inline skates, by bicycle or on a walk after hitting ground level.


Maylat/Shutterstock ©

Vienna's Top 10

Schloss Belvedere
4 Living up to its Italianesque name 'beautiful view', this 18th-century palace and garden ensemble is deceptively close to Vienna's city centre while still creating a feeling of being worlds apart. Symmetrical, finely sculpted and manicured gardens overlooking Vienna's unfolding skyline connect two exquisite palaces dedicated to a who's who of Austrian art. Gustav Klimt's painting The Kiss is a highlight. The masterpieces on display are complemented by interiors so stately that they're worthy of a visit in their own right.


Dziewul/Shutterstock ©

Vienna's Top 10

Ringstrasse Tram Tour
5 For a spin around Vienna's architectural highlights, jump on a tram and travel along the Ringstrasse , one of Europe's most magnificent streets. This circular boulevard of imposing state buildings, palaces and majestic hotels was carved out of the space once occupied by fortifications protecting Vienna from Ottoman Turk attack in the 16th century. The monumental 19th-century masterpieces now rise up along the flanks, encircling most of the central Innere Stadt and separating the centre from the character-laden Vorstädte (inner suburbs).


Adamsov Studio/Shutterstock ©

Vienna's Top 10

Hofburg Palace
6 The imposing former wintering ground of the Habsburg monarchs for over 700 years not only has a fine collection of museums, it's also a living palace that today is home to the Austrian president, Austria's National Library and public offices (and is the temporary home of the Austrian Parlament). A leisurely stroll through the palace complex is an encounter with one gracious building, statue and square after another, taking in highlights such as the Swiss Courtyard, the grotesquely proportioned Heldenplatz, and diminutive arches of the Outer Palace Gate.


Volksgarten | Roman Babakin/Shutterstock ©

Vienna's Top 10

Vienna Boys' Choir
7 When Maximilian I founded the Wiener Sängerknaben (Vienna Boys' Choir) in 1498 he replaced castrati with young boys whose voices had not broken, creating the world's most celebrated choir. Today the celestial tones of this choir echo through the Burgkapelle (Imperial Chapel) of the Hofburg, where the choir performs