Vienna is a wonderful, romantic city full of art, an ideal destination for a weekend dedicated to beauty. Every corner of the historic center is delightful and therefore, apart from the most famous monuments, it is enough to simply look around to satisfy the eyes and spirit.
Spending a few days in Vienna, even just for a weekend, is a pleasant way to take a break. To enjoy it to the fullest, you need only two things: book a hotel in the center, preferably in the Innere Stadt, and wear comfortable shoes, because Vienna allows you to see a lot within walking distance, without the need for long and exhausting transfers.
If you have never been to Vienna, you cannot miss its main monuments, the St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Hofburg.
St. Stephen
St. Stephen has medieval origins and its Gothic forms are clearly visible on the outside. Its roof, characterized by zigzag patterns of colored tiles, is one of the city’s landmarks. The interior decoration has undergone successive layers and is predominantly baroque. Just outside the Cathedral, at the beginning of the elegant Graben, is the Pestsaule, a monumental column commemorating the victims of the 1679 plague.
Hofburg: the winter palace of the Habsburgs
The Hofburg is the winter palace of the Habsburgs. Visiting it is essential to learn more about the lives of the legendary Franz Joseph and his wife Elisabeth of Bavaria, better known as Sissi. The tour opens with the Sissi Museum, which displays clothes, jewelry, and writings belonging to the empress, then leads to the imperial apartments. Next to the representative halls, including the beautiful dining room set up for an official banquet, there are the more intimate rooms, such as Franz Joseph’s study and Sissi’s bedroom.
A curiosity: the empress was a great health enthusiast, so her room is equipped with gym equipment for daily exercises. Inside the Hofburg, one can further deepen their knowledge of the imperial world by visiting the silver collection, the State Library, and the Spanish Riding School, where beautiful white Lipizzaner horses are trained.
The Ring is the ring of streets that follows the perimeter of the medieval fortifications. It encloses the Innere Stadt, literally “inner city”, the oldest core of the city. A walk along the five kilometers of the Ring boulevards allows you to admire numerous monuments and relax in the greenery of the various adjacent parks.
Starting from the Schottenring, at the corner with the Danube riverbank, you encounter the Stock Exchange building. Founded by Empress Maria Theresa in 1771, the Vienna Stock Exchange is one of the oldest in the world. At the corner with Universitatsring, the Votivkirche comes into view, a neo-Gothic church erected by Archduke Maximilian as a votive offering for the failed assassination attempt on his brother Franz Joseph. Inside, there is a four-meter-high candle that could remain lit perpetually for one hundred years.
The next boulevard, the Universitatsring, takes its name from the presence of the main headquarters of the University of Vienna. Continuing, one finds the Rathaus, the neo-Gothic city hall, in the square in front of which the Christmas market takes place in December. Opposite the Rathaus is the Burgtheater, the city’s most important theater after the Staatsoper. The ceiling of the grand staircase is frescoed by Gustav Klimt who, together with his brother Ernst and Franz Matsch, early in his career earned a solid reputation as a painter of interiors of monumental public buildings.
Continuing along the Doktor Karl Renner Ring you can admire the neoclassical Parliament building, while on the opposite side you can relax in the Volksgarten, a public park opened in the nineteenth century.
Burgring
The Burgring is one of the most majestic stretches of the Ring: on the right you can admire the twin palace buildings of the museums of Maria Theresien Platz, while on the opposite side opens the square of Heldenplatz with the buildings of the Hofburg followed, on the Opernring, by the Burgarten, a park characterized by a large Art Nouveau greenhouse. The visitor has no respite because immediately after the majestic façade of the Vienna State Opera, one of the most important opera houses in the world, comes into view.
Kartner Ring
Along the Kartner Ring are several of the city’s historic luxury hotels, while on the right of the entire Parkring stretches the Stadt Park, crossed by a canal fed by the Danube. The final boulevard of the Ring, the Stubenring, is devoted to applied arts. Facing it, in fact, is the University of Applied Arts, but above all the MAK, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, with its precious collections of furniture, furnishings, and textiles from the Middle Ages to today.
The boulevard that closes the Ring along the Danube is the Franz Joseph Kai. You can choose to walk along it or enter here into the Wolfgang Schmitz Promenade, the pedestrian walk along the river.
Just beyond the Ring, but still within walking distance, there are other places worth a visit. Just outside the Opernring you can easily access the Secession, the pavilion created by the members of the eponymous artistic movement to exhibit their works. Inside it is visible the Beethoven Frieze, created by Gustav Klimt as a visual accompaniment to the Ninth Symphony by the great German composer.
Just beyond lies the Karlsplatz, characterized by the beautiful baroque Karlskirche, and surrounded by important monuments and museums, such as the Kunsthalle, the Albertina Modern and the Wien Museum, not to mention the Musikverein, the musical association whose theater hosts every year the famous New Year’s Concert.
Continuing beyond Karlsplatz, you reach the Belvedere, the baroque imperial palace that houses a beautiful art collection, whose highlight is the collection of paintings by Klimt, the most important in the world, which also includes The Kiss and Judith.
If you don’t want to miss visiting at least one museum, Vienna offers plenty of choices. The MAK and the Belvedere have already been mentioned. In Maria Theresien Platz two large twin buildings respectively house the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Naturhistorisches Museum. Both founded by Franz Joseph, the former is dedicated to art history, from antiquity to the twentieth century, and is organized into five areas: Egyptian-Oriental antiquities, classical antiquities, Kunstkammer (art objects), picture gallery, and numismatics. Here too, the frescoes of the main staircase are by the brothers Klimt and Franz Matsch. The Naturhistorisches Museum is dedicated to natural history and houses, among others, the Venus of Willendorf, a mother goddess made about 25,000 years ago.
The Albertina is the museum created starting from the graphic arts collection of Duke Albert. Its collection, to which a photographic section has recently been added, is so extensive that most works are presented on rotation, often in thematic exhibitions. Recently, twenty rooms of the original residence have been restored and opened.
Just outside the Ring, the Museums Quartier has been recently created, where the Leopold Museum stands out, with its collection of Viennese artists of the twentieth century, including a large selection of works by Egon Schiele, and the Mumok, the Museum of Contemporary Art focused on the artistic movements of the twentieth century.
Those who love smaller and more specialized museums will not be disappointed either. I would like to mention the Museum of Papyri, unique in its kind, where, among other things, it is possible to admire a very rare Greek musical score of a chorus from Orestes by Euripides.
A pleasant weekend can also include some shopping and time spent at the table. The elegant shopping streets of Vienna are mainly those near the Cathedral: Kartner Strasse, the Graben and Kohlmarkt. Just outside the Ring, starting from the Museums Quartier, there is Mariahilfer Strasse, where you can find the most common high street fashion names.
Among the most typical products of Vienna are the precious Augarten porcelains and chocolate and sweets. Vienna has a real café culture and this experience cannot be missed. One of the best Viennese Cafés is the Cafe Central, in the elegant Palais Ferstel. You can also try the national cake, the Sacher, at the place where it was born, the Cafe of the Hotel Sacher, near the Opera House.
As for cuisine, the most Viennese dish of all is the Wiener Schnitzel, a fried escalope similar to our Milanese. Also very popular are Tafelspitz, beef cooked in wine with spices and vegetables, and dishes of Hungarian origin, such as goulash. These are true culinary staples that you can enjoy everywhere without ever being disappointed by the results.
