The Private Traveller

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Vienna Unveiled: A 72-Hour Journey Through Austria's Imperial Jewel

The Private Traveller

Day 1 (Schönbrunn Palace)

On our first day I had booked tickets to go and visit Schönbrunn Palace (https://www.schoenbrunn.at/en/), this was located about a 20 minute drive from our hotel, Hotel Sacher Wien. It was so easy to get there, there was a wide range of Uber vehicles readily available (https://www.uber.com/gb/en/). We had to book a specific time slot for visiting the inside of the Palace (15 minute slots) albeit as we were there slightly early we were told we could enter up to 10 minutes in advance. I booked the tickets on the main website, this was €40 each but also included the audio guide and entrance to the Schönbrunn Zoo (the oldest, still operating, zoo in the world), the Desert House and the Palm House.

This 1-day 4-attraction ticket was called the Winter Pass (Be aware, there are two tours available for the main Palace - Imperial and Grand. We had booked the more complete Grand Tour which took about an hour (40 stops on the audio guide), but there was an extra ticket check about 2/3rds of the way round where the Imperial tour broke off early. The Grand tour (more info here was scheduled for about an hour; the shorter 22 room Imperial tour scheduled for about 30-40 minutes (you can find out about that tour here).

During the Palace tour you weren’t allowed to take any photos or video, even without flash so I don’t have anything to show here - it was incredible however and well worth a visit, albeit some of the rooms did get exceptionally busy and we had to join a couple of large queues (even with our pre purchased tickets online) to get into the area where the audio guides were given out. These were available in many different languages, were very modern (just like a very narrow, elongated mobile phone) - very clear to hear (you just put the speaker to your ear) and easy to operate. Throughout the Palace 40 of the rooms had a number noted and you just pressed that and a start button to get the commentary for that particular room, albeit a few of them were blank.

After we toured the Palace (which took about an hour) we then walked through gardens to the Zoo. Although the entrance from the Palace gardens looked a bit unloved (and deserted) once inside we realised how big the zoo was and how many different animals there were - too long to list, but did include giraffe, zebra, elephants, sea lions, penguins, koalas, rhino etc.   The full map is shown here and can be accessed via this weblink.

We had lunch in the Café Atelier Nonja, right next to the orangutans. This was a modern eatery with great food choices, good table service and fair prices. Maybe it was all the walking but a toasted cheese sandwich with delicious fries and tomato sauce was just the ticket!

After that  we then visited both Desert house and the Palm house, which we included within our tickets.

We got the Subway back to the hotel, this was easy to navigate (once we got our bearings and realised which direction we wanted to go in); and easy to buy tickets from an automated machine where you could change the language to English. Trains were frequent, clean and well organised and we were back within a short walking distance of our hotel before we knew it.

Hotel Sacher Wien

You can read all about this amazing property in my detailed hotel review here .

Day 2 (The Spanish Riding School & Christmas Markets)

After another sumptuous breakfast in the Hotel Sacher Wien we walked about 10 minutes to the Spanish Riding School where we had booked tickets for the Lipizzaner stallion horse show - you can visit training sessions during the week but at weekends (and perhaps other days too) you can see the full show to music. You can find out more here and this was also where I booked too https://www.srs.at/en/

Although I had booked weeks before our arrival, as it was an exceptionally busy time on Vienna at Christmas, we couldn’t get the seats we would have ideally wanted. We were located in the Hoflage section on the first level (Royal Box), which  faces the length of the show ground and you can the horses entering from the doors at the far end of the showground. In this section there were 7 rows and 7 seats on each side of the aisle. We had two seats in the second row, but ideally you would want to be in the front row for the best unobstructed view and there is a clear glass balustrade. Unfortunately, the woman in front of me kept on her large woolly hat and also had a child sitting on her lap, so somewhat blocking the view. Everyone was asked not to take any photos or video throughout the show, so I don’t have any photos of the performance (although quite a few people did).

There were also other seating areas around both the first floor level (and there an area directly below us with the same configuration (you can see the floor plans here), as well as on an upper second level - the prices will vary and there are seating and standing options, some with partial restricted views. It was the most wonderful experience, not only were the horses and riders amazing, the setting (which must be the most elaborate showground in the world) was so dramatic with excellent lighting including three massive chandeliers which rose up into the ceiling between performances and then back down again when new horses entered. The show concluded with an amazing finale of 8 horses, just wonderful.

After the horse show, we walked about 10-15 minutes to City Hall where there was (I believe) the biggest Christmas market in Vienna. Like the market at Schönbrunn there was a really decent selection of stalls, including some with the largest iced buns I’ve ever seen (and which were absolutely amazing). Next to this Christmas market was a large ice skating rink, albeit it was a series of pathways as opposed to being a large open rink. This had the advantage of skaters being able to be diverted to other paths when the ice machine was repairing the ice on others. Stupidly, I didn’t take any photos but you can read about it here, along with ticket information - it all seemed extremely well organised being able to have bought tickets in advance or to buy them from a vast number of self-service machines to the side of the rink. Access was automatically controlled from electronic barriers at the entrance.

After this we walked to St. Stephen’s Cathedral (http://www.stephanskirche.at) but it was exceptionally busy inside and quite uncomfortable - although it was free, it would be so much better to try and limit the amount of tourists inside at one time. Once inside, you could pay extra for a tour, albeit this just seemed to give access to the actual pulpit area which was much quieter.

For lunch, we tried to get into a very traditional restaurant just down from the main Cathedral but there were so many people waiting for tables and it all seemed quite disorganized that we gave up and went elsewhere for pizza!

Day 3 (Albertina Museum)

On our third day (our flight wasn’t until late afternoon and the hotel gave us a confirmed late check-out and the airport was only about a 20-30 minute drive depending on traffic) we went to visit the Albertina Museum (https://www.albertina.at/en/), located just opposite the Hotel Sacher Wien. I booked tickets in advance online (but only at breakfast that morning) but this was so worth doing as it avoided quite a considerable queue to enter for tickets - if you already had tickets you could enter straight away. The cost was €17.90 for adults, €12.90 if over 65, free for children up to and including 18.

It was incredibly hot and very busy in many of the exhibitions, but thankfully there were ample lockers and coat check areas so that we didn’t have to walk around with our large winter jackets. If I would recommend one (sorry, two things for the museum) it would be to limit the amount of people entering the specific Albrecht Dürer exhibition area (currently only on until 6th January 2020) and also for someone to speak to the greeter in the museum café, who seemed in desperate need of some manners and an understanding of what customer service should be. After our tour around the museum we needed to at least get a cold drink, so we went to the museum café. We joined a short queue, only to find when the greeter came to us and I asked for a table of four that she just replied with “No chance” - when I asked her to repeat this, she said it again, no apology or explanation. When I asked if she knew how rude she was coming across, she just said (in perfect English, so there no chance of a “lost in translation” moment”) “tough, we’re full”.

On the ground floor you went down a well-designed dual escalator to the basement for the Andy Warhol exhibition albeit we could only see one of his works. It turned out this was just a general exhibition on until 13th April 2020.

Vienna Restaurants

It was an exceptionally busy time in Vienna, so hard to get into restaurants. We should have had these booked well in advance. We did however end up in a great restaurant (Sole) just on the off chance. We passed by on the street and it looked good, as did the menu, but when we went into the main restaurant they said they were full. They did offer the bar area next door as an alternative, this seemed less atmospheric to begin with, but once other diners came it ended up being really good, and the food was delicious (and excellent friendly service too). On another night we ate at a fantastic Thai restaurant (Patara) - link at the bottom of the page.

All in all a great long weekend destination, and at a fabulous festive time of year. I wasn’t a fan of the Laudamotion flights (more so by the managing carriers [Ryanair] appalling customer service) but when leaving the international airport there was the most amazing sky that I couldn’t help but add to the blog (there are no filters here).

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