Give Vienna three nights for the Habsburg collections, the Ringstrasse and an unhurried afternoon in a coffee house. After that the country splits four ways along the rail network. West to Salzburg for the baroque old town, then the Salzkammergut lakes at Hallstatt and on to Innsbruck, where the Nordkette cable cars start in the middle of town. South to Graz, the second city and the one with the Styrian kitchen, with Klagenfurt and the Carinthian lakes beyond it. East along the Danube through the Wachau vineyards at Krems and Melk. May, June and September are the easiest months. Skiers come between December and March and travel a different map entirely.
2 Austria city guides
Fun fact
Austria logged 157.3 million overnight stays in 2025, the highest figure since records began in 1974, against a resident population of nine million. Vienna alone passed 20 million nights for the first time.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realitySame language, different country, and Austrians will tell you so. The vocabulary diverges on the everyday words (Jänner for January, Erdäpfel for potatoes, Paradeiser for tomatoes), the republic has been constitutionally neutral since 1955 and joined the EU in 1995 without ever joining NATO, and the cooking, the greeting and the shape of an afternoon all read Central European rather than northern.
The realityThe film is a Salzburg industry and barely registers with Austrians, most of whom have never seen it. Take the bus tour if you want it. Then walk back into a city that is really about Mozart, baroque churches and a fortress on the hill, and a country whose own musical export is the waltz.
The realitySummer is the bigger season. The 2025 summer half-year drew 83.4 million overnight stays against 74.2 million across the 2025/26 winter. Lifts run for hikers and mountain bikers from June, the lakes of the Salzkammergut and Carinthia warm up properly, and the cities are at their best in May, June and September.
The realityA ski week in February is, and the rest of the year is not. Vienna sits below Zurich and Munich on everyday costs, public transport is heavily subsidised, and the Gasthaus lunch menu is one of the better-value meals in western Europe. The country rail pass costs €1,400 a year from 1 January 2026, which is what a car costs to insure.
The realityEnglish is normal in the cities and in every ski and lake resort, and thinner in villages and on farms. The thing that actually changes an encounter is the greeting: Grüß Gott in the west and south, Servus among friends, Guten Tag in Vienna. Walking in silent is what reads as rude.
How to fit in
- Greet the room. Grüß Gott in the west and south, Servus among friends, Guten Tag in Vienna. Entering a shop, a waiting room or a small restaurant without a word is the local definition of rude.
- Titles are used in full and are not a joke. Herr Doktor and Frau Magister turn up on doorbells, in emails and at the bank.
- Tip by saying the total you want to pay as you hand the money over, rather than leaving coins on the table. Around ten percent in restaurants and cafés, rounding up elsewhere.
- Shops close on Sundays and public holidays by law, with bakeries, station shops and petrol stations as the exceptions. Do the food shopping on Saturday.
- Carry cash. Cards work everywhere in the cities and are still refused at plenty of Gasthäuser, mountain huts, markets and small bakeries.
- Quiet hours in apartment buildings are taken seriously: no drilling, no washing machine and no noise late at night, and neighbours will say so.
- Waste is sorted at the bin, glass by colour, and the deposit on drink bottles and cans is reclaimed at a supermarket machine.
Famous Austrian faces
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Empress Maria Theresa
Sigmund Freud
Gustav Klimt
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Hedy Lamarr
Falco
Niki Lauda
Franz Schubert
Johann Strauss II
Gustav Mahler
Egon Schiele
Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Erwin Schrödinger
Karl Landsteiner
Christoph Waltz
Michael Haneke
Romy Schneider
Marcel Hirscher
Anna Gasser
David Alaba
Stefan Zweig
Elfriede Jelinek
Thomas Bernhard
Empress Elisabeth
Bertha von Suttner
Bruno Kreisky
Must-try Austrian food
Wiener Schnitzel
Veal, pounded thin, crumbed and fried in butterfat. Ordered with potato salad, not fries.
Tafelspitz
Beef simmered in broth and served with apple horseradish and chive sauce. The emperor's dish, still on every Beisl menu.
Rindsgulasch
Vienna's take on the Hungarian original: onions, paprika and beef cooked down to a dark sauce.
Backhendl
Fried chicken, Styrian in origin and a Sunday standard nationwide.
Semmelknödel
Bread dumplings, the answer to any sauce on the table.
Käsekrainer
A sausage shot through with melting cheese, eaten standing at a Würstelstand after midnight.
Beuschel
Veal lung and heart in a sharp cream sauce with a dumpling. The Beisl dish that separates visitors from regulars.
Käsespätzle
Egg noodles layered with mountain cheese and fried onions. The Tyrolean and Vorarlberg hut lunch.
Tiroler Gröstl
Potatoes, bacon and onion crisped in a pan, with a fried egg on top.
Kaspressknödel
Flattened cheese dumplings, usually floating in clear beef broth.
Kaiserschmarrn
Shredded pancake with icing sugar and plum compote, big enough to be lunch.
Steirisches Kürbiskernöl
Dark green pumpkin seed oil with a protected origin, poured over salad and vanilla ice cream alike.
Käferbohnensalat
Runner beans, onion and pumpkin seed oil, the salad Styria puts beside everything.
Sachertorte
Dense chocolate cake with apricot jam under the glaze, and a decades-long legal fight over whose version is original.
Apfelstrudel
Pastry stretched thin enough to read a newspaper through, then apples, raisins and cinnamon.
Marillenknödel
A whole Wachau apricot inside a potato dough dumpling, rolled in buttered crumbs.
Salzburger Nockerl
Three baked soufflé peaks, shaped after the mountains above the city.
Grüner Veltliner
Austria's signature white: peppery, dry and built for schnitzel.
Sturm
Cloudy, half-fermented grape must, sold for a few weeks each autumn and gone again.
Wiener Melange
Espresso, hot milk and foam, served on a silver tray with a glass of water.
Almdudler
The herbal soft drink Austrians order instead of a cola, and mix with beer.
