--- title: "Austria travel guides, city by city | Wimup" description: "Austria on Wimup: Top 10 city guides, what to know before you go, when to visit, and the food, faces and clichés worth knowing first." url: https://wimup.com/country/austria type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-06 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10s across Austria Two thirds of the country is **Alps**, the rest is **imperial cities and vineyards**, and a rail pass ties the whole thing together. Austria is small enough to cross in a day and detailed enough to spend a month on. ## Quick answer Give **Vienna** three nights for the Habsburg collections, the Ringstrasse and an afternoon in a coffee house. Then follow the rail lines. West to **Salzburg**, the lakes at **Hallstatt** and **Innsbruck**, where the Nordkette cable cars start in town. South to **Graz** for the Styrian kitchen, with **Klagenfurt** and the Carinthian lakes beyond. East along the Danube through the **Wachau** at **Krems and Melk**. **May, June and September** are the easiest months. Skiers come from December to March. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** May · Jun · Sep - **Ideal length:** 7–10 days - **Budget per day:** $120–200 - **Language:** German - **Getting around:** ÖBB rail & city trams - **2** City guides - **9,219,113** People - **1** Video guide - **9** States Austria travels best on the train, because the east and the west are two different trips. Vienna anchors the east with the Habsburg collections and the coffee houses, and Graz sits south of it as the second city and the Styrian food capital. The middle carries Salzburg, the lakes of the Salzkammergut and the start of the high country. The west runs into Tyrol and Vorarlberg, where the valleys narrow and the season decides everything: ski lifts from December, hiking huts from June. ## 2 Austria city guides 1. [Graz](https://wimup.com/city/graz.md): Europe · 10 picks 2. [Vienna](https://wimup.com/city/vienna.md): Europe · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 9,219,113 - **Area:** 83,878 km² - **Density:** 109.9 / km² - **Capital:** Vienna - **Major cities:** Vienna, Graz, Linz, Salzburg, Innsbruck - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Currency:** Euro (€) Austria has used the euro since 2002. Cards work across the cities and the chains, but Gasthäuser, mountain huts, markets and small bakeries still take cash, so keep notes on you. - **Language:** German Austrian German has its own everyday words (Jänner for January, Erdäpfel for potatoes), and each region sounds different. English is widely spoken in cities and resorts, less in villages. - **Calling code:** +43 - **Power:** 230V, 50Hz, plug types C and F - **Emergency:** 112 112 reaches everything and is answered in English. The national numbers still work: 133 police, 144 ambulance, 122 fire, and 140 for mountain rescue, which is the one to save before a hike. - **Visa:** Schengen, 90 days Visa-free short stays for most Western passports, 90 days in any 180. EU and EEA citizens move freely. The EU's ETIAS is not yet in force, so check its status close to your trip. - **Getting around:** ÖBB trains Trains reach almost everything, and the Railjet links Vienna, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. City trams, U-Bahn and buses share one ticket. The KlimaTicket Ö covers the whole country for €1,400 a year. - **Tipping:** Round up, about 10% Say the total you want to pay as you hand the money over. Leaving coins on the table is not the local habit, and neither is calculating to the cent. - **Sundays:** Shops close, by law Retail shuts on Sundays and public holidays, except bakeries, station shops and petrol stations. Museums, cafés and restaurants stay open, so plan only the supermarket run. ## When to visit - **Jan** (peak) - **Feb** (peak) - **Mar** (good) - **Apr** - **May** (best) - **Jun** (best) - **Jul** (peak) - **Aug** (peak) - **Sep** (best) - **Oct** (good) - **Nov** - **Dec** (good) ## 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 - **Myth:** Austria is a smaller Germany **Reality:** Same language, different country, and Austrians will tell you so. Everyday words diverge (Jänner for January, Erdäpfel for potatoes), the republic has been neutral since 1955 and joined the EU in 1995 without joining NATO, and the cooking and the greetings read Central European. - **Myth:** It is all The Sound of Music **Reality:** The 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. - **Myth:** The Alps mean Austria is a winter destination **Reality:** Summer is the bigger season. The 2025 summer half-year drew 83.4 million overnight stays against 74.2 million in the 2025/26 winter. Lifts run for hikers and mountain bikers from June, the lakes warm up properly, and the cities are at their best in May, June and September. - **Myth:** Everything is Alpine-expensive **Reality:** A 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 national rail pass costs €1,400 a year from 1 January 2026. - **Myth:** Nobody outside Vienna speaks English **Reality:** English 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. - 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 naming the total you want to pay as you hand the money over. 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**: Composer, born in Salzburg in 1756 - **Empress Maria Theresa**: The only woman to rule the Habsburg lands in her own right - **Sigmund Freud**: Founder of psychoanalysis, at Berggasse 19 in Vienna - **Gustav Klimt**: Painter of the Vienna Secession, and of The Kiss - **Arnold Schwarzenegger**: Bodybuilder, actor and Governor of California, from Thal near Graz - **Hedy Lamarr**: Hollywood actor and co-inventor of frequency-hopping radio - **Falco**: Took a German-language song, Rock Me Amadeus, to number one in the United States - **Niki Lauda**: Three-time Formula 1 world champion, then an airline founder - **Franz Schubert**: Wrote more than 600 songs before dying at 31 - **Johann Strauss II**: The waltz king, and The Blue Danube - **Gustav Mahler**: Symphonist, and director of the Vienna Court Opera for a decade - **Egon Schiele**: Expressionist draughtsman, dead at 28 in the 1918 flu - **Friedensreich Hundertwasser**: Painter and architect of the crooked, colour-blocked Hundertwasserhaus - **Erwin Schrödinger**: Nobel laureate in physics, and the cat - **Karl Landsteiner**: Identified the human blood groups, Nobel Prize 1930 - **Christoph Waltz**: Two Academy Awards, both for Tarantino films - **Michael Haneke**: Twice won the Palme d'Or, for The White Ribbon and Amour - **Romy Schneider**: Vienna-born star who played Empress Elisabeth, then spent a career escaping her - **Marcel Hirscher**: Eight consecutive overall Alpine World Cup titles - **Anna Gasser**: Snowboarder, Olympic big air champion in 2018 and 2022 - **David Alaba**: Vienna-born defender, Bayern Munich then Real Madrid - **Stefan Zweig**: Novelist and memoirist of the vanished Habsburg world - **Elfriede Jelinek**: Nobel laureate in literature, 2004 - **Thomas Bernhard**: Novelist and playwright who made a career of provoking Austria - **Empress Elisabeth**: Sisi: reluctant empress, and the country's most reproduced face - **Bertha von Suttner**: Peace campaigner, first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize - **Bruno Kreisky**: Chancellor through the 1970s and the architect of modern Austrian politics ## 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 with apple horseradish and chive sauce. The emperor's dish. - **Rindsgulasch**: Vienna's take on the Hungarian original. Onions, paprika and beef cooked down dark. - **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 at a Würstelstand after midnight. - **Beuschel**: Veal lung and heart in a sharp cream sauce with a dumpling. The regulars' Beisl dish. - **Käsespätzle**: Egg noodles layered with mountain cheese and fried onions. The Tyrolean 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 of protected origin, poured on salad and 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 long legal fight over it. - **Apfelstrudel**: Pastry stretched thin enough to read through, rolled round 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. ## By theme - [Skiing & snowboard](https://wimup.com/skiing.md) ## Films - [Graz on Foot](https://wimup.com/watch/graz.md), 1:01:26 ## FAQs ### Do you need a visa for Austria? Austria is in the Schengen area. EU and EEA citizens need nothing. US, UK, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and Japanese passport holders travel visa-free for 90 days in any 180, on a passport valid three months beyond departure. The EU's ETIAS travel authorisation has not started yet, so check whether it applies before you fly. ### When is the best time to visit Austria? May, June and September for the cities, the lakes and the hiking, with long light and manageable crowds. December to March for skiing, which peaks over the February school holidays. April and November are the two months to avoid: the lifts stop, and a good share of mountain hotels and huts close between seasons. ### How many days do you need in Austria? Seven to ten. Three nights in Vienna, two in Salzburg with a day in the Salzkammergut, and two or three in Innsbruck or Graz depending on whether you want mountains or a second city. Everything on that route is a train ride, so nothing is lost to driving. ### Is Austria expensive to visit? Less than Switzerland, roughly level with Germany, and more than its eastern neighbours. Plan around $120 to $200 per person per day mid-range. A Gasthaus lunch menu and a rail ticket cost far less than the equivalents in Zurich, and a ski resort in February costs considerably more than either. ### Do you need a car in Austria? No. ÖBB trains reach every city on this page, the Railjet links Vienna, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck, and buses cover the valleys the rails do not. If you do drive, buy the motorway vignette before the first ramp, and expect winter tyres to be a legal requirement in snow. ### When is the ski season in Austria? Most resorts run from early December to around Easter, with the reliable weeks between January and mid-March. Glacier areas in Tyrol and Salzburg open earlier in autumn and hold on later in spring. Book February around the school holidays or avoid them entirely. ## Related countries - [Italy](https://wimup.com/country/italy.md) - [France](https://wimup.com/country/france.md) - [All of Europe](https://wimup.com/europe) Part of [Europe](https://wimup.com/europe.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.austria.info/en?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Getting around](https://www.oebb.at/en/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.