A Two-Trip Guide to Vienna (2020 & 2023)

We spent five weeks in Vienna in 2020 and came back for a week in 2023. That's six total weeks in a city that most people visit for three days on a European whirlwind. Six weeks is enough to learn a city's rhythms. Where the locals eat. Which neighborhoods feel different at night than during the day. Which coffeehouse has the best strudel (it's Cafe Central, and I'll die on this hill). Here's everything we'd tell you before you go.

We tried three hotels across both trips:

Hilton Vienna Park sat on Am Stadtpark, directly across from the park with the golden Johann Strauss statue. This was our main base on both trips. The location is central, the rooms are reliable, and the park is right there for morning coffee walks. It's not exciting. It's consistent, which for a long stay matters more.

The Levante Parliament near the Austrian Parliament building had more personality. Contemporary art in the rooms, a rooftop terrace overlooking the Ringstrasse, and the kind of small-hotel energy where the front desk remembers your name by day two. Under $250/night, which for a hotel this central in Vienna is strong value. If we'd stayed here for the full five weeks I think it would've been the better choice, but we were bouncing between hotels because of availability.

FourSide Hotel & Suites was fine. The room was fine. The location was fine. The multi-month refund fight with Hotels.com afterward was not fine. Lesson learned and passed along: book direct with the hotel. Always. Especially for stays longer than two nights. The booking platforms protect themselves, not you.

Our pick: The Levante for shorter stays. The Hilton for longer ones. Both are central to everything.

Figlmuller is the schnitzel. The one that hangs off the plate. The Wollzeile location is the original, open since 1905. We went three times across two trips. The line is always there. The schnitzel is always worth it. Pounded thin, golden, crispy, served with a lemon wedge and a potato salad that nobody talks about because the schnitzel dominates the conversation. Don't overthink it. Get in line. Order the schnitzel.

Cafe Central is the most famous coffeehouse in Vienna. Marble columns, vaulted ceilings, a pianist in the afternoon, and a crowd that's half tourists and half Viennese regulars who've been coming here since before you were born. The apple strudel with vanilla sauce is the order. We went twice, once in 2020 and once in 2023, and the strudel was identical. The pianist was different. The marble hadn't moved. Vienna.

Steirereck is two Michelin stars, inside Stadtpark in a glass-and-steel building overlooking a lake. This was the best fine dining meal we've ever had. The char with beeswax. The bread trolley (yes, a bread trolley, and I was more excited about it than I expected to be). The wine pairing was Austrian-focused and every glass was a discovery. Reserve well ahead. Dress well. Bring someone you want to sit across from for three hours.

Mraz & Sohn was our 2023 find. Two Michelin stars in a neighborhood that looks like it shouldn't have any. The tasting menu is inventive without being pretentious, playful without being silly. It's the kind of restaurant that makes you realize the food scene in Vienna goes much deeper than schnitzel and strudel.

10er Marie is a Heuriger (wine tavern) in the hills above the city. The house wine is produced on-site, the food is rustic Austrian (cold cuts, spreads, fresh bread), and the terrace overlooks Vienna's rooftops at sunset. G called it her favorite meal in Vienna, which, given that we ate at Steirereck on the same trip, is a strong statement. But I get it. There's something about sitting on a hillside above a city you love with a glass of wine that was grown right there and a plate of food that somebody's grandmother made. That's hard to beat.

Mayer am Pfarrplatz is another Heuriger, this one in Beethoven's former apartment. Live music some evenings. The wine is good. The history is better. You're drinking in a room where Beethoven lived. Vienna does this constantly: wraps history into everyday life so casually that you forget you're sitting in a building where a symphony was written.

Naschmarkt is Vienna's main outdoor market. Over 100 stalls stretching several city blocks. Turkish, Middle Eastern, Austrian, Italian, Japanese. Saturday mornings are the peak: get there before 10 AM or the crowds make it hard to eat standing up. The falafel stands are excellent. The cheese vendors are better. The whole market operates at a pace that rewards browsing, which is Vienna's general approach to most things.

Schonbrunn Palace is the Habsburg summer residence. 1,441 rooms. The gardens are free and enormous and include a maze that's fun for about 20 minutes. The Tiergarten Schonbrunn on the grounds is the oldest zoo in the world (founded 1752) and worth a visit even without kids.

Hofburg Palace is in the city center. The Imperial Treasury inside has the crown jewels and one of the most impressive collections of medieval artifacts in Europe. The rooms go on forever and each one has something you want to look at for longer than you planned.

Belvedere Palace houses Klimt's "The Kiss" and the building itself, an 18th-century Baroque palace with gardens sloping toward the city, is as impressive as the art inside. The upper floors have views of Vienna's skyline that are worth the ticket price on their own.

The Ringstrasse is the boulevard that circles the old city. Walk it. It takes about an hour and passes the Parliament, the Opera, the Burgtheater, the University, and the Museums Quarter. Every building was designed to impress, and 150 years later, they still do.

The Heuriger villages (Grinzing, Nussdorf, Neustift) are wine villages in the hills at the edge of the city, reachable by tram. Vineyards, cobblestone streets, views of Vienna below. This is what Viennese people actually do on warm evenings: take the tram to the hills, drink local wine at a tavern with a terrace, and watch the sun go down over their city. It's the best evening activity in Vienna and most tourists miss it entirely because they're watching an opera.

The Vienna Card is worth it for stays longer than two days. Unlimited public transit plus museum discounts.

The coffee culture is real. You don't order coffee to go in Vienna. You sit down. You order a melange (the Viennese cappuccino). It arrives on a silver tray with a glass of water on the side. You read a newspaper or a book or nothing. You stay as long as you want. Nobody rushes you. Nobody checks if you want the bill. You sit until you're done sitting. This is the opposite of every American coffee experience and it takes about two days to adjust and then you never want to go back.

German helps but isn't necessary. Everyone in the service industry speaks English. But learning "Gruss Gott" (hello) and "danke" (thanks) goes a long way, and Viennese people appreciate the effort even when they immediately switch to English.

Go in spring or fall. May-June and September-October are the sweet spots. Summer is crowded and hotter than you'd expect. Winter is beautiful but cold in a way that Canadian me found manageable but G found offensive.

Vienna is the most livable city we've visited. Five weeks proved it in 2020. A return trip in 2023 confirmed it. The coffee, the food, the public transit (clean, efficient, honor system), the parks, the music, the architecture. It operates at a pace that lets you think. G has said "when are we coming back?" about many places. Vienna is the one where we actually went back.

Read more: 2020: Vienna: Five Weeks in the City That Became Ours, 2023: Back to Vienna (With a Side of Prague)