48 hours in Vienna

48 Hours in Vienna

Vienna, the home of music, cake, white horses and beautiful buildings - here’s our guide to see all the sights in 48 hours.
8.30am Breakfast – Demel www.demel.at – What better way to start your day than breakfast at Demel. The bakery once supplied the past Royal Family all the cakes and pastries they could eat. You will find it tough to decide what to try first.

10.00am - Bike Riding Tour of the City www.pedalpower.at – I love bike riding tours of cities, it’s a great way to see all the sites and get an overview of the city quickly and without too much energy! For those who find the idea of bike riding a little too much like hard work, Vienna also offers Segway Tours. Apparently they look more difficult to ride than they are. On the morning tour you will see all of the major buildings and sites of Vienna and learn about the history of the city itself. The groups are small and the riding is easy. Lots of stops to talk about the places we are riding past and opportunities to fill up the water bottle.

1.00pm – Lunch- Hotel Sacher www.sacher.com – This famous 5 star hotels is the home to the amazing Sachertorte – a sticky, gooey chocolate cake – is it wrong to eat cake for lunch, surely not after a 3 hour bike ride?

2.00pm – Schoenbrunn Palace http://www.schoenbrunn.at/en/ – A short metro ride away from the city is the beautiful Schoenbrunn Palace, once the Summer Palace of the Hofburgs. You can tour the inside of the Palace and marvel at the apartments of Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife, Elisabeth then onto the apartments once occupied by Maria Theresa. You have the choice of guided tours (check times) or do a self guided tour with an audio guide. The gardens of the palace are immense and the Gloriette is well worth the walk for stunning views of the Palace. You can easily while the hours away in the gardens.

6.00pm – Dinner – Austria is famous for its Wiener Schnitzels, Sauerkraut and ApfelStrudel. I personally am also quite partial to a Gulasch. There are many traditional Austrian restaurants to choose from in Vienna and the tourist information centres will be pleased to help you out with a reservation.

8.00pm – Night at the Opera – Another thing you can’t miss in Vienna is an Opera/ Orchestral evening. Even my boyfriend who skips past Classic FM as quick as he can, said it was the best thing we did in Vienna. The Viennese are proud of their Composers, and they have an impressive list of home grown talent including Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, Brahms to name a few. You will be amazed by how many of the tunes you will already know.

10.30pm – Drinks/dancing – For those who want to continue to night, Vienna has a huge array or bars and clubs to choose from. Anything from Jazz clubs, to stock exchange bars were you pay market prices for drinks depending on their popularity.

12.00pm – Bed – We stayed at the Austria Trend Hotel Savoyen which is an elegant building situated in the heart of Vienna, in the embassy district, next to the Belvedere Garden. http://www.ghotw.com/hotel/home/austria-trend-hotel.htm


9.00am – Breakfast – Enjoy a leisurely breakfast at the hotel before making your way into town.

10.00am – St Stephens Cathedral is a beautiful Romanesque Gothic building which was consecrated in 1147. The interior of the church is quite breathtaking. Coming on a Sunday will also mean that you will see some of the service in full swing. Hopefully you will also get to hear the choir and appreciate the cathedrals acoustics. You can climb one of the two bell towers, one is 136 metres tall and needs to be climbed by stairs and the other is 68 metres tall and you can reach the summit by lift. I opted for the lift and the lift itself was quite an experience.- like stepping into a 1970’s tardis. Here you will enjoy beautiful views over Vienna.

11.00am – Spanish Riding School www.srs.at – the Spanish Riding School is the oldest riding academy in the world. Famed for their White Lipizzaner Stallions, these amazing beasts seemingly dance before your eyes. Performances take place daily at 11am (check times seasonally) and last for one hour. The performance take place in the beautiful Baroque Winter Riding School, which itself is impressive. During the show you will see some of the most difficult and impressive movements a horse and rider can do, which will move any horse lover close to tears. You also have the opportunity to tour the stables and learn more about the horses and their riders behind the scenes.

12.30pm – Lunch – Time for more food. After a big breakfast you may like to grab a sausage from one of the many sausage stands in the street – no trip to Vienna is complete without trying one!
1.00pm – Hofburg Imperial Palace www.hofburg-wien.at – Next to the Spanish Riding School is the Hofburg Imperial Palace. Here you can take a tour of the Hofburgs city home. The tour starts with the Silver Collection. This is an impressive collection of all the palaces kitchenware (quite literally) through the ages. It is an amazing collection of pieces which easily illustrate the fashion of the time. Next you go onto the Sisi Museum. This is a museum dedicated to Elisabeth the very famous but much misunderstood Empress who met a tragic end. Finally you enter the Imperial Apartments, the official residence of the Hofburgs for over 600 years. Wander through the rooms where they entertained, ate, slept and made important decisions on the future of Austria.

3.00pm – The Prater www.vienna.info/Prater – This is essentially a theme park, made famous by the Giant Ferris Wheel which featured in Orson Well’s movie, The Third Man. Take a ride on the old style Ferris Wheel and enjoy incredible views of Vienna and take advantage of the photo opportunities. There are many other rides here guaranteed to make you scream. From experience I will warn you against riding the Prater Tower, the 117 metre chairoplane which wizzes you around on nothing more than a shoestring! After recovering, there are many places to sit back and enjoy a drink and watch other people go green before your eyes.

6.00pm – Transfer to the airport - there is a very good shuttle service www.oebb.at to take you to the airport from central Vienna. The transfer itself takes around 20 minutes.