Vienna

What Vienna actually is

Vienna is a former imperial capital of about two million people that still runs on the habits of one. It is the wealthiest, the tidiest and by a clear margin the most expensive of the three Central European city breaks people compare, and it is also the most formal. That formality is what visitors misread. Waiters are correct rather than warm, strangers greet each other properly, opera audiences dress, and almost nothing runs on improvisation.

None of this is coldness. It is a service culture where being left alone counts as a courtesy, and once you stop expecting the American style of hospitality, Vienna becomes very easy to be in.

What you actually come for: the Habsburg collections, among the deepest in Europe; a living classical music scene that is not a museum piece; the coffee house as a room you may occupy for three hours; and a city that works.

The Ring, and how the city is arranged

Vienna is a set of rings. The 1st district, the Innere Stadt, sits inside the Ringstrasse, the boulevard built on the line of the demolished city walls. Nearly all of the imperial architecture faces it: the Hofburg, the opera house, the parliament, the town hall, the two great museums opposite each other, the Burgtheater. Trams 1, 2 and D run along it, and a full circuit for the price of a normal ticket is the best-value orientation tour in the city.

Directly outside the Ring sits the MuseumsQuartier, former imperial stables turned into a museum complex, and beyond that the numbered districts spiral outwards. The rule of thumb: the lower the district number, the more central, the more expensive and the quieter at night.

Where to stay

1st district, Innere Stadt

Inside the Ring. Everything on foot, the best addresses, and the highest prices in the city. It is genuinely quiet after nine in the evening because it is offices, shops and hotels rather than homes, which some people love and others find lifeless.

7th district, Neubau

Our usual suggestion. Ten minutes' walk to the museums, the Spittelberg lanes, independent shops along the Burggasse, and a real restaurant scene. Rooms cost noticeably less than inside the Ring and the district still feels lived in.

4th and 5th, Wieden and Margareten

Around the Naschmarkt and the Freihausviertel. Good value, excellent metro links, and the best everyday eating in the inner districts. This is where we send people who want to be near things without paying the 1st-district premium.

2nd district, Leopoldstadt

Across the Danube canal, five minutes from the centre, with the Prater park and the Augarten. Cheaper again, increasingly interesting, and the obvious choice for anyone travelling with children who need somewhere to run.

13th district, Hietzing

Out by Schoenbrunn. Green, calm and residential, with a metro line straight in. Good for families and for a longer stay, wrong if you want to walk home from dinner in the centre.

The coffee house, and how it works

The Viennese coffee house is not a cafe with better cake. It is an institution with rules, and knowing three of them changes the experience.

First, you order a specific coffee, not "a coffee". A Melange is the closest to a cappuccino, a Verlaengerter is a lengthened espresso, a Kleiner Brauner is a small one with a little cream, an Einspaenner comes in a glass under whipped cream. Asking for a coffee gets you a patient look.

Second, the glass of water is not an afterthought, it comes with the coffee and is refilled without asking.

Third, and most important, one order buys the table. Sitting for two or three hours with a newspaper is exactly what the room is for, and nobody will hurry you. The waiter's brevity is part of the same tradition. It is not a complaint about your order.

Music, and what the men in wigs are selling

Vienna is a working music city, and this is where visitors most often spend badly.

The people in eighteenth-century costume selling concert tickets on Kaerntner Strasse and around Stephansplatz promote tourist-oriented ensembles playing greatest-hits programmes in venues like the Kursalon. Some are enjoyable. None are the Musikverein, the Konzerthaus or the State Opera, which is what most buyers assume they are getting for a hundred euros.

The genuine alternative is cheaper, not dearer. The State Opera sells standing places on the day for a few euros at a separate entrance, and you stand in the same house on the same night as the full-price audience. The Musikverein and Konzerthaus sell gallery and restricted-view seats for less than a street-bought Mozart evening.

Getting there and getting around

Vienna International Airport is 18 km southeast. The City Airport Train runs to Wien Mitte in 16 minutes and costs the most; the S7 suburban train takes about 25 minutes for a fraction of that; the Railjet reaches the main station in 15. Taxis are metered and honest but there is rarely a reason to take one.

To be clear about what we do here: we quote your accommodation through partner agencies in Austria. Our own vehicles and drivers operate in Turkey, not in Europe, so a car in Vienna is arranged locally and we say so rather than let it be assumed.

In the city, buy a 24, 48 or 72-hour public transport pass. The network is dense, punctual and covers everything including Schoenbrunn and the Prater.

Hotel stock and what a budget buys

Vienna has an unusually large four-star segment aimed at conferences and older leisure travellers, which means solid, well-kept, slightly conservative hotels with proper breakfasts. Around 78 to 95 EUR per person per night in shoulder season buys that standard just outside the Ring. Around 60 puts you in the 2nd or 15th district with a short metro ride. Above 160 you reach the palace hotels on the Ring itself, which are genuinely grand and priced accordingly.

Apartments are common and often the better answer for families, since Viennese rooms are not large.

When to go, and the expensive weeks

May, June, September and October are the best months: warm without being hot, everything open, gardens at their best.

July and August are hot and busy, but the city empties of locals and rates soften in August.

January and February are ball season. Hundreds of formal balls run through the city, the Opera Ball being the famous one, and hotel prices rise across the whole period. It is a genuine spectacle if that is why you came, and an unexplained surcharge if it is not.

Advent brings large Christmas markets at the town hall, Schoenbrunn and Spittelberg, and rates rise from late November.

November and early March are the quiet, cheap, grey weeks — ideal if museums and concerts are the plan.

Eating, and the Sunday problem

Austrian food is not German food. Schnitzel is veal unless stated, Tafelspitz is boiled beef treated with more respect than that sounds, and the Beisl, the neighbourhood tavern, is where to eat rather than the tourist rooms near the cathedral. Vienna also grows wine inside the city limits, and the Heuriger taverns in Grinzing and Stammersdorf serve the new vintage at long tables.

The one thing to plan for: shops close on Sundays, almost without exception. Restaurants, museums and cafes open, supermarkets do not. Buy on Saturday.

Day trips

Bratislava is an hour by train and makes an easy contrast. The Wachau valley on the Danube, with the abbey at Melk and terraced vineyards, is the classic full day. Baden bei Wien is half an hour south for thermal water.

Who should skip Vienna

Anyone on a tight budget: Prague and Budapest deliver more per euro, and there is no honest way around that. Anyone who wants late, loose, spontaneous nights out, because kitchens close early and the city is orderly by instinct. And anyone who finds formality tiring rather than charming will be happier elsewhere.

Getting a real price

Vienna prices move on congresses, balls and Advent more than on weather, and two dates a fortnight apart can differ by half. That is why we quote each request rather than publish a number.

Send your dates, how many of you there are, and whether you want to be inside the Ring or twenty minutes out with a larger room. A consultant replies within one working day with two or three properties, the real walking distance to the nearest metro, and a note on whether your week collides with a ball or a trade fair. The quote is free, it commits you to nothing, and no payment is taken on this site.