VIENNA Travel Guide: Must-Knows Before You Visit!

Ep.66 Vienna packs a punch. It's not subtle, but it is surprising. We share our best tips so you can get the most out of everything it has to offer, including where to stay, what to eat, and how to navigate to all the beautiful locations of this classical and culture-filled city.

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Chapters:
00:00 - Start
04:31 - Things to do in Vienna
06:44 - Vienna's Rich Musical History
08:53 - Vienna has plenty of parks to enjoy
09:54 - Explore the museums of Vienna
10:59 - Eat all you want in Vienna
11:50 - The Vienna Coffee Culture
15:25 - Plenty of other foods in Vienna
20:41 - Our Costs in Vienna
23:11 - Would we recommend visiting Vienna?
25:30 - Gelato Member Credits

Finding Gina Marie is where we share our lives as full-time travelers and the connections we make along the way.

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📹 VIDEO EQUIPMENT
* Primary Camera: Sony FX30
* B-Roll Camera: iPhone 14 Pro
* Editing: Final Cut Pro X on a 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro
* Key Light: ZHIYUN MOLUS X100 Bi-Color 100W COB Video Light
* Diffuser: ZHIYUN Quick Release Mini Softbox
* Vocal Microphone: Sony ECM-B10

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[evikäfi]

i think it is important to mention, that you visited very touristy locations...cafe museum, sacher, cafe central...there are so many beautiful, authentic, yet reasonably priced Kaffeehäuser in Vienna, like Cafe Eiles, Cafe Alt Wien, Cafe Korb, Cafe Sperl, Cafe Savoyen (especially LGBTQI friendly), Cafe Ritter, and also more modern options like TopKino, Cafe Krimhield, Cafe Z...Also I would recommend to see the (real!) Vienna outside the 1st district, e.g. the "Heurigen" in the 19th, 18th and 17th district, the Prater in the 2nd district, the ethnic center of the 10th district...Vienna has much more history then the one of the Habsburg Era. The socialist history ("das rote Wien") is knowledgable too! Also, what you saw on your bike tour was not the Danube river, but just a side canal of the Danube that goes through the city center. I would recommend to visit Donauinsel to get the real Danube experience. Lastly, to defend the quite plain Sachertorte and Apfelstrudel..note that these pastries were invented like more than 100 years ago and the recipes were kept traditional :) so you have a taste of the past there.

[karmacoma]

I live in vienna and i love how you just call out some of the most useless tourist traps like cafe central or cafe sacher. There is really no need to wait 30min for an overpriced sachertorte or apfelstrudel, because there is a LOT of other very very good and historical cafes with very good apfelstrudels or cakes (torten) like cafe Eiles, Cafe Korb, cafe Demel ... or just any other cafe that looks nice and historical from the outside. Also try to avoid events on the rathausplatz (city hall square) if you want to find something authentic.

[Gesundheit]

Vienna IS a museum all on its own. Love it! Ring - circle Strasse - street. An "e" is never silent.

[spootboot]

7:09 shows the memorial of Franz Lehar. Yes, in Stadtpark there is also a memorial statue of Franz Schubert, and also of composer Anton Bruckner and of Robert Stolz. I live nearby and see these statues nearly daily. I found your channel, as I was preparing for my recent trip to Rome.

[stephanweinberger]

small correction @10:35 that's not the Danube river but the Danube canal (basically one of the old side arms of the Danube before it was regulated in the 1870's, which was locked off from the main river). The Danube river is about 6x wider and flows past about 3km northeast of the city center.

@12:05 Café Central is "popular" mainly for tourists :-)

@16:03 Sachertorte at Hotel Sacher isn't necessarily the original: the creator of the recipe, Eduard Sacher, actually worked at Café Demel at the time, before opening his own Café/Hotel (which later went bankrupt and sold the rights to the name & recipe back to Demel). So arguably Café Demel now serves the "correct" version (albeit, they changed the recipe multiple times over the years). Hotel Sacher also ship their cakes worldwide and adapted the recipe for this purpose (i.e. to last longer), resulting in a dryer cake & thicker (many say: too thick) chocolate.
Generally speaking: You can get better Sachertorte for cheaper in basically _any_ other café or bakery in Vienna.


As for the prices: you definitely chose to eat/drink on the pricier side. Even in the inner city (btw. is usually everything inside the Gürtel road is considered "city" by the Viennese, not just the 1st district, which is usually specifically referred to as "inner city") there are many restaurants and cafés that are considerably cheaper. E.g. a Melange or Cappuccino is usually (and often considerably) less than 5€ in most cafés. And in most bakeries you can get a _large_ (i.e. around double the size) cappuccino for less than that (and it's usually of comparable quality; often even brewed using organic and/or fairtrade coffee, e.g. in the ubiquitous 'Ströck' bakeries).

[vickyconover]

Thank you both for all you do to put this YouTube channel together. I’m taking notes and it is on our stop after Warsaw and Kraków in September & October 2024. ❤

[theworldbysiege]

Great info! I'll be visiting in April.

[mikea]

Great vid. I found a lot of takeaways from it. Thank you. We’re heading over in Sept.

[tuber]

I think I put on a few calories just watching this video. Vienna: I was there in 1990, alone, and in 2011, with my wife. Impressive place, of course. Some highlight memories of mine include walking through the Zentralfriedhof to visit Brahms’ grave, riding the Riesenrad, seeing Otto Wagner’s Kirche am Steinhof, and experiencing the repurposed gasometers and the neighborhood around it.

[daianagaunad]

Awesome Video! I’m visiting Vienna for the first time this September! ❤ So excited 😍

[MeanNeam-xfvy]

just see your video beautiful each place is very interesting in watch more it

[siranoushakopian]

Thank you for this interesting video, we booked our trip to Vienna this coming May and I can’t wait for that day to come, I learned a lot from your experience and thanks for sharing it with us by the way I am from SF too, I heard that you guys are from SF once again thanks for the video.

[ithilwyn]

I was on an EF tour to Vienna, and want to go back. The tour was so rushed and I so wanted to slow down and just walk and enjoy everything. Thank you for your video! It gave me a lot of good ideas for my return to Vienna!

[shanef]

Thanks Judy! Ming-Teh is still worth the hassle of bridge traffic but not much else is. I’ll check out the rest of your channel as I’m off to Prague, Bratislava, and Budapest as well. Safe travels to you both.

[jourbyjour]

Excellent video! I can't wait to visit Vienna this summer. I'm trying to find hidden places in Vienna so I can skip tourists traps. I'm glad I found this video and I've found so many cool spots!

[nina]

With climate change happening quickly, July and August are the worst months to visit here. Most locals will try to leave the city in the summer months (which also are school vacations) and go to the surrounding countryside on "Sommerfrische".

Also, if you're interested in classical music, the summer months are not the best time to visit Vienna, the main orchestras (Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna Symphony) are away to play at the famous summer festivals in Salzburg and Bregenz, as are a lot of professional musicians. State Opera and Volksoper are closed (bc much of their personnel is at Salzburg or Bregenz or one of the smaller summer festivals), as are the two main concert venues (Musikverein and Konzerthaus, which are open for guided tours, however), except for tourist concerts. If you can visit any time from September to May/June you will encounter so many concerts and opera performances you will be quite at a loss where to go first. Order your tickets online or at the venues' ticket offices, it's cheaper than ticket vendors.

The film festival on Rathauplatz takes place only in July and August (as a kind of excuse to tourists for much of the cultural life closing down in the summer).

Don't stand in line for food, there is always a good coffeehouse or eating place only a few steps away. You can get excellent quality Sachertorte in every coffeehouse in the city.

[hollyhoman]

This coming December (2024) my hubby and I will spend 5 days in Vienna. My favorite classical composers are Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven and Strauss so of course I want to see their homes and the Mozart Museum. WE will also take in the Christmas Market. We want to take at least one day trip by train. There are so many choices and we only have five days there.

[merrillmixer]

Yes, we visited Vienna in 2015 and it was interesting to hear Judy’s that impression of the sacher torte and apple strudel was my experience as well. They didn't live up to the hype; sacher torte was dry and the strudel tasted like cardboard. Wow, the price of those cappuccinos is high! I enjoy watching your videos.

[GlobetrotterGranny]

What a lovely video. Loved your honest opinions of some of the dishes you tried while in Vienna. There have been times I’ve tried local specialties only to discover they were not all that great. I’ve also tried some that were even better than anticipated. When we go to Switzerland next year we were originally going to have Vienna on our itinerary, but it didn’t work out to do it on that trip. Will probably do Vienna on a river cruise instead. 🥰

[reluctantlawyer]

Where to stay when you are on a budget is such an interesting topic. Erin and I just completed our first full day in our new nomadic journey. We are in Guadalajara. We are staying “just outside” of the Colonia Americana neighborhood. We were just talking today whether we should have spent a little more to be in the heart of the neighborhood. It’s ok but there are very few restaurants and coffee shops, etc., nearby. It is something I’m sure we will be working through as we move forward.