Austria sells its best seats first.
Which Karlskirche concert has the strings you came for. Whether the Schönbrunn ticket is worth skipping the queue. Where the Hallstatt coach actually stops. Every bookable day in Austria, reviewed.
Vienna has more concert seats than most countries have theatres.
Vivaldi under the dome of the Karlskirche, Mozart in the Golden Hall, a string quartet in a church older than the Habsburgs. Most of these run several nights a week, and the good rows go to whoever books first.
The Austrian bookings travellers make most.
See what else made the list →The days more people take than anything else in the country, with what each costs and how long it runs.
1
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concert in Karlskirche
Hear Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on period instruments inside Vienna’s Karlskirche, with practical seating, comfort, and value tips for a 75-minute concert.
From · $40
Read our review →
2
Spanish Riding School Training
from $20
3
Skip-the-cashier-desk-line Giant Ferris Wheel Ride
from $17
4
Schönbrunn Palace & Gardens Skip-the-Line Tour
from $63
5
Light of Creation Votive Church Immersive Light Show
from $25
6
Vienna Spanish Riding School Guided Tour
from $28
7
Classical Concert in the World-Famous Musikverein
from $17
8
The Original Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg
from $90
Four days in Vienna and the Ring is still not finished.
The Habsburgs left the city 1,441 rooms at Schönbrunn, a treasury of crowns, a riding school for white stallions and a ferris wheel from 1897. The city added the coffee houses. Start with the ones that need a ticket in advance.
The Habsburg palaces are three different days out.
All palace tickets →
Schönbrunn, the Hofburg and the Belvedere get sold as one imperial afternoon and behave nothing alike. One is a garden day, one is a treasury, one is a picture gallery. Pick before you buy the ticket.
Schönbrunn, the state rooms and the park
Forty rooms of the imperial apartments, then the climb up to the Gloriette and a park you could lose an afternoon in. The slot printed on your ticket is the slot you get.
The Hofburg, the Sisi rooms and the crowns
The winter palace sits in the middle of town, so it fits either end of a day. The Sisi Museum, the silver collection and the Imperial Treasury are separate tickets inside one building.
The Belvedere and the Klimt rooms
A baroque summer palace turned gallery, and the address of The Kiss. Shorter than the other two, which is exactly why it works as an add-on rather than a whole morning.
Six Austrian days most itineraries get built around.
A concert in a Vienna church, white stallions in a rococo hall, a lake village with one street, a wine valley on the Danube. The handful of days people fly in for, and how to book each.
Salzburg fits Mozart and a film crew into one small old town.
The composer was born on Getreidegasse, the Trapp family sang their way out of the same streets, and the Salzkammergut lakes start twenty minutes past the ring road. A compact city with three separate reasons to come.
- 1The Original Sound of Music Tour in Salzburgfrom $90
- 2Original Sound of Music Tourfrom $88
- 3Half-Day Tour to Hallstattfrom $100
Four foreign capitals sit within a morning of Vienna.
Bratislava is under an hour down the Danube. Budapest and Prague are long but genuine single days. Cesky Krumlov fits between the two. Every coach on this row leaves Vienna and comes back to Vienna; the cities themselves are over the border.
Guided Tour to Bratislava with Speed Boat Ride
Budapest Day Trip from Vienna
Bratislava Day Trip from Vienna With Catamaran Cruise on DanubeMunich runs out of Salzburg rather than Vienna, and Hallstatt is the one stop on this row that stays inside Austria.
An Austrian day out starts at the price of coffee and a slice of cake.
Every tour on the site sorted by what it actually costs. The bands sit where this catalogue naturally splits, not on round numbers.
Concert tickets, church admissions, the ferris wheel and most museum entries. A third of everything here.
The full day out: a palace with a guide, a Wachau boat, the Hallstatt coach, dinner with a Strauss orchestra.
Private drivers, small-group border crossings and the alpine days that need a guide and equipment.
Three things you can only book in Austria.
Concert halls and mountain lakes exist all over Europe. A 460-year-old riding academy, a film tour the locals never watched, and a wheel turning since Franz Josef belong to this country alone.
The Lipizzaners
The Spanish Riding School has trained white stallions in the same Vienna hall since Charles VI built it, and it is the only place in the world where classical dressage has been taught without a break. Morning training is cheaper, quieter and often the better watch. Full performances run on set dates and go weeks ahead. The horses are born dark and turn white somewhere around their seventh year.
- 1Spanish Riding School Training★★★★★★★★★★ 3.9 · 9,281 reviews
- 2Vienna Spanish Riding School Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 6,765 reviews
- 3Performance Of The Lipizzans At Spanish Riding School★★★★★★★★★★ · 4,190 reviews
Sound of Music
Salzburg has spent sixty years showing visitors a film that barely screened in Austria. The gazebo has been moved twice, the lake terrace belongs to Schloss Leopoldskron, and the abbey where the real Maria took her vows is still a working convent. Guides sing on the coach. Half the pleasure is the gap between the film and what actually happened to the family.
- 1The Original Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 6,129 reviews
- 2Original Sound of Music Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 5,059 reviews
- 3Hallstatt and Sound of Music Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 522 reviews
The Riesenrad
The Prater wheel was built for the Emperor’s golden jubilee, burnt out in 1945 and rebuilt with fifteen wooden cabins instead of the original thirty. It turns slowly enough to eat dinner in. Around it sits a public funfair that has never charged admission in its entire history.
- 1Skip-the-cashier-desk-line Giant Ferris Wheel Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 7,859 reviews
- 2Johann Strauss Dinner Show at the Prater★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 730 reviews
- 3Wiener Riesenrad – Giant Ferris Wheel Vienna Entrance Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 3.5 · 295 reviews
Book these before you land in Austria.
Most of Austria can be arranged from your hotel the night before. These cannot. They run on performance calendars, seat plans and seasons fixed months ago.
- 01Spanish Riding School TrainingPerformances run on published dates only, a handful each month, in a hall that seats fewer than 600.
- 02Classical Concert in the World-Famous MusikvereinThe Golden Hall sells by seat plan. Once a row goes the next date is a week away.
- 03The Original Sound of Music Tour in SalzburgOne route, two departures a day, and the coaches fill in high season before the flights land.
- 04Hallstatt & Alpine Peaks Day Trip with Skywalk LiftA village of 700 people caps how many visitors it takes. The early departures are the ones that beat the crowd.
- 05Schönbrunn Palace & Gardens Skip-the-Line TourTimed entry: the ticket names your slot, and summer afternoons go first.
The Tyrol is two hours west of Salzburg and a different country of weather.
Innsbruck sits in a valley with mountains at both ends of the high street, cable cars leaving from the middle of town and paragliding launches you can reach by bus. When the cloud comes down, the crystal halls at Wattens and the Tyrolean evenings are the indoor answer.
By region, west to east
Innsbruck & the Tyrol25 tours
Salzburg71 tours
Hallstatt & the Lakes21 tours
Linz4 tours
The Wachau9 tours
Vienna245 tours
Graz4 tours- Every Austrian region →
By experience, from concert seats to cable cars
Vienna to Innsbruck, the week most people actually do.
Vienna
The Wachau
HallstattThe newest Austrian tour reviews.
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Ötztal: Via Ferrata Climbing Tour at Lehner Waterfall
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Innsbruck Old Town Highlights Private Walking Tour
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Vienna Guided Christmas Market Food and Drink Tour
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Private Full-Day Tour of Hallstatt and Salzkammergut from Salzburg with Options
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Guided e-bike tour of the alpine pastures in the Salzkammergut
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