🇦🇹 1 Day Itinerary - Austria’s capital city, Vienna

Vienna, the capital of Austria, is a city steeped in history, culture, and grandeur. I visited Vienna as a day trip from Munich last November and was blown away by how beautiful and underrated this city is.

It was a last min decision to add Vienna onto the itinerary, hence the day trip, but the 4 hour journey from Munich was well worth it.

It was an early start for us as we hopped onto the 6+am train and arrived in Vienna at 10+am. As the train journeyed East, we passed by lots of beautiful lakes and mountains. And as we were approaching Vienna, it started snowing, something which I was secretly hoping for. ❄️

Upon arrival, the first thing we did was to grab the day ticket for public transport around the city from the train station counter.

Hopped onto the tram and our first stop was the Belvedere Palace (Schloss Belvedere). The Palace itself is a museum, and the vast gardens surrounding it are extremely beautiful. It was snowing the day we went, which made it doubly beautiful. The Christmas market right in front of the palace just started the day we visited 🙌🏻.

Walking through the gardens, we arrived at Palais Schwarzenberg, another beautiful Baroque style palace. In front of the palace, is the Hochstrahlbrunnen fountain and memorial for the Soviet Army.

We crossed the road, passed by the beautiful French embassy building, and headed towards the St. Charles's Church (Karlskirche), an impressive dome shaped cathedral. There was a Christmas market happening there too.

We took a short walk over to Naschmarkt, a local market with filled with food stalls and restaurants, and had a hearty lunch.

After lunch, we rode the train down to Schönbrunn Palace (Schloss Schönbrunn), another gorgeous castle in Vienna. The grounds are extremely massive and the Christmas market was ongoing here as well.

Thereafter, we headed to Innere Stadt, the city’s old town by tram. The entire area boasts of lots of historical sights such as the St. Stephen's Cathedral (super impressive architecture + a Christmas market was ongoing there too), St. Peter's Catholic Church (Peterskirche), Column of the Pest, Vienna Operahouse and more. There’s also lots of upscale shops, restaurants, and hotels in the area as well. Everything seems to exude this grandeur from luxury boutiques like Chanel or LV to high street stores like H&M.

It was getting dark by 6+pm so we took away some dinner from the supermarket and jumped on our 4 hour train ride back to Munich. There’s also some shopping at the station as well.

A day trip simply doesn’t do justice, and it was very rushed, but we covered the major sights in a day! Would recommend staying at least a night and spreading out the itinerary out to cover the sights in more detail and at a slower pace.

Love Vienna and hope to be back again. Maybe I’m biased, but I think Vienna is particular beautiful in winter with snow, beautiful Christmas lightings in the streets and Christmas markets going on ❄️🌲.

Austria is super underrated compared to the other Western Europe countries. Highly recommend adding it onto your Europe itinerary. ✨

Other posts/itineraries on Austria:

📌 Visit the beautiful village Hallstatt

📌 Visit the historical city of Salzburg & join a Sound of Music tour

📌 Visit alpine city of Innsbruck

📌 Visit the beautiful lake in Zell am See & go on an alpine coaster at Kaprun

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