Vienna - Getting Around
Vienna has an exellent public transport system of trams, busses and subways. Since it’s a large town and there’s not much (free) parking space available, public transport is the easiest and cheapest way to get around. You can get a wide range of tickets, including tickets valid for an hour (22 schilling), 24 Hrs. (60 schilling), 8 days (300 schilling), etc. The advantage of an 8 day-ticket is that it doesn’t have to be 8 consecutive days. It doesn’t even have to be 8 days, you can use it for more than one person at a time, for instance, 2 people can travel on it for 4 days. All these tickets are valid in the entire Vienna district, in all busses, trams and subways.
Related Travel Information
Vienna - Sights
Vienna has a compact historical centre, bound to the northeast by the Danube canal and surrounded on all other sides by the majestic sweep of the Ringstrasse. From here, the main arteries of communication radiate outwards. Most of the important sights are concentrated in this tourist-clogged district and along the Ring, but a lot of essential Vienna lies beyond it, in the initially forbidding grid of barracks-like 19th century apartment blocks. There are also outlaying sights, such as Schloss Schönbrunn, or the funfair and parklands of the Prater. To discover Vienna by walking needs more than only some
Vienna - History
Most visitors connect Vienna with a romantic place full of Habsburg nostalgia and musical resonances. It is, still today, but more.
The first settlement of any substance was Roman. The city was called Vindobona, but was in fact never more than a garrison town. It was only with the rise of the Babenberg clan in the tenth century that Vienna became an important city. In the 1278 the city fell to Rudolf of Habsburg, but had to compete for centuries with Prague, Linz and Graz as the imperial residence on account of its vulnerability to attack from the Turks,
Vienna - Accommodation
Vienna offers its visitors a wide range and choice of rooms of every quality level, especially for those who are able and willing to splash out. However, extreme pressure on the cheaper accommodations end of the market means that booking ahead is essential in summer, and advisable during the rest of the year. It is hard to find anything affordable in the central area, and the cheapest double rooms within reach of it will set you back at least 350 ÖS a person. The best hunting grounds for cheap accommodation are in the western districts between the Ring
Vienna - Eating Out
Austria's cooking is great. If you like flummeries, pastries and sweets, it is the paradise on earth. These dishes are not necessarily served as a dessert, they can also be a complete main dish. The traditional venue for eating out in Vienna is the Beisl, an intimate neighbourhood place, somewhere between restaurant and pub, providing good home cooking and a cosy refuge for local beer drinkers. There are plenty of these both within and beyond the Ring. The best places to look are districts 6,7 and 8.
Vienna is also the true home of the traditional Kaffeehaus or
Vienna - Nightlife and Entertainment
For nightlife you have several options. If youre there during opera season and are lucky enough to have opera tickets eat an early dinner enjoy the performance and end with coffee and a Sacher torte at the cafe in the Hotel Sacher. Or you might go to the part of the central district known as the Bermuda Triangle where the small restaurants and the bars are open late. A third possibility would be to head for a Heurigen (a wine bar) for an evening of music and tasting of the years new wine (Sturm).
