You may remember in the summer of 2023, Jet2 sent me off on a trip to an all-inclusive resort on a blogger promotional trip. Well, in late autumn 2024, they did it again; this time Jet2 sent me on one of their flights to Vienna, for a long weekend (3 nights, 4 fairly full days). In principle my trip was one of their Christmas Markets breaks, but we had free reign to explore the city and do other things that we wanted – this not only included those Christmas Markets, but also a trip to the opera!
It’s beginning to look at lot like Christmas?
The nice thing about Jet2 is a decent array of flights from local airports, so you don’t have to trek halfway across the country and spend more getting to your flight than the flight itself costs. We took one of the flights from Leeds/Bradford Airport; an airport I’ve rarely used but is effectively Jet2’s hub. As it was late Autumn the airport was already decorated in very Christmassy garb, and one of the flights leaving around the same time as ours was off to Lapland. If the screen at the gate didn’t confirm, that everyone waiting to board were families wearing reindeer antler headbands probably would have given it away anyway. The only bad thing was the timing of the flight – 7.40am on a dark November morning isn’t ideal but it enable us to maximise our time in Vienna. In a sense the same but opposite was true coming back – an early-evening flight meant we were back home by 10pm having again had almost a full day in Vienna; indeed it was on our last day we went to Schönbrunn Palace.
Sunrise at Leeds/Bradford Airport, about to board the plane.
One thing to say is that late autumn isn’t the best time to see Vienna in its glory. Out of the days we were there, only one of them wasn’t solidly grey and overcast; it didn’t rain on our visit but it’s vaguely amusing that the exact time we went coincided with the first warm days the UK had had for a month. Since many of the areas outside the city centre are quite grey in terms of architecture, it means much of the suburbs don’t feel very appealing.
Another interesting thing we encountered was that use of contactless payment was a lot less prevalent than in the UK. Several shops and both pubs we went into were cash-only, and we definitely got the impression that using electronic cards was less popular in general than back in the UK. This wasn’t ever too much of a problem since it was easier to pay cash for things like the frequent payments at the Christmas Markets, but it still felt unusual and slightly strange to us.
How do you get around Vienna?
Getting around Vienna is really easy. It’s quite a walkable city, and for the most part the pavements are quite wide and easy to navigate. Many of the central streets are also pedestrianised; the only danger is the sheer numbers of people on them, especially Stefanplatz and the area around the cathedral. For more distant journeys, say to Schönbrunn or the Airport, there’s a decent array of public transit.
Apart from for journeys to/from the airport, it’s quite simple to buy tickets. Each of the U-Bahn stations has touchscreen terminals where you can select one of several languages, and the tickets are a standard price regardless of journey length (€2.40 at the time of my visit). Tickets are valid for 80 minutes. Note that there are no ticket barriers on entry/exit to the stations, and we also never encountered anyone conducting a ticket check, but that’s not an excuse to not buy a ticket because you never know, and you don’t want a large fine (currently upwards of €100, which is quite a few beers, even in Vienna). You also need to validate the ticket before you use it – this involves finding a small blue box hidden somewhere nearby (in U-Bahn stations it’s usually close to the entrance to the platforms) and sliding your ticket in until you hear it being stamped. This is to prevent ticket re-use; when you buy the ticket from the machines they’re not timestamped, so you can buy many in advance and just stamp them when you need them. Period-validity tickets (24 and 48 hour) are also available. For some reason we didn’t do this. Probably because we knew we’d be walking a lot.
For the airport route, it’s not that it’s not simple to buy the ticket – the same principles apply – more that it’s not always clear exactly what the right ticket is. There’s a dedicated fast-rail service (CAT) from the airport to Wien Mitte station that runs every half hour and takes 16 minutes. It costs nearly €15. Alternatively there’s the local S7 rail service that runs every half hour, takes a shade under 25 minutes, stops at more places en route providing better alternative onward connection options, and costs €4.40. One of those options is only marginally worse than the other.
The problem is, especially at the airport, the way the signposts and information boards are displayed make it far easier to be directed onto the CAT than the S7. The CAT has separate ticket machines that are clearly labelled, whilst the S7 (and associated suburban rail option) are at machines that are only identifiable because there’s a long queue of locals using them. Conversely, on the way back to the airport from the city centre, finding the option for the airport ticket involves going through a couple of sub-menus that don’t make it obvious. I’d tell you what option to choose, except we were rushed for time at that point given the timetable, and found it somewhat by accident, so I don’t remember.
What is Schönbrunn Palace like to visit?
One of the Christmas Markets is set in the front grounds of Schönbrunn Palace, so it made sense to visit both while we were there.
Schönbrunn is the old palace of the Imperial Hapsburg family, from the days when Austria was one of the leading monarchical powers of Europe. My first year of ‘A’-Level History looked at European history in the 19th Century so I’m very familiar with the likes of Francis, Ferdinand, and Franz-Joseph. And of course Crown Prince Metternich. But those are people for another blog post by another author. Suffice to say it was interesting to finally go inside a place I’d heard mentioned a lot in the past.
The back of Schönbrunn Palace, seen from the gardens.
The Palace is a little way out of the city centre, about 5km from Stefanplatz in a straight line, but there’s an S-Bahn that goes directly there – the U4 so it’s direct from Mitte and Karlsplatz. There’s been a royal building here since the mid-1500s, but the palace itself dates from the 1740s. It’s been a museum pretty much since the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and the abolition of its monarchy in 1918, except for a few years in the 1940s when it was requisitioned for, uh, other purposes. The palace itself contains somewhere over 1400 rooms, of which only about 40 are open to the public, and many of these are very small.
Now, here’s a touch of advice. There are several tours available of the palace, that cover increasing number of rooms for an increasing price. You can do ones with a proper tour guide, or take a cheaper self-guided ticket and maybe take advantage of the audio-guide on offer to get the most of the explanations. Three self-guided tours are available, and the website gives an indication of how long they’re expected to take. We did the cheapest one, that looks purely at the State Apartments, and is estimated to take 25 minutes. It did take us longer, but that’s because Laura takes lots of photos.
Close-up of some of the gold flourishes that decorate inside Schönbrunn Palace.
But, that ticket only gets you in to about 9 of the designated rooms, and that includes the stairwell. Of the actual rooms, you only get to see one that’s of any significant size, and that’s the Great Gallery. In fairness it’s over 40m long and 10m wide, so it’s definitely well-named, but it is the one and only highlight of that particular ticket. The other rooms you can see are the surrounding chambers which are also impressive, don’t get me wrong, but they’re all quite similar, and some of them you can only see from the doorway anyway.
Overview of the Great Gallery.
The Imperial Tour (designed to take 40 mins) takes you into a shade over half the public rooms in the palace, including the imperial bedrooms, while the Grand Tour (designed to take 55 mins) allows you access to all 40, including those utilised by Empress Maria-Theresa, who reigned for 40 years in the second half of the 18th century. All the rooms visited on these tours are pretty impressive and definitely revealing about how much money the imperial family had (so much gold leaf! so much bespoke art! so much velvet!), but I guess you have to ask yourself if the increasing cost of the ticket is worth seeing a series of small and similar but very overpowering rooms, especially given you don’t see much on the State Apartments Tour but the Imperial Tour is only estimated as twice as long. My advice is to decide how much you want to see, how much you think is worth seeing, and buy your ticket accordingly.
Alternatively, the website offers virtual tours that provide pictures and a lot of backstory to what you’re seeing. It’s not the same as being there, but it gives a good overview as to what you might have missed.
The tickets themselves are easy to come by. We bought ours from a self-serve machine in the ticket office located at the front gate to the palace grounds (not inside the palace itself). They’re technically time-specific but the ones we bought had an entry time set one minute after we bought them, which clearly wasn’t going to happen. I guess it’s a guideline rather than a rule. You’re not allowed big bags/backpacks on the tours, but there’s a decent-sized cloakroom inside the palace by the café and before the tour entrance.
One of the fountains with nymph statues in the gardens.
Schönbrunn is also known for its gardens. They’re a shade over a square kilometre in area (about the size of the old city of Jerusalem, or a slightly large golf course), and mostly lie behind the palace. It’s mostly wide gravelled pathways separating dense copses of trees, but the area also includes several ornate fountains decorated with Greek water nymphs, an orangery, a dovecote that looks like a huge wire-framed globe, an open-plan lawned garden area in front of the rear of the palace, and a Gloriette. A Gloriette is probably better seen than described, but in short it’s kind of an open-plan pavilion constructed on an embankment, making it an obvious and central feature, a place to both look at and look out from.
It’d be a good place for a Parkrun and, while there isn’t one, there are suggested running routes that are signposted throughout.
What is Wiener Zentralfriedhof like to visit?
Over in the far south-east of the city, not far from the airport actually, is Wiener Zentralfriedhof, or Vienna Central Cemetery. Quite why it’s called Central when it was specifically designated at the time (the 1860s) to be outwith the then boundaries of the city, is more a question of translation than designation – a better meaning of ‘central’ here is ‘main’ – in terms of importance, not location. Just so’s we’re clear.
Part of the Zentralfriedhof, looking towards the central church.
And it’s definitely important – covering some 600 acres (making it slightly bigger than Monaco (!), or 70% the size of New York’s Central Park), and housing over 330,000 graves (which is over 8 times more than the population of Monaco). This means that it feels more like a nature reserve than a graveyard in parts, and parts of it are covered in trees, shrubs, and the occasional pond, making it a wildlife haven.
Grave of two musicians (one of the Strausses on the left, and Brahms on the right).
But people come here primarily for grave-spotting; indeed its original location far outside the city made it initially so ignored by the locals (or at least, the ones who were alive) that the local authority actively encouraged tourism by re-interring famous people from their original last resting places to this new graveyard. And this has continued to the present day as subsequent notable people are buried here first. This includes people from Austrian Presidents (even those who weren’t war criminals, like Kurt Waldheim) to footballers (Karl Decker, arguably the greatest Austrian footballer, at his peak in the late 1940s), and from businessmen and financiers (a couple of the Rothschild dynasty) to all-round polymaths (Hedy Lamarr, actor, producer, influencer, inventor).
There’s also a lot of musicians, including at least four Strausses, as well as Brahms and Beethoven. But not Mozart, as he’s surprisingly elsewhere. In his place though, and the most popular of all the graves I saw on my visit, is Johann Hölzel. This name may not be familiar to you, but he was a pop star of the 1980s and 90s, releasing several songs (including “Rock Me Amadeus” and “Vienna Calling”) under the pseudonym of Falco.
Falco’s grave.
There are other sections too, including Protestant and Jewish areas, and a whole series of graves and memorials to those who were killed by the government during the second world war.
Entry to the cemetery is free, and getting there is easy, if a little long. The S7 train that goes to the airport passes by the western entrance, at the appropriately-named Zentralfriedhof Station, whilst passing the main entrance is the 71 tram. This tram’s been operating that route since 1907, but there seems to be no truck to the rumour that ‘taking the 71 tram’ is a specifically Viennese euphemism for death. Which is a shame as it’s quite a cool one.
What hotel did we stay at in Vienna?
We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott Vienna Prater/Messe, which is very close to the Krieau stop of the U2 U-Bahn line, and two stops from the large interchange at Praterstern. It’s about 4km from the centre of the city by foot, and close to the national football stadium. Between it and the city centre is Prater Park, a large green area on the edge of the city centre and close to the Danube. It contains lots of trees, a small amusement park, a miniature railway, a small racecourse, and a long quiet and very straight road used for running events (there was one on on the Sunday as we walked through).
The outside of the Marriott Prater/Messe hotel.
The hotel itself is set in what’s essentially a modern business area nicely landscaped with water features, so everything looks quite contemporary and slightly funky. Obviously that means the hotel is quite business-oriented; on our arrival indeed there seemed to be a convention on. All that means for the average tourist though is that it doesn’t have quite the flair and charm of a city centre hotel. On the other hand, it’s very functional, with attentive staff and good facilities.
The bar and shop at the hotel.
Our room was on the 6th floor, with views out of a huge set of windows towards the Danube. It was a very good-sized twin room with bathroom and shower, and felt very comfortable. Housekeeping was daily; we *may* have had a couple of mornings where they woke us up, but that’s very much on us not on them. In addition, checkout was midday so that gave us plenty of time to have a slow last morning after a very busy night at the Christmas markets.
There’s a bar and restaurant downstairs with a small but localised menu. We both had the schnitzel – mine the traditional Wiener Schnitzel, made of veal and served with cranberry, some of which ended up on my sweatshirt. Laura had the pork variant. They were huge portions and honestly we were hard-pushed to finish them. We also had wine, and we were informed that most of the wines they offered were Austrian, mostly local to the Vienna area.
Two schnitzels at the hotel restaurant.
The hotel also has a small self-checkout shop for all your snacking needs, selling crisps, chocolate, sandwiches, and of course Austrian and German beers, making it very easy to satisfy late night cravings.
What did we eat and drink in Vienna?
It would be remiss of me to write about a trip and not talk about food and drink. However, the vast majority of what we had was at the Christmas Markets and I talk about that in another post. Outwith that, and the hotel, much of our refreshment was snack-food based.
Fish butty. You can smell it from here.
Laura used to live in Germany for a short period, and while there she got to love a take-away sandwich chain called Nordsee. Translating as “North Sea”, it is as you might imagine a shop that concentrates on fish- and seafood-based sandwiches, including prawns and un-battered fish steaks. Which smell of fish but are absolutely fabulous on a soft bun. It came as a pleasant surprise to her to come across them in Vienna, which isn’t noted for its seaside location, and we went to a couple of outlets over our weekend as we passed by and fancied them.
Of course one of the most notable street foods in Vienna is the pretzel. Plain, with cheese, with sausage, with all manner of different flavours, they’re all good and available from pretty much anywhere, and a couple of euros gets you something big enough to share and still have some left over for a midnight snack.
Laura holding a pretzel.
With regard to drinks, we did find an Irish Pub close to the Rathaus, which felt quite lively and cosy inside (and sold a small range of Austrian beers), and a sports bar (The Duke) near the Stiffgasse Market, where we also had a snack of fries, but most of our drinking took place in the markets.
In fact, the most notable drink we had was non-alcoholic and very warming and welcomed. We’re both fond of thick, rich, hot chocolate, of the kind made with at least milk, not soggy water, and we looked around for places to have one in Vienna. Most of the places that came up in searches were proper ornate cafés and when we walked past they had huge queues outside (because cold Saturday lunchtimes are always going to prove popular times for cafés). A small artisinal place came up on the search and the reviews said it had the best hot chocolate in the city, so we were expecting this to also be a blowout too. But when we got to Vittorio (close to Michaelerplatz, not far from the Rathaus) it was completely empty. Now it’s quite small – most of their custom is for take-away handmade chocolates – but there are a couple of tables inside and they were available on our visit. It’s not an extensive menu for hot chocolate (it is very much geared towards eating chocolate) but we did get to see them make it, and it was definitely worth the wait.
A bottle of Almudler.
The other noteworthy drink I had was in the airport on the way home; I finally got around to trying some Almudler. This is Austria’s traditional soft drink – it’s kind of like a herbal lemonade. It’s been made since 1957. It also contains caffeine, which in principle makes this vibe a bit like Austria’s version of Irn-Bru, although a lot more floral, and a bit sarsaparilla-like. I liked it. Others wouldn’t.
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