Vienna

Our Top 8 Things to Do in Vienna on a Budget

1. Prater and the giant ferris wheel

The Prater amusement park is an absolute must-do, even if you just pop in for candy floss! There are all sorts of rides: bumper cars, roller coasters, haunted houses, fun houses, and the list goes on! And all sorts of food stalls; you can choose from western classics such as hotdogs, or try something new, such as Langos.

It is free to enter the park and you pay for each ride individually. However, at €5 each, we thought they were a bit pricey and just chose one thing to do, the ferris wheel.

The giant ferris wheel is the first thing you see when you enter the park from the Prater metro station. This is easily one of the most eye catching attractions at the park as it towers over you at 64.75m tall! Tickets cost €13.50 each and one ride lasts about 15 mins.

If you are considering a visit, I recommend looking at their website as they are planning to make some changes to the ferris wheel, such as turning some of the carriages into hotel rooms! However, there are still lots of fun things to do at Prater amusement park.

We also went to the rollercoaster restaurant in the park, where the drinks are prepared by robotic arms and the orders are delivered by roller coaster tracks to your table!

2. Danube tower

The Danube Tower is situated on the edge of Donau Park. It’s a lovely walk through the park, from the nearest metro station to the tower. When you get to the tower you pay at the reception on the ground floor for tickets to the observation deck. Adult tickets are €16, but they do accept student discounts if you ask at the counter, so don’t forget your university card! We paid €12.80 each, saving us 20%.

There is a lift up to the observation deck, so don’t worry about climbing the 150m by foot! The deck is outside and was pretty windy when we were there so we didn’t stay long and climbed one flight of steps up to the revolving cafe. The cafe is the type of place where the waiters wear suits and you are served at your table. We chose to sit by the window and admire the 360° views of Vienna whilst we shared an apple strudel.

There is also a revolving restaurant up one more flight of stairs if you’re looking to have a proper meal and not just apple strudel!

3. Bus tour

Because Vienna is such a spread out city, the bus tour is a great way to get around to see all the monuments, buildings and districts. The city is so large that there are actually two bus routes that take about 2hrs each! It’s also a good option, if like me you get travel weary legs after a day or two of walking and are ready for a more relaxing style of sightseeing by the end of your trip.

During your tour you get to see the city hall, university historical main building, museums, theatres and palaces. The commentary gives a good overview and background without going into too much detail on every point of interest. We learnt that the university has 100,000 students, making it one of the biggest in Europe, and that it has produced 5 Nobel prize winners. Another fact I enjoyed is that half the land in the city is green space, I would love to live somewhere that was half parks and gardens!

My favourite point of interest on the tour was an area known as the Bermuda Triangle, where tourists have been known to get lost for hours, although the bars and pubs in that area might explain their disappearance!

The 1 day ticket costs €35 but we got ours included in our city pass. There is also a 2 day ticket (€45), which includes a guided walking tour, and a 3 day ticket (€55) which includes the walking tour, river cruise and an evening bus tour. If you want to do a river cruise anyways, we recommend getting the 3 day ticket. The river cruise tickets are €25, so you’ll actually be saving money by getting them included with your bus ticket and you’ll get access to the other tours.

4. Schönbrunn Palace and Zoo

The Vienna zoo is located within the Schönbrunn Gardens and we recommend you tie in your visit to the zoo with a visit to the palace and gardens.

It’s free to walk around gardens but the Palace, Orangerie and Gloriette require an entry fee. The classic pass on their website, which also includes the Privy garden and Maze, costs €31. As this is quite pricey, we decided to just enjoy walking around this UNESCO world heritage site and enjoy the views from the gardens, without paying entry.

The zoo itself is also worth a visit. It has footprints on the floor for you to follow if you want to make sure you see all the animals during your visit. My favourite was the polar bear and the giant pandas; it’s not often that you get to see them as many zoos are unable to look after them.

We thought that the enclosures were a good size for the animals, unlike lots of European zoos we’ve been to. In fact, as well as being the oldest zoo in Europe, Vienna zoo has been voted best zoo in Europe 5 times!

If you’re planning to visit the zoo we reckon it takes half a day rather than a whole day to walk around. However, we recommend you take more time if you want to visit the zoo and the palace gardens whilst you’re there. The zoo costs €24 but we got it included in our city pass. There is also the option of getting the Class Pass Plus on the Schönbrunn website, which includes entry to 7 palace attractions and the zoo for €57.

5. Churches

Whilst you are travelling around Vienna, you will notice how many amazing looking churches there are. Sometimes they are tucked away; you’ll be walking down a street and it’ll open out into a square and suddenly there’s another church!

The easiest one to find though, is St. Stephen’s Cathedral; I know technically this isn’t a church but it’s close enough! St. Stephen’s Cathedral is located right in the centre of Vienna and is very easy to get to on public transport; there’s even a metro stop named after it, Stephansplatz. It’s free to enter the cathedral but there’s a fee if you want to visit the tower or the catacombs.

One of the other popular churches in Vienna is Karlskirche (St Charles Church). Entry costs €5 for a student. Your entry fee also includes an English guidebook which provides details of the architecture, art and recent renovations.

Inside the church you can take a lift up to a platform for a close up view of the frescoes (ceiling art). There’s also a set of stairs up to the outdoor terrace where you can get up close and personal with the columns and watch the comings and goings of the people in the square below.

6. Hundertwasser Village

This complex was originally designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser as a way of integrating the built environment and nature. It houses souvenir shops, boutiques and a cafe bar, but it’s the architecture that you’re really visiting for. You can see the inspiration of nature as you wander around, such as the stream running through the bar at the cafe, or the fountain downstairs that you only stumble across if you happen to need a trip to the bathroom whilst you’re there

The complex is free to enter and look around and if you want to stay and enjoy the building for a while, it’s a good spot for a refreshment. We recommend popping in if you’re in the neighbourhood and why not visit the Hundertwasserhaus or Kunst Haus Wien whilst you’re there, also both designed by Hundertwasser. These buildings also integrate aspects of nature and are free to view from the street, or you can pay to visit the museum dedicated to Hundertwasser inside the Kunst Haus Wien. The Hundertwasserhaus is still used as it was originally designed to be used, as an apartment building and therefore you can’t go inside (I don’t think the residents would like that very much!).

7. Spanish riding school

The Spanish riding school is where the famous Viennese Lipizzaners white stallions and their riders train. It is located at the Hofburg Palace in a custom built hall, specially designed for their training needs.

Their morning training sessions, which are performed to music, are open to the public on Tuesday to Friday. Student standing tickets are €9.50 and seated tickets are €11.50. We recommend arriving with plenty of time as the shows do sell out! It also took about 30 min to queue for entry and gets quite hectic with everyone finding their seats.

The show is an hour long and you can watch 6 horses at a time being trained by their riders. In the first half an hour they train the older stallions, so you can see what the manoeuvres should look like. In the second half, the young stallions who are still learning give it a go. The breed of horses that they train at the school are grey when they are young and turn white as they age so you can tell which are the older horses.

I would note that there is no formation training during this session. The horses and riders are simply completing the manoeuvres in their own time. If you want to see them in formation, you’ll have to catch one of their shows, which are usually performed at the weekends and cost from €30 for standing tickets.

8. Time Travel Museum

The time travel museum is a great way to get a basic overview of the history of Vienna. When you get to the museum, you travel back in time by taking a time machine (also known as a 4D cinema)! You then travel forward in time by walking around the museum in a small group, with your guide triggering the storyline narration at each stage.

The museum is pretty high tech, using animatronics, VR and the 4D cinema time machine to aid the story telling along the way. It’s a great way to learn the overview of the city’s history, so it’s perfect if you’re not that keen on the details.

The museum timeline covers the Turkish siege, the Austria royal family, Vienna’s music culture, the local plague, WW2 and the signing of the new state treaty. As you are not free to roam the museum freely, the time you spend here is dictated by the tour and takes 50 min

We recommend buying your tickets online, as they’re 15% cheaper that way. I bought mine on the metro into town that morning and paid €15.20 instead of €17.90 at the door. Also, when you get there, don’t forget to pick up a free audio guide if you don’t want to listen to the German version of the narrative. If you get the audio guide it will play the English version through your headphones at the same time and overlays any German speech.

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