Vienna, Austria
Self-guided audio walking tour of Vienna
50 hand-checked places and 2 walking routes. aiGuide notices where you are and tells you each place's story as you walk past, so you can keep your phone in your pocket.
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Stephansdom to the Staatsoper
The most rewarding 90 minutes in Vienna: from Mozart's apartment and the Stephansdom along the Graben to the Peterskirche and the Shoah memorial on Judenplatz, then through Michaelerplatz into the Hofburg, past the State Hall, the Augustinerkirche and the Albertina to the State Opera.
1.Mozarthaus Vienna
Mozart's only surviving Vienna apartment, his home from 1784 to 1787, the years of The Marriage of Figaro. Since 2006 the whole house behind the cathedral has been a museum of his life and music.
2.Stephansdom
Vienna's Gothic cathedral and the seat of its archbishop, first consecrated in 1147 and rebuilt from 1359 under Duke Rudolf IV. Its 136-metre south tower and patterned tile roof define the city skyline.
3.Pestsäule
A 21-metre Baroque Trinity column on the Graben, vowed by Emperor Leopold I during the plague of 1679 and consecrated in 1693. Its cloud pyramid became the model for plague columns across the Habsburg lands.
4.Peterskirche
A compact Baroque church with a 56-metre green dome, rebuilt from about 1701 and consecrated in 1733. Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt is credited with the design, and Johann Michael Rottmayr painted the dome fresco.
5.Mahnmal für die österreichischen jüdischen Opfer der Shoah
Rachel Whiteread's concrete memorial to the more than 65,000 Austrian Jews murdered by the Nazis, unveiled on Judenplatz in 2000. It stands above the remains of a synagogue destroyed in the pogrom of 1421.
6.Looshaus
The Looshaus on Michaelerplatz, built 1909 to 1912 by Adolf Loos for the outfitters Goldman and Salatsch, shocked imperial Vienna with its bare upper facade and became a landmark of modern architecture.
7.Hofburg
The Hofburg was the main residence of the Habsburgs for more than six centuries, a sprawl of wings from the 13th to the 20th century that now houses museums, the national library and Austria's president.
8.Prunksaal der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek
The State Hall is the Baroque heart of the former imperial library, built for Emperor Charles VI in the 1720s: a frescoed hall nearly 80 metres long holding some 200,000 books.
9.Augustinerkirche
The Augustinian Church, founded in 1327, served as the Habsburg court's parish church: Maria Theresa and Franz Joseph were both married here, and the hearts of 54 Habsburgs are kept behind its Loreto Chapel.
10.Albertina
The Albertina is a palace on one of the last surviving sections of Vienna's bastions, home to one of the world's great collections of drawings and prints, founded in 1776 by Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen.
11.Wiener Staatsoper
Vienna's opera house, opened as the Court Opera in 1869 and the first great public building on the Ringstrasse. Burned in 1945 and rebuilt, it reopened in 1955 as a symbol of Austria's recovery.
The Ringstrasse
The imperial boulevard of the 1860s to 1880s: from the Heldenplatz past the great museums to the Parliament, City Hall, Burgtheater, University and Votivkirche, ending at Sigmund Freud's apartment on the Berggasse.
1.Heldenplatz
Heldenplatz is the vast open square of the Hofburg, framed by the curved Neue Burg and two equestrian statues; on 15 March 1938 Hitler proclaimed the Anschluss of Austria here.
2.Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien
The Kunsthistorisches Museum, opened by Franz Joseph in 1891, houses the Habsburgs' art collections, including the world's largest group of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, in a domed Ringstrasse palace.
3.Naturhistorisches Museum Wien
The Natural History Museum, twin of the art museum opposite, opened in 1889 and holds some 30 million objects, from meteorites and dinosaur skeletons to the Venus of Willendorf.
4.Palais Epstein
A Ringstrasse palace built from 1868 to 1871 by Theophil Hansen for the Jewish banker Gustav von Epstein. Lost in the crash of 1873, it is now part of the Austrian Parliament.
5.Parlamentsgebäude
The seat of Austria's National Council and Federal Council, built by Theophil Hansen from 1874 to 1883 in Greek Revival style. The Republic was proclaimed from its ramp in November 1918.
6.Wiener Rathaus
Vienna's city hall, a Gothic Revival building by Friedrich von Schmidt completed in 1883. Its 98-metre tower, crowned by the copper knight called the Rathausmann, recalls the free towns of medieval Flanders.
7.Burgtheater
Austria's national theatre and one of the leading German-language stages. Its Ringstrasse home, designed by Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer, opened in 1888 with staircase ceilings painted by the young Gustav Klimt.
8.Hauptgebäude der Universität Wien
The main building of the University of Vienna, founded in 1365. Heinrich von Ferstel designed it in Italian High Renaissance style, and it opened on the Ringstrasse in 1884 with the Emperor present.
9.Votivkirche
A neo-Gothic church built from 1856 to 1879 as thanks for Emperor Franz Joseph's survival of a knife attack in 1853. Its twin spires reach 99 metres, second only to St Stephen's in Vienna.
10.Sigmund Freud Museum
The apartment and consulting rooms at Berggasse 19 where Sigmund Freud lived and worked from 1891 until Nazi persecution forced him into exile in 1938. A museum since 1971.
More must-see places in Vienna
Schloss Belvedere
Prince Eugene of Savoy's Baroque summer residence: two palaces by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt joined by a terraced garden. The Upper Belvedere now shows Austrian art, including Gustav Klimt's The Kiss.
Schloss Schönbrunn
The former summer residence of the Habsburgs, a 1,441-room Baroque palace begun by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach in 1696 and finished for Maria Theresa. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996.
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