Country guide
Austria is 83,879 km², and its nine states fall into two kinds of trip. Vienna, Lower Austria and Upper Austria lie along the Danube on level, easily crossed gr...
Photograph · C.Stadler/Bwag · CC BY-SA 4.0
Reviewed by Elena Voss · Roavina Travel Editor
Austria is 83,879 km², and its nine states fall into two kinds of trip. Vienna, Lower Austria and Upper Austria lie along the Danube on level, easily crossed ground, with Vienna alone holding 1,931,593 of the country's roughly nine million people. Tyrol, Salzburg, Vorarlberg and Styria are the Alpine states, entered by valley rather than by plain, and their capitals — Innsbruck, Salzburg, Bregenz, Graz — are each small enough to cross on foot in an afternoon. The distinction decides an itinerary: the Danube cities sit an hour apart by train and the mountain ones do not.
Checked 2026-08-25
Every city catalogued in this country so far, ranked by how much there is to see.
Photograph · Andrzej Otrębski · CC BY-SA 4.0
Ranked by importance — sitelinks, pageviews and heritage status, not editor preference.
5 places match
Category
Typical visit duration
Interests
Kunsthistorisches Museum is Vienna’s imperial art museum, built as a purpose-made home for the Habsburg collections on Maria-Theresien-Platz. Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer designed it between 1871 and 1891, and it opened in 1891.
Naturhistorisches Museum
Vienna’s Natural History Museum is a purpose-built nineteenth-century house of science on Maria-Theresien-Platz, not merely a container for specimens.
Weltmuseum
Weltmuseum Wien occupies the Neue Burg wing of the Hofburg on Heldenplatz and holds Vienna's global ethnographic collections, assembled from Habsburg holdings and expedition material going back to the museum's founding as the Museum für Völkerkunde in 1876.
The Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, the Museum of Military History, is Austria's oldest purpose-built museum structure, opened in 1891 inside the Arsenal complex as the k.k. Hofwaffenmuseum and renamed to its current form in 1955.
Technisches Museum
The Technisches Museum Wien is Austria's largest museum of technology and industry, on Mariahilfer Straße in the 14th district, Penzing.
Seven to ten days gives Vienna four days and leaves time for Salzburg, Innsbruck, or Graz by rail. Alpine excursions need flexible weather time and should not be treated as guaranteed additions to a tightly timed city route.
Austria follows Schengen entry rules, with document and visa requirements determined by nationality and route. Verify the current position through official Austrian or EU channels before departure.
ÖBB trains and coordinated buses link Vienna with Salzburg, Innsbruck, Graz, and other regions. Drivers need the correct motorway toll product, and some Alpine roads charge separately.
May to June and September suit many city-and-mountain routes, while December is a distinct winter-city period. Lift, pass, and high-road operating dates matter more than a national forecast for Alpine days.
Austria uses the euro (EUR). Cards are useful, but a euro cash reserve can help at smaller establishments; review the amount and currency before approving any terminal conversion.
Austria uses 112 as its general emergency line and 144 for ambulance dispatch. Its 230 V system takes Type C and F plugs. This guide holds no verified tap-water value, so leave that point unresolved until local guidance is checked.
