(NB: Hotels in Vienna require you to satisfy local COVID status requirements.)
As you stumble out of the opera house, emotionally exhausted by that final aria and ready for a good night’s sleep, you might like to find your hotel within walking distance. So here just a few suggestions.
- See also: Accommodation in Vienna
At the time of writing, reviewers gave the following hotels a rating of at least 8 at booking.com. All are within a very easy walk of the Staatsoper (most are literally just over the road).
For more suggestions, try the booking.com map* below…Vienna’s not short of decent hotels:
(The State Opera House is marked at the centre of the map)
The Hotels
In no particular order…
1. Hotel Bristol*
Right opposite the opera house and part of the Marriott group’s The Luxury Collection.
The hotel has a fair few connections to the opera and classical music world, given that the likes of Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Mahler, Caruso, and Richard Strauss all stayed within its walls. You can book rooms with a direct view of the Staatsoper.
The hotel first opened at the end of the 19th century. The current look dates back to the early 1910s: the external railings and style hint at the rise of modernist tendencies in the architecture of the time.
Offering rooms and serviced apartments further up Kärntner Straße (the street that passes by the opera house). It has an entrance to Karlsplatz subway station practically outside for easy access to Vienna’s excellent public transport system.
Go around the other side of the block to find one of Vienna’s renowned coffee houses, Café Museum (once a haunt of Klimt and Schiele).
3. Hotel Sacher*
Sitting on the opposite side of the road from the rear of the Staatsoper, this famous traditional Viennese hotel is a one-time star of The Third Man and also home to the iconic Sachertorte cake.
I’ve been in one of their suites. Put it this way: you don’t need to worry about quality.
If you stay at the hotel, you really ought to have coffee and cake inside (or reserve a table for the Café Sacher – queues to get in are common and often quite long).
Alternatively, nip around the corner from the hotel and you have Café Mozart, another one of Vienna’s traditional coffee houses.
Another Marriott property. If you walk from it in the opposite direction to the Staatsoper, another operatic icon soon appears: Mozart in the form of the Mozart monument in the Burggarten Park.
The Burg Kino is almost next door: one of Vienna’s English-language cinemas and probably best known for regular showings of The Third Man.
5. Austria Trend Hotel Astoria Wien*
Just behind Hotel Sacher in the direction of Vienna’s old town along the pedestrianised Kärntner Straße. The rather historic location used to be part of a 14th-century convent, though it’s fair to say that the current rooms represent a significant upgrade on the nun’s former accommodation.
Keep going along Kärntner Straße to reach Stephansplatz square, home to Stephansdom cathedral.
A smaller hotel that still retains some of the Art Deco elements characteristic of the original building. Just up from the hotel is a Café Aida, one of Vienna’s local coffee house and patisserie chains, with famous pink branding and a name rather suitable for opera goers.
7. The Ring*
A member of the Relais & Châteaux association of luxury independent hotels. Sits almost exactly halfway between the opera house and the equally-famous Musikverein. Experts regard the latter as one of the world’s foremost venues for classical music.
The Ring hotel is currently being refurbished with an anticipated reopening in summer, 2022.
8. Hotel zur Wiener Staatsoper*
Built in the late 19th-century and another hotel sandwiched between musical establishments.
The Haus der Musik, a museum of sound and music, is about 100m away. And if you’ve had enough of highbrow culture, the nearby Flanagans pub is an excellent place to watch football and rugby.
Like The Ring hotel above, the Hotel zur Wiener Staatsoper is undergoing refurbishment (until early 2023).
For the record…
Vienna is a compact city with an excellent public transport system. The Staatsoper sits next to one of the major transport hubs: Karlsplatz station is on the U1, U2, and U4 subway lines and trams 1, 2, D, 62, and 71 all stop at the Oper/Karlsplatz tram stop.
Clearly, you can get to and from the opera house very easily (and not forgetting taxis).
So if you wish to stay in a hotel elsewhere in Vienna, it’s not a problem getting to the evening performance and back again. For example, I live in an outer district and have a direct tram line that takes me door-to-door to the Staatsoper in about 25 minutes.