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Visiting Vienna

What can you do for free?

MUSA Startgalerie sign

You don’t have to spend money to enjoy Austria’s capital. Here are my suggestions for free and inexpensive things to do and see in Vienna…

Free activities, sights, & experiences

Full view of Stephansdom from the south

(The front part of Stephansdom cathedral is free to enter)

Like any place full of tourist attractions, the city has plenty of ways to help you part with your money. But what can you do for free in Vienna?

Your options for sights and activities requiring no money include all the following:

Before we begin, though, just a word about getting around.

Many central sights are within walking distance of each other. However, the public transport system here is remarkably cheap, so you might consider buying, for example, a Vienna Welcome Card or City Card. Both are network travel cards that include discounts on visitor-oriented services and attractions.

Architecture, art & more

Wien Museum MUSA

(The exhibition in the Startgalerie of the Wien Museum’s musa is free to enter)

Walk just about anywhere in Vienna and you’re bound to bump into an interesting building.

To simply soak up this historical cityscape, follow the detailed recommendations in the What can you do in a day? article and/or follow my self-guided walking route.

For specific architectural eras, look for the location tips for Baroque, Biedermeier, Jugendstil and Historicism styles.

But what about the museums?

Most of Vienna’s major museums and exhibition venues require an entrance ticket, but a handful allow free entry.

Wien Museum Karlsplatz

The Wien Museum in the snow

(Reopened in 2023)

The main location of the Wien Museum broke ground for Vienna by becoming the first major museum to allow free entry to almost all parts. This includes its 3-level permanent exhibition on Vienna’s chronological, social and cultural history, which also features some prestigious art (cough, Klimt, cough).

Only the bigger special exhibitions require an entrance fee.

The MQ

Outside the MuseumsQuartier

(The MQ main entrance)

The MuseumsQuartier (MQ) houses various museums and institutions as a sort of melting pot of contemporary art and culture. Open courtyards, bars and cafés invite you to wander through the complex.

You do need a ticket for most of the big institutions and exhibitions, but…

  • The MQ Art Box is a permanent glass-sided container in the main open-access courtyard with an art installation inside that changes every two months or so
  • Around nine of the passageways between buildings and courtyards form what the MQ calls micromuseums, which means the thoroughfares have one or more distinctive features. A typical example might be a creative ceiling fresco
  • The MQ Libelle is an open space, art installation, and viewing platform on the roof of the Leopold Museum. Also free

Small city museums

A number of smaller museums, like those dedicated to individual districts, charge no entrance fee. Though many have limited opening days and times. See the list provided by the city government.

Other art options

Ringturm summer art installation

(The Ringturm usually has a special art façade in summer)

Outside the MuseumsQuartier, try…

  • The Wien Museum’s musa features contemporary Viennese art with free entry to both the main exhibition hall and the smaller Startgalerie exhibition room
  • The prestigious Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien charges for the main exhibition, but access to the smaller tresor exhibition space is normally free. (Note the Kunstforum closes between its main exhibitions)
  • The Theseus temple owes its existence to the need for somewhere to show off a remarkable piece of art (Canova’s Theseus Group sculpture). Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum group now uses the temple in warmer months for an art installation by some renowned contemporary artist
  • The Ringturm insurance office building offers a few secret delights. One is the Architektur im Ringturm exhibition, which usually tackles some architectural theme from Central and Eastern Europe.
  • If you enjoy street art, then take a walk along the Donaukanal. This channel of the Danube river runs across the edge of Vienna’s old town. The embankment walls either side of the water burst with urban art. Some of it wonderful, some of it, ahem, less so
  • The KÖR Public Art Vienna programme deserves a special shout out. KÖR funds freely-accessible temporary and permanent public art installations (over 200 at the time of writing), which you find dotted throughout Vienna. The subway station near the university I sometimes teach at has one, for example
  • The Calle Libre festival invites artists to create giant street murals and each year sees another handful added to the collection
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Cathedral & churches

Full view of the Minoritenkirche

(The Minoritenkirche, which you might recognise from The Third Man)

Vienna’s landmark sight in the very centre is Stephansdom cathedral. You do need a ticket to look around most of the inside and to access the towers and other interesting bits of the building. But you can actually view some of this gothic giant without paying.

The area immediately after you enter the main entrance and up part of the north side costs nothing to wander into and around.

The central area of town also has a number of lovely churches you can view for free. For example:

Parks & palaces

Museum view from the Volksgarten

(The Rose Garden in the Volksgarten park)

Vienna is famously full of public city parks requiring no entrance fee. And some of them look rather delightful. Here some suggestions:

  • Most people go to Schönbrunn to tour inside the 18th-century palace that housed various emperors and empresses (including Franz Joseph and the famous Sisi). But the huge landscaped gardens and wider park are free to visit, with the exception of a couple of small locations

The park has such (free) delights as a Roman ruins (albeit fake), an obelisk, a rose garden, and a botanic garden. View the wonderful exterior architecture of the palace (obviously) but also see the giant Palm House, the Gloriette, and much more from outside at least.

You need tickets to go inside the palaces, which feature excellent art exhibitions and provide a home for Klimt’s The Kiss. But the main gardens are free, as is the adjoining botanical garden run by the university of Vienna.

The Burggarten from the Hofburg

(The Burggarten park in the old town)

  • Talking Mozart…if you want to see where they buried him, then head out to the former cemetery at St.Marx. The location has a remarkable atmosphere with nature slowly conquering the gravestones
  • Staying on the composer theme, the Stadtpark (also very central) has its own famous monument: the golden Strauss statue that’s become one of the city’s most popular photo opportunities
The Strauss monument

(The golden Strauss statue)

Other composers have monuments here, including Schubert and Lehár. The park itself is rather fine, too, with the modest River Wien running through it (not to be confused with the Danube)

  • A short walk up from the Burggarten, just off Heldenplatz square, is the Volksgarten park. This one becomes a true delight in late spring and early summer, thanks to the spectacular rose garden. Fans of Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) should enjoy the large memorial to her
  • The huge Prater has a park area with waterways, meadows, woodland walks, cycle paths and other recreational facilities. Notable for the amusement complex at one end (home to the giant ferris wheel, for example) and the long Hauptallee boulevard that runs right down the centre (a favourite with cyclists and runners)

Woods, walks & rivers

Footpath and cycle path

(Out along the banks of the Donaukanal)

Parks aren’t the only green places to stretch your legs in Vienna. We have a lot of woods and waterways, for example, including a rather large river you might have heard of.

If that tickles your interest, browse Vienna’s information on official hiking paths around the city, particularly those in the western woods and hills. Other free options include:

  • Riverside walks: walking and cycle routes run along Vienna’s waterways, most notably:
  • Lainzer Tiergarten is a large managed wilderness on the edge of the city, notable for its wildlife (I’ve encountered wild boar there, which is a story for another day) but also for the Hermesvilla, a large summer retreat built for Empress Elisabeth in the 1880s
  • The city runs a surprisingly lovely set of large gardens at Hirchstetten that include various bonus features, such as a mini-zoo, palmhouse, themed horticultural areas, a maze, and more. Still a well-kept secret, possibly because the location is a little off the traditional tourist track
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Composer & artist trails

Beethoven's grave

(Beethoven’s grave in the public Zentralfriedhof cemetery)

If you happen to be an admirer of Vienna’s famous musicians, artists and/or architects, then many biographical landmarks can be admired from the outside.

I mentioned Mozart’s grave earlier. And you’ll find those of Beethoven, Johann Strauss II, Schubert, and many others at the giant and lovingly cared for Zentralfriedhof cemetery.

The Zentralfriedhof is practically a park in its own right with wildlife that includes deer and European hamsters. It makes for a lovely walk.

For detailed maps and lists of relevant biographical addresses for all the above names, plus Klimt, Schiele, Mahler, Empress Elisabeth, Hundertwasser, Haydn, Brahms, Liszt, Bruckner, Lehár, and Otto Wagner, see here.

Free events & festivals

Karlsplatz Christmas market at night

(Karlsplatz Christmas market)

I have a whole page dealing with annual events and festivals in Vienna; many of these are completely free. And the monthly suggestions for activities linked to from that page often include experiences that won’t burden your bank account.

Some particular highlights to watch out for:

You can enjoy them without buying anything. Just soak up the atmosphere, breathe in the scents, revel in the lights and historical surrounds, and browse the stands with all their crafts, gourmet foods and other items not normally sold in your average department store.

Tropical fruit at a market

(The year-round Naschmarkt food market offers its own sensory experience)

  • Europe’s biggest free open-air music festival takes place in Vienna (usually in June): the Donauinselfest draws in something like 2.5 million visitors
  • Two notable open-air film festivals in summer are free.
    • The Rathaus Film Festival takes place on the square in front of city hall and features recorded performances from different genres of music
    • The Frameout open air film festival at the MQ offers a mixture of films
  • Free concerts also dot the Vienna event calendar. For example…

Not free, but inexpensive

Cafe Jelinek signs

(One of Vienna’s many lovely coffee houses)

This is an article about what to do for free in Vienna, but three opportunities allow you to enjoy some special Viennese experiences without spending much money at all.

So, for what it’s worth:

  • Vienna has a lot of concerts designed to give visitors a taste of light classical music while sitting in an atmospheric historical venue. You can pay a lot, but if you browse various options* then some concerts cost as little as €15 (like the organ recitals in the cathedral, last time I checked)
  • Vienna’s traditional cafés form part of the cultural fabric of the city. And you should be able to sit in them for a long time with your first order of coffee (with cake optional but recommended). Usually, nobody will hassle you to move on. It’s all part of the coffee house tradition, though you may find exceptions of course (I’m hearing rumours of some places introducing timeslot bookings)
  • Standing space tickets to the State Opera House are priced as low as €13 on the day (even less if you book in advance, though that’s a little more complicated)

After all that you should have given your finances a bit of a break. Leaving plenty over for some traditional Viennese food. Enjoy.

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