After watching the three cases in Season 2 of Vienna Blood, my family and I did our own police work to track down as many Viennese locations as possible (though we can’t guarantee 100% accuracy).
- See also:
We simply compared what we saw on TV against our knowledge of local geography to come up with the below guide…
Be sure to check the Season 1 locations, too, which include those that repeat across the Season 2 episodes (like the outdoor shots of the police station, the hospital where Max works, or the Liebermann home). And we’ve also covered Season 3…
Location Map
Season 2 locations
(Warning: may contain minor spoilers. Note that episodes are numbered as shown in Austria: one for each case. So Episode 2 here might be Episodes 3-4 in the USA, for example)
The series draws on Frank Tallis’s books and is a production of MR FILM and Endor Productions, coproduced with ORF, ZDF, and Red Arrow Studios.
I’ve made the location guide relatively spoiler-free. However, one or two might slip through. You have been warned.
Episode 1 The Melancholy Countess
Most of this episode features indoor scenes, which made it difficult to track down the locations (with one notable exception).
You might think identifying the distinctive interior décor would be easy, but Vienna has hundreds of historical townhouses and other sites that serve as plausible candidates; many of them are inaccessible to the general public.
The Imperial Hotel
(The hotel at Christmas)
A great deal of the action throughout this episode definitely takes place in the five-star Imperial Hotel at Kärntner Ring 16.
This late 19th-century palatial town residence converted to a hotel in the 1880s and, as far as we can tell, they used a number of locations inside the building for Vienna Blood.
The opening scene of the dinner dance, for example, takes place in the hotel’s Marble Hall, notable for its columned arches. The countess then climbs the Imperial’s royal staircase with the portrait of Emperor Franz Joseph at the top.
(The hotel entrance on Kärntner Ring)
The rooms used by the countess appear repeatedly during the episode, and we’re pretty sure the bedroom at least is part of the Imperial’s Royal Suite (which is larger than our apartment).
We also catch a glimpse of the hotel’s entrance a couple of times, for example when Max and Oskar first visit the location.
All of which means this is one film set you can actually stay in*.
Dream sequence
A country residence stands in at least for the outdoor shots of the abandoned institute that features in various sequences. Unfortunately, the location is outside Vienna at a (private?) estate near Neunkirchen in Lower Austria.
Café Sperl
(A coffee house since 1880)
Max meets an old acquaintance in Café Sperl, which made an appearance in Episode 3 of the first season. Max and Oskar also have a drink here later in the episode as they work out the truth behind the case.
This late 19th-century coffee house has distinctive red and white patterned upholstery, and you also get a lovely view of its wood and glass entrance in the episode.
Burggarten
(A 1903 statue of Emperor Franz Joseph is on the left)
Max and his father meet in the Burggarten park, which backs onto the Hofburg complex and Albertina art museum.
You can see the Jugendstil glasshouse at the back of some shots, and the pair sit and talk near the statue of Emperor Franz Joseph.
That statue existed at the time of Vienna Blood, though it only moved to the Burggarten in the 1950s.
Stadtpark & Kursalon
(The Kursalon viewed from Johannesgasse)
Various scenes toward the end of the episode feature the Stadtpark park, with the lovely Kursalon classical music venue in the background.
The Kursalon dates back to 1867 and enjoys a strong musical connection to Johann Strauss the son, whose golden statue in the Stadtpark has become a hugely popular photo motif for visitors.
Street scenes
(Schreyvogelgasse)
In one of the very few exterior scenes in Episode 1, Max drives briefly in a carriage after he and Oskar get an autopsy report, and we catch a view of some old red doors behind the vehicle.
This is the road outside the Dreimäderlhaus building on Schreyvogelgasse.
The area often appears on film (including Vienna Blood Season 1) thanks to its historical flair.
For example, Jesse and Céline walked down the same street in Before Sunrise and Harry Lime hid in one of the doorways in The Third Man.
(Schönlaterngasse, which also appears in episode three of the third season)
After Oskar and Sergeant Haussmann discuss issues in one of the hotel rooms, we see a horse and carriage turn a corner. This is Schönlaterngasse and the archway at number 5 that leads through into the Heiligenkreuzerhof.
(Traungasse)
When Oskar and Max travel together to the Stadtpark, their carriage passes down the historical-looking Traungasse. In the episode, the signpost you see in the above photo becomes a lovely street lamp.
Episode 2 The Devil’s Kiss
Hotel Imperial
I guess if you’re going to film in the Hotel Imperial, you might as well make the most of it. A concert scene looks to be filmed in the hotel’s Festsaal, which serves as a prestigious event location.
Schönbrunn Palace
(View of the palace through the main entrance)
An easy spot.
Schönbrunn Palace, summer residence of the Habsburgs and Vienna’s most popular tourist attraction, has a part in the action.
We see an important message for Oskar delivered to the side of the palace that faces the main entrance to the Schönbrunn complex (pictured above). The stairs look down on a large courtyard that hosts, for example, the annual Christmas market.
Ministerial meeting places
(Museum of Military History)
Oskar meets with Police Commissioner Strasser in the latter’s office and also in a larger building. Both locations feature remarkable decoration.
The office with the notable stained glass coloured windows is the Hungarian Coronation Hall of the Franzenburg in Laxenburg (see below). The painting behind Strasser’s desk shows the 1825 coronation of Empress Carolina Augusta as Queen of Hungary in Bratislava.
The larger building is the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Museum of Military History).
We see Oskar climbing the steps in the Hall of Generals, with the statues of military figures of the past. The actual conversations take place in the Hall of Glory with its numerous frescoes of military triumphs.
Stadtpark and Kursalon
(The Jugendstil park entrance)
An outdoor chase scene has Oskar, Max and Sergeant Haussmann in action in the Stadtpark park we saw in Episode 1.
The Kursalon makes an appearance again, as does the turn-of-the-century park entrance portal (pictured above) just outside the U4 subway station building.
More meeting places
(Press photo of the Franzensburg © SLBG/Wolfgang Mastny)
A number of Max and Oskar’s interior and exterior scenes toward the end of the episode make use of the huge and gorgeous Laxenburg castle park, which lies a little bit south of Vienna in the province of Lower Austria.
The park has various buildings, but most of the filming seems to have been done at the Franzensburg castle.
I say castle, but the Franzensburg actually only resembles a much older gothic building. Though a magnificent piece of architecture with some gorgeous rooms inside, it was actually completed at the very beginning of the 1800s.
Having said that, some of the interior is genuinely Renaissance, for example, since they transferred architectural elements from other locations to create the complex.
Now a museum, the Franzensburg is open to the public.
Street scenes
At least some of the opening scenes of Episode 2 are in the area of Schulhof square in the first district.
We catch a view of the rear of the Kirche am Hof, for example. Although incredibly central, it took us ages to figure the location out:
(The building on the left is the city’s clock museum)
And we see the Schulhof side of the Palais Collalto:
(Mozart performed inside the palais as a child!)
A young girl runs into a building and finds a corpse at the start of the episode. You can see the double wooden doors she enters next to the clock museum:
(Schulhof 4)
Oskar has one of his discussions with Police Commissioner Strasser in a carriage relatively early in the episode.
The vehicle picks him up on Lagergasse (house number 3), and we also enjoy a view down to the Traungasse arches that appear later in the episode:
(Lagergasse)
Two apartments opposite each other make regular appearances throughout the episode as Oskar and Sergeant Haussmann stake out a suspect.
One of the distant shots we see of the area around the apartments looks down Buchfeldgasse toward the T-junction with Florianigasse:
(Buchfeldgasse)
Two of the buildings on Buchfeldgasse provide at least the exterior shots for the two houses with the apartments.
(The house exterior for the suspect’s lower floor apartment)
(The house exterior with the upper floor apartment, where the police hang out)
Finally, we return to an old friend.
When Oskar and Inspector von Bülow exit Buchfeldgasse in a hurry, they run through some arches. That’s actually Traungasse again, though at the Salesianergasse end of the street. And we’ll see those arches reappear very shortly in an opening scene to Vienna Blood’s sixth story:
(Another view of Traungasse)
Episode 3: Darkness Rising
Meeting of the history society
The rather marvellous monumental building that hosts the lecture attended by Max and his father is the Naturhistorisches Museum, one of the prestigious buildings that went up in the late 19th century.
(View of the museum from Maria-Theresien-Platz)
We see the entrance hallway beneath the great dome and various other parts of the building later in the episode.
I’d bet a lot of money that the shots of Amelia Lydgate’s workspace come from the museum, too, but I might be wrong on that.
The Monastery
Much of this episode involves various parts of a monastery.
The outside shots feature the Kartäuse Mauerbach (the Mauerbach Charterhouse), a former monastery whose roots go back to the 1300s.
The complex now serves as an information and training centre for the Bundesdenkmalamt (a state institution much like a heritage ministry, responsible for protecting historically-valuable buildings and monuments).
This Charterhouse lies just a few miles west of Vienna.
(The Franziskanerkirche)
I can’t be sure whether all the interior monastery shots come from the same location. However, they filmed at least some indoor scenes elsewhere.
We’re pretty certain, for example, that the wonderful Baroque church interiors are the Franziskanerkirche. This church is part of the Franciscan monastery on Vienna’s Franziskanerplatz in the old town.
The same area also appears as a location in the film, Before Sunrise. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy sit at an outdoor café on the square, and we even see a couple of monks pass by.
(We see pretty much this scene on screen. The view down the central Michaelerkirche crypt; press photo courtesy of the church and © Robert Passini)
Max and the healer view a body in the monastery crypt, and that interior scene seems to be from the Michaelerkirche church. (Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader for that tip.) You can actually visit the location on their crypt tour.
The Synagogue
The huge synagogue had us puzzled for a while, since it matched none of the existing synagogues in Austria. But we believe some film tricks are at play here.
This outdoor scene takes place on Am Hof square, also in the very centre of Vienna. The Kirche am Hof church looks to have stood in for the synagogue:
(The front of Kirche Am Hof looks very different to the rear we saw in episode 2!)
The façade, though, has been altered appropriately (CGI?) in the episode.
The side street action we experience under the arch next to the synagogue is Schulhof again, which also happens to be where Holly Martins chases Harry Lime in The Third Man. The archway clued us in to the real-life location of the “synagogue”.
(Immediately to the left of the church as you face it)
Café Sperl
Another old friend from previous episodes appears again: Café Sperl (see earlier.)
Street scenes
We only managed to identify a couple of streets from this episode.
An opening scene takes place under those Traungasse arches pictured earlier. And, soon after the museum sequences, we have a street scene from Griechengasse, which also appeared in the very first opening sequence of Episode 1 of Vienna Blood’s first season.
(Griechengasse)
And that’s it for now.