Once in Vienna, tours in all sorts of flavours and for all sorts of budgets can add depth and entertainment to your visit.
Find your way to tips, links and reviews for numerous options: from guided walks and movie-themed location maps to bus tours, boat trips and VR experiences.
- Book a tour experience* for your Vienna stay
- See also:
Jump to:
- Walking & themed tours
- Bus tours
- VR tours and experiences
- Film locations
- Boat and river trips
- Tours of historical buildings
- Day trips
- Useful passes
Trips & tours, oh my!
We shall begin on two feet…
Walking & themed tours
(A tour of the centre should take you past the Mozart monument in the Burggarten park)
This overview takes you through various possibilities, including:
- My detailed walking tour route sends you around the best bits of the historical centre, lets you explore at your own pace, and links to information & tips on the highlights you pass
- Links for guided services from official licensed guides
- Various articles I put together to let you discover architectural eras (like the Baroque), historical epochs (like WWII) and other themes
- Options for tracing the lives & works of notable personalities associated with Vienna, including Beethoven, Klimt, Mozart, Sisi and many others
→ More: walking and themed tours…
Bus tours
(The Vienna Sightseeing bus)
Vienna has two main hop on hop off bus services that take you past (and to) important sights like the Schönbrunn and Belvedere palaces, the historical gems around the Ringstrassen, the Riesenrad giant ferris wheel, and the Danube.
These services may also include bonus experiences with upgrades, like a river cruise or guided walk. And we also have a bus tour with VR integration (see below).
→ More: hop on hop off buses…
VR tours and experiences
(The Future Bus VR city tour was a lot of fun)
Virtual reality has put a realistic, well-animated arm around the shoulders of traditional Vienna to add another dimension to tours in the city.
Discover a growing number of seated and mobile hi-tech experiences that transport you to places old and imagined. I also cover immersive and multimedia attractions in that overview.
→ More: VR, multimedia & immersive tours or experiences…
Film locations
(Which shadowy post-WWII figure once famously stood in this doorway?)
Vienna has provided outdoor and interior locations for many international movies and TV shows; from classics of the 1940s to today’s Netflix productions.
Follow in the footsteps of Harry Lime, Ethan Hunt, James Bond, Céline & Jesse, Jack Ryan, Max Liebermann, and others. Most of the location guides feature a map, as well as links, tips, and anecdotes about the places you pass.
→ More: movie location guides…
Boat and river trips
(Take a turn along the Danube, which lacks a certain blueness to it in the photo)
Vienna owes much of its historical prominence to a convenient location on the banks of the continent-crossing Danube.
Some river trip options include boat transfers to Bratislava and back, various tours of the Vienna bits of the Danube (and beyond), and even a municipal service out to a wetland nature reserve.
The main river itself passes through the northeast of the city, but one arm kindly snakes around the edge of the old town.
→ More: boat tours & river trips…
Tours of historical buildings
(Tour the inside of the Austrian parliament)
Vienna is the kind of place where a restaurant bears a world-famous personality’s name because that same personality used to live upstairs. We have a lot of history here. A lot. It oozes out of gothic doors, baroque portals, and art deco windows.
Many historical locations offer tours of their interior in one form or another: opera houses, palaces, concert venues, civic & religious buildings, and more.
We also have some annual events that let you enter places normally closed off to the public.
→ More: tours of historical buildings…
Day trips
(Salzburg makes a great day trip and can be reached by train in a little over two hours)
If we stretch our definitions a little, then a tour in Vienna might take you outside the city and back again to such destinations as Salzburg, Hallstatt, the Alps, Melk abbey, or Budapest.
It pains me a little to suggest you leave my home city for pastures new, but honesty compels me to present a few ideas.
After all, much of Vienna’s beauty and cultural riches date back to the times of the Habsburgs. However, their lands extended across much of nearby central, southern and eastern Europe too. So, for example, many other places got a share of the imperial cake, too.
→ More: day trip ideas…
Useful passes
Finally, a sightseeing pass might offer discounted or one-time free access to various paid travel and tour options. For example (at the time of writing):
- The Vienna Pass includes a couple of guided tours, a city cruise and (repeat) use of a hop on hop off bus service
- The Vienna Welcome Card works as a network travel card for public transport and also includes a number of discounts on other travel services