If summer temperatures become unpleasant, Vienna has numerous locations and activities that help you escape the heat. Not to mention numerous ice cream parlours.
- Options include
- …crypt, cellar & sewer tours
- …churches & art museums
- …recreational water facilities
- …parks & woodland
- Book a tour of a working wine cellar*
- See also:
Jump to:
Go below ground
Let’s begin with the chance to disappear into the cool embrace of crypts, cellars and the like.
Church Crypts
(The Kapuzinergruft Imperial crypts know what we need in summer)
Double the chill factor with a ticket for some of Vienna’s crypts (if you visit without a ticket, you might find yourself in court or, perhaps worse, trapped in a late 18th-century gothic novel).
Your main choices are:
- Stephansdom: Vienna’s cathedral offers regular guided tours of its catacombs, which vary from bright basement rooms to the kind of dusky bone-filled chambers familiar from Hollywood
- Kapuzinergruft: a long list of emperors, empresses and imperial family members find their last resting place in the Imperial Crypts. Not your standard medieval-like ambience, but large, well-lit rooms with suitably regal sarcophagi and coffins
- Michaelerkirche: the church on central Michaelerplatz square has tours through crypts of the more traditional kind. These date back over hundreds of years. As a bonus: Austrian mummies
Wine Cellars
(The Schlumberger wine cellars; press photo courtesy of Schlumberger and © Bildagentur Zolles/Robert Zolles)
The pristine and lovingly-lit Schlumberger wine cellars maintain a steady 13-15°C for visitors as you take the self-guided tour through the practice and culture of sparkling wine production.
Just to add to the refreshment factor, the tour ends with an optional wine tasting involving suitably chilled drinks.
Underground shelter
(Stairs take you down into the cool)
The Retro Gaming Museum features hardware and games (many of which you can play) from the past.
More importantly for our purposes, the museum occupies an old underground bunker and air raid shelter complex close to the Haus des Meeres zoological attraction.
Enter the sewers
(More steps away from the heat)
You might wonder whether lower temperatures justify wandering knee-deep in effluent. But I don’t mean that kind of sewer trip.
Instead, consider the city’s Third Man Sewer Tour, which takes you down to the locations used for the iconic underground scenes from that movie.
I went on a tour and encountered no unpleasant smells at all. And barely any sewage for that matter.
Cool interiors
Various “attractions” stay relatively cool thanks to their construction or the demands of their contents. For example…
Art museums
(The Kunsthistorisches Museum)
Sensitive museum exhibits often need managed temperatures free of extremes to avoid damage. Which is to our benefit during summer.
This is particularly true of art museums, and Vienna has a lot of those. And even more true of those museums with fragile older works. So the picture galleries of the Kunsthistorisches Museum feel like a strong option, as well as the Albertina.
Churches
(One of many ecclesiastical options)
In a previous summer, the archdiocese of Vienna noted (my rough translation):
…temperatures in many places of worship in Vienna and the east of Lower Austria are currently an average 10 degrees lower than outside
Not every church offers the same degree of sanctuary from the heat. Look, particularly, for those with thick walls and fewer windows. The Augustinerkirche on Josefsplatz, where many imperial marriages took place, is a strong option.
If the heat persists into the night, many churches now offer early evening classical concerts designed for visitors. Find more evening activity suggestions here.
Ice skating
And we’ll end this section with an obvious one: indoor ice skating. The EisStadthalle, for example has times for public skating in summer.
Recreational water facilities
(Boat hire on the Alte Donau)
A location on Western Europe’s largest river certainly helps when it comes to opportunities to cool off in and/or around water. Vienna has some 63km of riverside or lakeside banks accessible to the public.
The city authorities provide an overview of natural bathing facilities here, for example, and they operate around 18 public baths with outdoor areas.
Key recreational locations are:
- The Donauinsel and Neue Donau: the island running along the Danube as it passes through most of Vienna is a nature reserve and leisure park with waterfronts for relaxing and numerous water-based activities
- Alte Donau: a huge lake with subsidised lidos, public bathing jetties, watersports, walks, cafés, restaurants etc.
- Donaukanal: an arm of the Danube that actually snakes around the old town. Notable for its numerous waterside bars and restaurants
- Lobau: a wetland nature reserve with hiking and cycling trails
The city also has numerous playgrounds with facilities involving water, including 12 dedicated water-themed play areas. One site stretches across 5000m2 on the Donauinsel.
Drinking fountains & cooling stations
(The city councilor responsible for the climate agenda, Jürgen Czernohorszky, announces the operative start of Wiener Wasser’s 1,600th public drinking fountain in April 2025; press photo © Stadt Wien/Markus Wache)
Vienna has been making efforts to protect from the effects of climate change by implementing a Heat Action Plan.
At the time of writing, this includes around 1,600 drinking fountains and drinking hydrants (75 are mobile drinking fountains with spray mist functions), and 100 Sommerspritzer spray mist shower facilities.
This gives Vienna over 13 times the number of drinking fountains per head than, for example, Berlin or Munich.
You might encounter the spray mist facilities as you wander around and suddenly find yourself in a cooling mist of water. This city map has appropriate checkboxes, so you can find your nearest drinking fountain, for example.
If you’re concerned about the quality of the water that comes out of those drinking fountains (or taps), then relax.
Natural shade
(The Burggarten park in the centre of town)
Vienna has over half a million trees and over 1000 parks of various sizes offering shade and cooler surfaces and temperatures. The city provides a directory here.
In the centre, your strongest options are probably:
- The Stadtpark runs along part of the Ring boulevard that goes around the old town and also includes a section of the River Wien
- The Rathauspark spreads out either side of the Rathausplatz with trees and numerous benches lining paths
- The Burggarten forms part of the central Hofburg complex in the very centre of town
(The Rathauspark has plenty of opportunities to rest hot feet)
Large park and woodland areas elsewhere:
- The Prater is known for its giant entertainment complex but also has extensive meadows and woodlands
- The Lainzer Tiergarten giant nature reserve includes a lot of woodland walking routes
- The Wienerwald wooded hills dominate the western and northern edges of Vienna. See, for example, city hiking paths 1 through to 4a. Also has the advantage of being higher up
- Schönbrunn park has extensive wooded grounds around and behind the gardens of Schönbrunn palace
- The University of Vienna’s lovely Botanical Gardens include numerous giant tree specimens with appropriate canopies
And…
(Ice cream offers temporary, but tasty, relief. )
Finally, there’s always ice cream.
Popular parlour chains in the centre include Bortolotti (Mariahilfer Straße) and Zanoni & Zanoni (Lugeck, just down from Stephansdom cathedral).