Visit Vienna for the third time and it’s easier to step away from Stephansdom and Schönbrunn. These ten are less visited but worth your time.
1. Sankt Marxer Friedhof
In the 3rd district, no tourists find it. Mozart was buried here in 1791 in an unmarked communal grave (exact location unknown, a symbolic stone marks it). A wildly overgrown Biedermeier cemetery, full of lilac in early summer.
2. Zentralfriedhof, Gate 2
If you’re already there, walk to the honorary graves: Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Falco, Hans Hass. The chapel by Otto Wagner is worth a look. The far end of the cemetery is Vienna’s Jewish section (Gate 4), badly damaged, silent.
3. Kapuzinergruft
Under the Capuchin Church on Neuer Markt. 12 Habsburg emperors and 19 empresses lie here in 150 sarcophagi. Cheap to enter, and most Vienna travellers walk right past because they don’t know.
4. Schlumberger Kellerwelten
In the 19th district, Vienna’s oldest sparkling-wine cellars (1842). Guided tour with tasting, three storeys below ground, long passageways. A different sort of Vienna outing.
5. The “Washerwoman’s house”
In Schönlaterngasse, a tiny house from the 14th century. Easy to miss because it’s that small. Schönlaterngasse itself is one of the narrowest lanes in the inner city.
6. Ankeruhr
Hoher Markt, a mechanical clock from 1914, Jugendstil. Every day at noon a parade of twelve historical figures passes from Marcus Aurelius to Joseph Haydn. Three-minute show, free.
7. Otto Wagner pavilion Karlsplatz
Two small light-rail pavilions from 1898, one now a café, one a small museum of Otto Wagner’s work. Jugendstil at full strength, small, often empty.
8. Looshaus
Adolf Loos’s apartment and commercial building from 1911 on Michaelerplatz. Emperor Franz Joseph hated it so much he ordered the window of his Hofburg apartment opposite to be curtained. The Raiffeisenbank is inside today, walk into the hall during opening hours.
9. Café Anzengruber
In Schleifmühlgasse (4th district). A narrow, tall beisl with regulars and artists, slightly dark, honest. Plays vinyl, has no tourist menu.
10. City hiking trail 1 (Kahlenberg from the Cobenzl)
Classic view, but if you hike instead of bussing, you walk through vines and forest, feel the city’s edge, and reach the Kahlenberg differently. Plan: 2.5-3 hours.
Bonus: Beethoven’s Pasqualatihaus apartment
On the Mölker Bastei, small, quiet, four rooms full of Beethoven documents. Very few tourists. The Mozart houses are full, the Beethoven houses empty, for no good reason.
A few more not in the guidebook
- In summer the Donauinsel’s Strandbar Herrmann opens evenings as an open-air bar with loungers.
- The Pawlatschen passage in the first Hofburg courtyard is usually empty, costs nothing, feels like a private inner court.
- The brutalist concrete staircase at 21er Haus near the Belvedere surprises everyone.