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VIENNA

The best spots to recharge on the weekend in Vienna

There is no shortage of options for relaxation and recharging in Austria's capital. Here are a few suggestions

Published: 4 March 2022 16:42 CET
Updated: 30 December 2022 14:20 CET
The Peace Pagoda in Vienna, Austria. Photo by Dimitry Anikin on Unsplash
The Peace Pagoda in Vienna, Austria. Photo by Dimitry Anikin on Unsplash

Vienna has a number of excellent places for its residents to enjoy over the weekend. 

A government focus on improving the quality of life for the city’s people created a capital with an extensive public transport system leading to several parks, commerce, culture and much more.

Many of these are entirely free to visit, and some have affordable rates.

A walk through Schönbrunn’s gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for example, is free, while coffee in one of Vienna’s most famous and traditional coffee houses, where people like Trotsky and Freud would sit to read the latest newspapers, would set you back €3.80. 

‘Waldeinsamkeit’ in Austria: Five peaceful forest walks near Vienna

From parks to cafes, spas and even a Buddhist monument, here are a few of the best places to unwind and recharge over the weekend in Vienna.

Schönbrunn garden, Lobau and Setagaya

One of the most touristic places in Vienna is also one of the best for a hideout, as incredible as it sounds. The parks of the beautiful Schönbrunn Palace the Habsburg summer retreat are free to enter and open all year round since 1779.

It extends for 1.2km from east to west and approximately one kilometre from north to sound. Together with the palace, it is on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list.

There are many monuments, fountains, benches, and spots in nature to sit and relax.

The Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria Photo by Akshaye Sikand on Unsplash

The Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. Photo by Akshaye Sikand on Unsplash

Vienna is surrounded by parks and woods, some more famous than others. They all offer great areas for recreation, hikes, and just chilling by their benches.

The Lobau park, located inside Danube-Auen National Park, is also known as Vienna’s jungle. A 2,300-hectare area east of the capital protects one of the last major floodplain landscapes in Central Europe.

It’s an excellent place for biking, hiking, and observing different species of plants and animals.

A smaller and more peaceful option is the 4,700sq/km Setagaya park in the 19th district of Vienna. The area was planned by Japanese garden designer Ken Nakajima almost 30 years ago and is known for its beautiful cherry blossoms, ponds and bamboo gates.

The park, however, is closed in winter and will open in April for visitors – no dogs are allowed. 

EXPLAINED: Everything you need to know about owning a pet in Austria

Indoor nature

Those looking for indoor places but still wanting to be close to nature have many options in Vienna. From the Schmetterlinghaus, where you can walk in the middle of butterflies, to its neighbouring Palmenhaus, where Viennese can enjoy coffee and a piece of Topfenstrudel surrounded by palm trees, there are many options. 

The city’s aquarium, Haus des Meeres, is also a great place to walk among monkeys and birds and pretend like you are in a tropical city. Perfect for the cold and windy Viennese days. 

Vienna is also the city of coffeehouses. You can spend your days roaming through the different and beautiful spots without visiting any of them twice.

A waitress steps out of the Cafe Sperl in Vienna. AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER KLEIN (Photo by ALEXANDER KLEIN / AFP)

The Cafe Central is the call for a more famous and traditional option. Those who prefer to recharge in a cosy environment can go to Vollpension, where senior citizens bake delicious treats. When days are cold, Cafe Jelinek offers armchairs by a fireplace. 

Cost of living: 45 ways to save money in Austria

Therme Wien Oberlaa

Austria is famous for its thermal areas, with stunning mountain spas, especially in the Alps. But for Viennese, Therme Wien, also known as Oberlaa, is undoubtedly the place to go to unwind and recharge. There are several zones: spa, sauna, tranquillity, adventure, beauty, relaxation and more.

The complex also offers different options and services for booking, including an “after-work” ticket for around € 30 to explore the various pools, saunas and jacuzzis.

Vienna Peace Pagoda

The Vienna Peace Pagoda is a Buddhist structure located near the water, or better yet, by the Donau in the city’s second district.

https://mobile.twitter.com/lindinger/status/1261202031508893696

The white monument symbolises unity in peace. The Pagodas are created to “spread love and peace” and share a “message of compassion and peaceful coexistence”.

Not a bad message to share, especially in times like this. 

READ MORE: How the New Danube protects Vienna from catastrophic floods

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VIENNA

Could be wurst: Vienna sausage stands push for UN recognition

From top bankers and politicians to students and factory workers, Vienna's popular sausage stands heaving with bratwurst and meaty delicacies are a longstanding cultural legacy they hope to have recognised by UNESCO.

Published: 23 June 2024 08:31 CEST
Could be wurst: Vienna sausage stands push for UN recognition

The owners of 15 stands in the Austrian capital have formed a lobbying group and applied last week to have the “Vienna sausage stand culture” inscribed as intangible cultural heritage by the UN agency.

“We want to create a kind of quality seal for Vienna sausage stands,” said 36-year-old Patrick Tondl, one of the association’s founders whose family owns Leo’s Wuerstelstand — Vienna’s oldest operating sausage stand.

“At the sausage stand, everyone is the same… No matter if you’re a top banker who earns hundreds of thousands of euros or if you have to scrape together the last euros to buy a sausage… You meet here, you can talk to everyone,” he adds.

High inflation driving consumers looking for affordable meals, plus a new wave of vendors with updated flavours, have helped keep the stands busy.

Tondl’s great-grandfather started their business in the late 1920s, pulling a cart behind him and selling sausages at night.

The family’s customers have included former chancellor Bruno Kreisky, recalls Vera Tondl, 67, who runs the shop together with her son Patrick.

Leo’s is one of about 180 sausage stands in Vienna today, out of a total of about 300 food stands, selling fast food at fixed locations and open until the early hours, according to the city’s economic chamber.

Whereas the number of stands has remained similar over the last decade, more than a third have changed from selling sausages to kebabs, pizza and noodles, a spokesman for the chamber told AFP.

‘Momentum’

But sausage stands have seen a “mini boom” in customer numbers recently, according to Patrick Tondl.

Many have been drawn back to the stands by high inflation, where a meal can be had for less than 10 euros ($11) with lower overheads than restaurants.

New stand operators have also brought a “bit of momentum”, said Tondl, bringing the likes of organic vegetarian sausages with kimchi.

Tourists are already drawn in droves.

“When you come to Austria, it’s what you want to try,” 28-year-old Australian tourist Sam Bowden told AFP.

The cultural legacy of Vienna’s sausages is far-reaching, including the use of the term “wiener” for sausages in the United States, which is believed to have derived from the German name for Vienna, Wien.

However Sebastian Hackenschmidt, who has published a photo book on the stands, said the legacy of the “Vienna phenomena” is more complex.

He says that for many in multicultural Vienna, the sausage stands hold little appeal — equally for the growing number of vegetarians — and their universal appeal is something of a “myth”.

“Vienna is a city in great flux… With the influx of people, cultural customs are also changing,” Hackenschmidt told AFP.

Some 40 percent of Vienna’s two million inhabitants were born outside the country, where the anti-immigrant far-right looks set to top September national polls for the first time.

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