286 Best Sights in Austria

A causeway leads through nearly a mile of reeds to the Seebad beach and boat landing, where you can take a sightseeing boat either as a round-trip or to another point on the lake. You can also rent a boat, swim, or enjoy a waterside drink or snack at an outdoor table. It's a 20-minute walk (or five-minute drive) from town to get here.

This beautiful old Lake Chapel, topped with an onion dome, was erected over the graves of a band of Swiss citizens, whose 1408 attempt to incorporate Bregenz into Switzerland was rejected.

The world-famous Spanish Riding School has been a favorite for centuries, and no wonder; who can resist the sight of the white Lipizzaner horses going through their masterful paces? For the last 300 years they have been perfecting their haute école riding demonstrations to the sound of Baroque music in a ballroom that seems to be a crystal-chandeliered stable. The interior of the riding school, the 1735 work of Fischer von Erlach the Younger, makes it Europe's most elegant sports arena.

The performance schedule is fairly consistent throughout the year. From September to June, evening performances are held mostly on weekends and morning exercises with music are held mostly on weekdays. Booking months ahead is good idea for the main show; morning exercise tickets are a bit easier to get. Pick up tickets at the office under the Michaelerplatz rotunda dome. Otherwise tickets are available at the visitor center in Michaelerplatz (Tuesday through Saturday 9 am to 4 pm) and at Josefsplatz on the day of the morning exercise (9 am to 5 pm), or online.

On a rainy day the Toy Museum, partly set in a 14th-century burghers' house, is delightful diversion for both young and old. There's an interactive collection of historical dolls and teddy bears, themed soft play areas (choose between a knights' castle and a Viking longship), a blocks and bricks zone, and a children's library with comfy sofas. Punch and Judy–style Kasperltheater puppet shows leave everyone laughing, with performances held every Wednesday at 3 pm, and there's a children's cinema, too.

The Spittelberg is like a slice of Old Vienna, a perfectly preserved little enclave that allows you to experience the 18th century by strolling along cobblestone pedestrian streets lined with pretty Baroque town houses. The quarter—one block northwest of Maria-Theresien-Platz off the Burggasse—offers a fair visual idea of the Vienna that existed outside the city walls a century ago. Most buildings have been replaced, but the engaging 18th-century survivors at Burggasse 11 and 13 are adorned with religious and secular decorative sculpture, the latter with a niche statue of St. Joseph, the former with cherubic work-and-play bas-reliefs. Around holidays, particularly Easter and Christmas, the Spittelberg quarter, known for arts and handicrafts, hosts seasonal markets offering unique and interesting wares. Promenaders will also find art galleries and lots of restaurants.

North of Neuer Platz (go along Kramergasse for two blocks, then angle left to the Pfarrplatz) is the parish church of St. Egyd, with its eye-catching totem-pole bronze carving by Austrian avant-garde artist Ernst Fuchs in the second chapel on the right. The Ernst Fuchs chapel, also known as the Apocalypse chapel, is in the south chapel and can only be seen on a guided tour. The crypt of French-born American novelist Julian Green (1900–1998), whose works include The Closed Garden and The Other One, is also here.

Unusually fine statues of St. George and St. Florian can be found on the west wall of the splendid Romanesque St. Hippolyt Pfarrkirche, built in 1217. The tower was added about two centuries later, and the church itself was beautifully renovated in 1975.

You can easily see the city parish church spire from Graz's main street. The church itself was built early in the 16th century from a 15th-century chapel, and later received Baroque touches and an 18th-century spire. Tintoretto's Assumption of the Virgin decorates the altar. Badly damaged in World War II, the stained-glass windows were replaced in 1953 by a Salzburg artist, Albert Birkle, who included portrayals of Hitler and Mussolini as malicious spectators at the scourging of Christ (left window behind the high altar, fourth panel from the bottom on the right).

The 12th-century Romanesque Stadtpfarrkirche (parish church) has some excellent stained glass in the choir.

This city parish church dates from 1286 and was rebuilt in Baroque style in 1648. The tomb in the right wall of the chancel contains Frederick III's heart and entrails (the corpse is in Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral). The ceiling frescoes are by Altomonte, and the figure of Johann Nepomuk (a local saint) in the chancel is by Georg Raphael Donner, with grand decoration supplied by the master designer Hildebrandt.

In the center of town, St. Nikolaus Parish Church graces Ferdinand-Auböck-Platz. It dates back to the Middle Ages but was enlarged to its present size during Maria Theresa's time in the 1750s. The decoration inside is in the typically gloomy style of Franz Josef's era (note the emperor's family portrayed to the left above the high altar). Anton Bruckner used to play on the old church organ.

Innsbruck's looming City Tower was built in about 1460. It has a steep climb of 133 steps to the top, where the bulbous cupola was added in the 16th century, and from it there are magnificent views of the city and surrounding mountains. The 31-meter-high platform is a particularly good vantage point from which to view Helbling House on the corner across the square, right by Goldenes Dachl. This Gothic town house originally dates from the 15th century, though the colorful pink-and-white facade with its late-Baroque stuccos was added around 1730.

The sole survivor of the original four 15th-century city gates—the rest of them were razed in the late 1800s, along with the city wall—Steiner Tor remains one of the most recognizable symbols of Krems. A plaque on one side reveals its three major stages of development—construction in 1480 (on the orders of Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III), a Baroque refurb in 1754 (under the reign of Maria Theresa), and a significant renovation in the 1950s—while the other side has coats of arms and other decorative adornments. Look out also for the memorial to a catastrophic ice flood in January 1573.

Stretching south from the Neustadt and walled in on one side by the bare cliffs of the Kapuzinerberg, this narrow medieval street was originally the ancient Roman entrance into the city from the south. The houses stood along the riverfront before the Salzach was regulated. Nowadays it's home to a heady mix of shops, bars, and restaurants, but with its tall houses the street still manages to convey an idea of how life used to be in the Middle Ages. Walk past the initial cluster of dining and drinking options, and beyond Das Kino movie theater, to reach the Inneres Steintor, which marks the entrance to the oldest (and most pleasantly shaded) section of the street. House number 23 on the right still has deep, slanted peep-windows for guarding the gate. Just beyond the stone gate is a lovely vantage point for the Fortress Hohensalzburg, with the light here on summer afternoons particularly striking. Continue beyond house number 31—the birthplace of Josef Mohr, the poet of "Silent Night, Holy Night" fame (it's not number 9, despite what the sign there says)—and you'll pass by the occasional little bookshop, art gallery, and winery before you reach the Engelwirtsbrunnen, a decorative fountain that marks the end of the street.

Set among terraced vineyards, the town is landmarked by its gloriously Baroque "stiftskirche" (collegiate church), dating from the early 1700s. Sitting on a cliff overlooking the river, the church's combination of luminous blue facade and stylish Baroque tower is considered the most beautiful of its kind in Austria.

Just below the south side of the Fortress Hohensalzburg—and best visited in tandem with it—the Nonnberg Abbey was founded right after AD 700 by St. Rupert. His niece St. Erentrudis was the first abbess; in the archway a late-Gothic statue of Erentrudis welcomes visitors. The church is more famous these days as "Maria's convent"—both the one in The Sound of Music and that of the real Maria on which the movie was based. She returned to marry her Captain von Trapp here in the Gothic church (no filming was done here—"Nonnberg" was re-created in the film studios of Salzburg-Parsch). Each May evening at 7 pm the nuns sing a 15-minute service called Maiandacht in the old Gregorian chant. Their beautiful voices can be heard also at the 11 pm mass on December 24. Parts of the private quarters for the nuns, which include some lovely, intricate wood carvings, can be seen by prior arrangement.

To see the frescoes located below the Nuns’ Gallery as well as the altar in St. John’s Chapel, ask at the convent entrance for the key.

The most sumptuous church in Salzburg, St. Peter's is where Mozart's famed Great Mass in C Minor premiered in 1783; his wife, Constanze, sang the lead soprano role while Wolfgang directed the orchestra and choir and also played the organ. During the Salzburger Festspiele, the work is performed here during a special church-music concert. The porch has beautiful Romanesque vaulted arches from the original structure built in the 12th century. The interior was decorated in the voluptuous late-Baroque style when additions were made in the 1770s. Note the side chapel by the entrance, with the unusual crèche portraying the Flight into Egypt and the Massacre of the Innocents. Behind the Rupert Altar is the Felsengrab, a rock-face tomb where—according to a legend—St. Rupert himself was originally buried. To go from the sacred to the profane, head for the abbey's legendary St. Peter Stiftskulinarium restaurant, adjacent to the church.

The little village of Oberndorf, 18 km (11 miles) north of Salzburg, has one big claim to fame: it was here on Christmas Eve, 1818, that the world-famous Christmas carol "Silent Night" was sung for the first time. It was composed by the organist and schoolteacher Franz Gruber to a lyric by the local priest, Josef Mohr. The church was demolished and replaced in 1937 by this tiny commemorative chapel containing a copy of the original composition (the original is in the Salzburg Museum), stained-glass windows depicting Gruber and Mohr, and a Nativity scene. Behind the chapel, the Heimatmuseum documents the history of the carol. You can get to Oberndorf by the local train (opposite the main train station), by car along the B156 Lamprechtshausener Bundesstrasse, or by bicycle along the River Salzach.

Every December 24 at 5 pm, a traditional performance of the carol—two male voices plus guitar and choir—in front of the chapel is the introduction to Christmas.

Set into the building on the west side of Kärntner Strasse and protected by glass is one of the city's odder relics, an ancient tree trunk studded with blacksmiths' nails. Researchers in the 1970s identified the trunk as a 600-year-old spruce. Since the Middle Ages, any apprentice metalworker who came to Vienna to learn his trade hammered a nail into the trunk for good luck. During World War II, when there was talk of moving the relic to a museum in Munich, it mysteriously disappeared (and then reappeared perfectly preserved after the threat of removal had passed).

About a 10-minute walk from Schönbrunn Palace is the Technical Museum, which traces the evolution of industrial development over the past two centuries. On four floors you'll find actual locomotives from the 19th century, a Tin Lizzie, airplanes from the early days of flying, as well as examples of factory life, how electric lighting took the place of gas lamps, and how mountain highway tunnels are constructed.

This doorway (up the incline) was made famous in 1949 by the classic film The Third Man. It was at Schreyvogelgasse 8 that Orson Welles, as the malevolently knowing Harry Lime, stood hiding in the dark, only to have his smiling face illuminated by a sudden light from the upper-story windows of the house across the alley. To get to this apartment building from the nearby Schottenkirche, follow Teinfaltstrasse one block west to Schreyvogelgasse on the right.

Several locations offer up stunning vistas of the town and its environs. On ground level, take a boat ride to the village of Thumersbach, on the opposite shore, for a wonderful reflected view of Zell am See.

Part of the imperial summer residence of Schönbrunn, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the world's oldest zoo has retained its original Baroque design, but new settings have been created for both the animals and the public so that entertainment is combined with conservation and education. Founded in 1752, Schönbrunn Zoo is the oldest continuously operating zoo in the world and also one of the most popular—it has been voted Europe's best zoo five times. The more than 700 animal species housed here include koalas, lions, pandas, hippos, orangutans, and Siberian tigers. There's also a fantastic canopy trail with a suspension bridge through the forest for up-close views of birds and open-air terrariums.

Located in Bergisil, just around the corner from the Ski Jump, this sprawling glass-and-copper museum building is home to Tyrol's largest work of art. Created by Michael Zeno Diemer, the Tirol Panorama is a striking circular painting depicting the Tyrolean Rebellion of 1809, spread across a vast canvas of more than 1,000 square meters. The building is also connected by underground walkway to the neighboring war museum (Kaiserjägermuseum); a single ticket will get you into both.

This Tyrolean-style building to the west of the Gloriette was a favorite retreat of Empress Elisabeth; it now includes a restaurant.

In the same complex as the Hofkirche (with the same entrance), this museum is regarded as the most important collection of folk art in the Alpine region. Its wood-paneled parlors house furniture, including entire room settings from old farmhouses and inns, decorated in styles from Gothic to Rococo. In particular, look out for the traditional Tyrolean tiled stoves. Other exhibits include costumes, farm implements, cow bells, carnival masks, and musical instruments.

One of the icons of Innsbruck, the Roman-style Triumphal Arch was built in 1765 to commemorate both the marriage of emperor-to-be Leopold II (then Duke of Tuscany) to Spanish princess Maria Luisa, and the sudden death of Emperor Franz I, husband of Empress Maria Theresa. The south side clearly represents celebration, while the north side shows mourning motifs.

At the far end of Kurrentgasse, which is lined with attractive 18th-century houses, the appealing Uhrenmuseum's three floors display clocks and watches—more than 3,000 timepieces—dating from the 15th century to the present. The ruckus of bells and chimes pealing forth on any hour is impressive, but for the full cacophony try to be here at noon. Enter to the right on the Schulhof side of the building.

This landmark, dating back to the 16th century, is the symbol of Graz. The clock has four giant faces that might at first confuse you—until you realize that the big hands tell the hour and the small hands the minutes. The clock was designed with only hour hands—smaller minute hands were added later. Nearby, notice a statue of a watchdog—he is said to represent a dog who once saved the daughter of an emperor from being kidnapped by a slighted lover.

The oldest university in the German-speaking world (founded in 1365), the main section of the university is a massive block in Italian Renaissance style designed by Heinrich Ferstel and built between 1873 and 1884. Statues representing 38 important men of letters decorate the front of the building, while the rear, which encompasses the library (with nearly 2 million volumes), is adorned with sgraffito. Guided tours are available on Thursdays and Saturdays, but people can also take a self-guided tour using a free app.