🇦🇹 Austria
By the time you finish this blog you will probably be able to fill the canvas with your own color and strokes.....Here's mine...
Vienna
May 2026: With layover in London, we headed to Austria, tuning with the musical wire that goes to my heart, Vienna! Wien holds you back.....have you heard of that song by Billy Joel? Its more than enough to describe Vienna
We flew from London to Vienna via British Airways...late evening flight, small aircraft and just about right number of passengers.
Say the name and something shifts. Before any picture forms out of it, I feel it: the culture, the architecture, the gentle, wholesome grace of the place. Ask me about Vienna and I won’t give you a review. I’ll give you a eulogy, the kind written for something you loved and never quite finished knowing.
Wien, the Viennese call it. It is not a city that simply displays its history behind glass. It pulls you in. It wraps you in centuries of music, empire, coffee-house conversation, and plain human truth, and before you notice, you are no longer looking at the past but standing inside it.
Vienna hit me like a symphony: grand, layered, impossible to take in at once. One movement is the sweep of the Ringstrasse, palaces lined up like an orchestra waiting for the downbeat. Another is quieter: a waltz drifting from an open window, a slice of cake beside a newspaper, an afternoon that refuses to hurry. This is the imperial city, and it carries itself with an effortless confidence. It has nothing to prove. It already wrote the music the rest of the world still hums.
Wien: Schönbrunn Palace
We lodged right in the corner of the Ringstrasse (shortened to the 'Ring'). Hotel Am Schubertring was just the right choice for our small family with B&B.
Kicked off the next full day with Schonbrunn Palace visit, the breathtaking baroque façade and 1,441 rooms of Habsburg excess, whispered stories of power, dynasty, and the extraordinary Empress Sisi saga; a woman whose beauty, restlessness, and tragic fate made her more myth than monarch.
Having watched ‘The Empress ‘ on Netflix, it connected everything very well. You know, when I first started this show, I found it slow, boring. I left it. I however, came back to it after a couple of weeks because I wanted to watch the royalty, the art, the creativity hidden behind each scene. Precisely that's what you get when you visit this palace in person. The only difference is that now, the grandeur meets your eye!
Walking those gilded halls, ran shivers down my spine, goose bumps surfaced my arms as I was in the place that I admired and desired to be in while watching the show. The million room that you see is made up of gold, an electrifying view
They say Mozart, came in to this place for his first performance at the age of 14. Thats when the queen raised the bar for music and his popularity rose amongst the Viennese.
After all that heavy intake, we taxied to the Ring, the Grand boulevard that loops around historic center, old city walls and major landmarks in the later afternoon. Savored late lunch at McDonalds, a pretty niche place esp for highschool dates and get-together. Reached St. Stephen's Cathedral. A beautiful remarkable monument that deepens the roots of my catholic journey in life.
St. Stephen's Cathedral
One of the culture asthetics is the religion. And religion is what describes the culture. I have always enjoyed the splendid carvings and the hall arrays in a church.
Taking as many clicks as I could.
We took a step down the Cathedral, an institution almost run like a government, how did they manage the barbonic plague and people. Took the Catacombs tour for the first time, We are a family who never NEVER watched a horror movie, but when in Wien, we acted like a German....brave!
The Catacombs beneath it pulled me into an entirely different dimension — one of faith, mortality, and the Church’s centuries-long grip on European life. The catacombs, haunting and deeply sobering, was horrifying yet an experience that’
I needed that shot of mine...where I am walking in to a country, exploring the culture and common man's life.
A funfact for this day was we all four had alreayd clocked 15K steps made urban boot with no strength left in our viens....now this is actual vien i am talking about, step out of Wien a bit. Heck no!
Ringstrasse
We walked and searched for a nice place to sit down....brought us to famous landmarks and view points. One below is the St Peter's Church.
Visitng Vienna and not watching an Opera is not what one prefers. However considering the visitor's schedule, we were not prepared with Opera tickets yet and there wasnt a show hitting the house that day! However the much visit around that arena, a bit of souvenir shopping around it did make it worthwhile.
The Opera Arena
The Hoffman Palace
This is the Austria Fountain (Austriabrunnen) above at the Freyung square in Vienna, sculpted by Ludwig Schwanthaler in the mid-1800s. This masterpiece was glued the crowned female figure on top that represents Austria herself, holding a scepter, symbolizing the Austrian Empire. The four muscular river-god figures below her represent the four major rivers that flowed through the Habsburg Empire at the time: the Danube, Elbe, Vistula, and Po — a way of visually claiming the empire's vast territorial reach, since those rivers ran through lands far beyond modern Austria (into what's now Germany, Poland, and Italy).
It's a classic piece of 19th-century political/allegorical sculpture — using mythological river-god imagery to represent geography and imperial power. The entire Hofburg Palace was a place to mark in history. And we cocky Indians nevr stop to brag about their historic events...seriously!!!! You have heard of the saying ...The world is the well for that frog! Goose bumps did not go away
The end of Wien had to be with Europe's signature collection of beer. Somehow the journey and the travel demanded beer instead of wine. And we found a perfect spot in teh Opera Arena, Chicken Schnitzel and Schneider Weisse with greens and hummus was a great blend for our palate!
Salzburg
Next day we headed out early morning to Salzburg. Approximately 3 hrs drive (300Km/185 miles) to Hohensalzburg Fortress from Vienna (Ringstrasse). This was our first destination in Salzburg. We had planned three major places here. And these fit perfectly well in a one day itinerary. They were all within an easy walk of each other: Mirabell sits on the north bank of the river, and you cross over to Getreidegasse and then up to the fortress, so they fit comfortably into one day.
Hohensalzburg Fortresss and the FestungsBahn
The Mirabell Gardens
Getreidegasse, the niche old town with branded stores, the Mozart's birthplace and Popular Sphaera
Hohensalzburg Fortresss and the FestungsBahn
The fortress sits on the Festungsberg hill above the old town. Construction began in 1077 under Archbishop Gebhard, and it grew over the centuries into one of the largest fully preserved medieval castles in Central Europe.
Pro-tip' : To help you plan in case you need it, since the fortress sits right above Salzburg’s old town.
Because you can't drive up to the fortress itself, we
Parked in the Altstadtgarage (Mönchsberg garage), which is carved into the rock of the Mönchsberg and sits right at the edge of the old town.
Walked about 10 minutes through the old town to Festungsgasse, near the cathedral.
Ride the FestungsBahn funicular to the top, about a minute. The Funicular running since 1892, makes it one of Austria’s oldest. The ride takes about a minute, climbing almost straight up the rock.
If you’d rather walk up instead, the path from Festungsgasse takes roughly 20 minutes and is steep but pleasant, with views opening up as you climb. We chose Funicular option with growing bones....:)
At the top you get the Golden Hall and Golden Chamber of the prince-archbishops, a puppet museum, and the views: domes and spires below, the Alps beyond.
Beautiful was the town that it ended with, gelatos galore.
A day w/o Gelato was impossible....beating the heat
And here's the top view of the refreshment shop inside the fortress with the Alps view behind. Would Nishant and Suhana leave that place? Nah...evenf you were not eaty that time, you would want to absorb this view once in a lifetime.
Getreidegasse
Salszburg did stuck that note for a lifetime! A true concert in itself. Standing at Mozart’s birthplace on Getreidegasse, the music suddenly stopped being background and became a biography!
Sphaera
Thats the giant golden ball and is called “Sphaera” by German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol, installed in 2007. If you look closely, there’s a small figure of a man in a white shirt and black trousers standing on top of it, gazing toward the fortress. It’s part of Salzburg’s Walk of Modern Art and has become one of the city’s most photographed spots.
The Mirabell Palace
Reading about its history before planning it, was not an inspiration to put it down in our list. A palace built for the mistress, then wasnt that the past of mankind...royalty embellished with this norm.
The Mirabell Gardens (Mirabellgarten) are Salzburg’s most famous Baroque gardens. They’re laid out in front of Mirabell Palace in the New Town, just across the Salzach River from the old town. They’re part of the UNESCO-listed historic center.
The palace was built in 1606 by Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich for Salome Alt, the woman he lived with. What I found interesting was that the popular Sound of Music Hollywood movie was shot here. Thats going to be my takeaway...thats it!
Salzburg has the vibe, the air and the light of the Salzach River by the musicians. You will find plenty of locks portraying the love of couples when you cross the river for old to the new town.
Salzburg also makes a lovely companion to Vienna: smaller, tucked between mountains and the Salzach River, and of the very much Mozart’s town
Are you now ready for a typical romantic hollywood frame views?
Hallstatt
The next day in Austria was all about pictures, views and landscapes! From Salzburg, the Austrian landscape opened up into something almost supernatural. Hallstatt — that impossibly picturesque village clinging to the edge of a glassy alpine lake — felt less like a real place and more like a painting that somehow allowed our entry.
Time slows in Hallstatt. You don’t sightsee — you absorb.
A gorgeous place to be at. One note for future travelers, Hallstatt is probably not a place to shop for souvenirs , I did not like the hospitality of the vendor there, too commercial and rude. Suhana and muself had not a good experience at one ofthe souveniers shop, the host was extremely unwelcoming and biased by race.
Another Pro-tip' : If you still happen to shop here, pay in local currency, they loot you in exchange price otherwise DCC (dynamic currency conversion)
Gosau, the Dachstein
Just a short distance away, Gosau, the Dachstein massif delivered a different kind of awe — wilder, rawer, more untamed. Kinda our typical outdoor with quenched out thirst for a hike. Surrounded by the dramatic Dachstein massif and its shimmering glacier lakes, Gosau feels like nature at its most unapologetic and magnificent attire. The Gosausee lake, framed by jagged peaks and dense forest, is the kind of view that makes you question…’hey minuscule…what are you doing here ?’ Where Hallstatt whispers, Gosau roars.
Innsbruck
Innsbruck’s downtown and walk by the river settled musical strings in my soul. It as offered something quieter and equally profound — a town nestled between Alps, where the downtown charm gives way to serene riverside walks that invite reflection. No crowds, no performance — just Austria breathing naturally.
Loved the narrow lanes within the small downtown, so romantic and reel of oldies playing in real...isnt it?
Taken together, Austria is a masterfully curated package of culture, royal adventure, artistic genius, architectural wonder, alpine splendor, and unflinching historical honesty. It doesn’t let you stay comfortable for long — and that is precisely its gift. It is a country that tunes your soul to a frequency you didn’t know existed — and one you’ll spend a lifetime trying to find again!
Pro tip': the grocery stores and food stores close around 7:00 pm everywhere in Austria. I recall how we stuck to evry single Coop and Billa stores to hoad as much as we could during our road trip of train ride (more of which i will tell you in Swiss blog). Have Restroom apps downloaded on your phones, they are paid and one needs a map to find it where it is located.
Coming up next - Switzerland! Do not go anywhere...
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