Vienna

Vienna was the capital of the Habsburg Empire for six centuries, and the city is shaped almost entirely by that inheritance. Franz Joseph’s 19th-century Ringstrasse project replaced the old city walls with a wide imperial boulevard lined with purpose-built institutional architecture — each building in a different historical style, each scaled to project permanence. The Vienna State Opera, the Parliament, the City Hall, the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Hofburg Palace all sit within a single loop of the Ring. It is one of the most concentrated assemblies of 19th-century civic architecture in the world, and it is all within walking distance of the city centre.

Schönbrunn Palace, the Habsburg summer residence to the southwest of the centre, is the city’s most visited site: a 1,441-room baroque palace set in UNESCO-listed formal gardens with the Gloriette hilltop terrace above. The Belvedere Palace complex to the southeast houses Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss and one of the strongest collections of Austrian art in existence. The Prater park, with the 1897 Riesenrad Ferris wheel at its entrance, stretches east toward the Danube. St Stephen’s Cathedral in the centre of the old city has been the city’s main landmark since the 14th century; the south tower at 136 metres is the tallest point in the historic core.

The Vienna Islamic Centre in the Floridsdorf district, built in 1979, is one of the largest mosques in Central Europe and a functioning place of worship for the city’s substantial Muslim community. Halal dining in Vienna is well-established, concentrated in the 10th and 15th districts and along the Naschmarkt and Meidling areas. Vienna is the natural last stop on the Central European four-city circuit — and it is also the city that rewards an extra day most readily. The coffee house culture alone — the Café Central, the Landtmann, the Hawelka — is worth building time around.