Downtown Vienna: A Quick Guide to Its Long History

Until the mid-19th century, Vienna's city center (District 1) was the whole of Vienna: this was the entire city, and there was a city wall around it. This means that Vienna's most important buildings, churches, monuments, landmarks, streets are still mostly here in the old city. Naturally, tourists are drawn to this area, but Vienna’s downtown is not an artificial Disney Land. On this walking tour, I’ll show you the neighborhood’s major landmarks and lesser-known spots while you hear about its history, including how the Habsburg family shaped Vienna and the rest of Central Europe for 650 years.

The tour starts at Heldenplatz by the equestrian statue of Prince Eugene, the great military general who defeated the Ottoman army in the late 17th century. From there, we weave our way through the Imperial Palace complex, stopping outside the Spanish Riding School, the Royal Library, and the old Habsburg Wedding Church (Augustinerkirche). We'll then dive into the heart of downtown and you’ll learn about the city’s past through places like the Habsburg royal burial ground and the city's iconic Gothic, Baroque, and contemporary monuments. I will not spare you the darker aspects of Vienna's history.

The tour ends outside the Imperial Palace by the Looshaus (1909), one of the most controversial buildings in Vienna about which I will tell you more. During the tour, I’ll show you some of my favorite museums and dining establishments, such as Trzesniewski, an old-school sandwich shop, and two coffeehouses, Cafe Tirolerhof and Café Bräunerhof.

On this tour of Vienna's city center, you’ll have a chance to:

• Gaze at the bronze statue of Emperor Joseph II, the strangest Habsburg emperor who believed in the equality of people and faced a revolution for it
• Visit Vienna's first Holocaust memorial while you hear about the city's Jewish community which was once the third biggest in Europe
• Stroll along the Neuer Markts where you might be witness to members of Vienna's still-thriving blue-blooded aristocracy
• Hear about some of the unsavory aspects of the Habsburg dynasty as we stroll along the city center's elegant shopping street of Kärntner Straße
• Marvel at the St Stephen’s Cathedral, one of Europe’s great medieval Gothic churches that is both amazing and frightening
• Soak up views of Vienna's Plague Column, a completely unbridled piece of Baroque art that doubled as cold-blooded political propaganda
• Try a couple of true-to-Vienna coffeehouses

By the end of this 60-minute tour, you’ll have gained fascinating context about downtown Vienna and the larger region as a whole.