1. Vienna
Baroque streetscapes and imperial palaces set the stage for Vienna's artistic and musical masterpieces alongside its coffee-house culture and vibrant epicurean and design scenes. Vienna's imperial grandeur is the legacy of the powerful Habsburg monarchy. Their home for more than six centuries, the Hofburg palace complex, incorporates the Burgkapelle (Imperial Chapel), where the Vienna Boys' Choir sings Sunday Mass, and the famed Spanish Riding School, where Lipizzaner stallions perform elegant equine ballet, along with a trove of museums, including in the chandeliered Kaiserappartements (Imperial Apartments). Other immense palaces include the baroque Schloss Belvedere and the Habsburgs' 1441-room summer residence, Schloss Schönbrunn, while 19th-century splendours such as the neo-Gothic Rathaus (City Hall) line the magnificent Ringstrasse encircling the Innere Stadt (inner city). One of the Habsburgs' most dazzling Rinsgstrasse palaces, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, houses the imperial art collection. It's packed with priceless works by Old Masters, and treasures including one of the world's richest coin collections. Behind the Hofburg, the former imperial stables have been transformed into the innovative MuseumsQuartier, with a diverse ensemble of museums, showcasing 19th- and 20th-century Austrian art at the Leopold Museum to often-shocking avant-garde works at the contemporary MUMOK. With a musical heritage that includes composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Josef Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss (father and son), Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler, among countless others, Vienna is also known as the City of Music. Its cache of incredible venues where you can catch performances today include the acoustically renowned Musikverein, used by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the gold-and-crystal main opera house, the Staatsoper, and the multistage Konzerthaus, as well as the dedicated home of the Vienna Boys' Choir, MuTh. Music comes to life through interactive exhibits at the captivating Haus der Musik museum. The Viennese appreciation of the finer things in life extends to its opulent coffee-house 'living rooms' serving spectacular cakes; its beloved pub-like Beisln dishing up hearty portions of Wiener Schnitzel, Tafelspitz (prime boiled beef) and goulash; elegant restaurants; and its fine Austrian wines served in vaulted Vinothek (wine bar) cellars, and in rustic vine-draped Heurigen (wine taverns) in the vineyards fringing the city. Local and international delicacies fill the heady Naschmarkt stalls, and creative chefs are experimenting with local produce and fresh new flavour combinations in innovative, often repurposed venues.
2. Carinthia
Few regions in Europe match the rugged beauty of Carinthia, and you’ll find that travelling here is often a serpentine journey. Carinthia can also, at times, seem larger than life with its high peaks, gouged valleys and glistening lakes; the flamboyant show of opulence in the capital, Klagenfurt; and the resorts around the more famous of the region's 1270 pristine mountain lakes. The most popular of these lakes, such as the large Wörthersee, have waters warmed to a comfortable swimming temperature by thermal springs. Carinthia’s deep medieval heritage is another attraction – celebrated in picturesque walled villages such as Friesach and Gmünd, and impressive castles such as the hilltop fortress of Hochosterwitz. Many of the towns and villages nestled in Carinthia’s rolling hills hold an annual summer festival, with roving performers coming from neighbouring Italy and Slovenia to take part alongside the locals.
3. Hohe Tauern National Park
If you thought Mother Nature pulled out all the stops in the Austrian Alps, think again: Hohe Tauern National Park was her magnum opus. Welcome to Austria’s outdoor wonderland and one of Europe’s largest nature reserves (1786 sq km), which straddles Tyrol, Carinthia and Salzburgerland and is overshadowed by the 3798m hump of Grossglockner, the country's highest peak. Try as we might, no amount of hyperbole about towering snow-clad mountains, shimmering glaciers, impossibly turquoise lakes and raging waterfalls can quite do this place justice. Go see it for yourself.
4. Tyrol
Tyrol is as pure Alpine as Austria gets, with mountains that make you want to yodel out loud and patchwork pastures chiming with cowbells. After the first proper dump of snow in winter, it's a Christmas-card scene, with snow-frosted forests and skiers whizzing down some of the finest slopes in Europe. Summer is lower key: hiking trails thread high to peaks and mountain huts, while folk music gets steins swinging down in the valleys.
Ötztal
Over millennia, the Ötztal (Ötz Valley) has been shaped into rugged splendour. No matter whether you’ve come to ski its snow-capped mountains, raft its white waters or hike to its summits, this valley is all about big wilderness. Guarding the Italian border and dominated by Tyrol’s highest peak, Wildspitze (3774m), this is one of three river valleys running north from the Ötztaler Alpen to drain into the Inn River.
5. Innsbruck
Tyrol’s capital is a sight to behold. The jagged rock spires of the Nordkette range are so close that within minutes it’s possible to travel from the city's heart to over 2000m above sea level and alpine pastures where cowbells chime. Summer and winter activities abound, and it’s understandable why some visitors only take a peek at Innsbruck proper before heading for the hills. But to do so is a shame, for Innsbruck is in many ways Austria in microcosm: its late-medieval Altstadt is picture-book stuff, presided over by a grand Habsburg palace and baroque cathedral, while its Olympic ski jump with big mountain views make a spectacular leap between the urban and the outdoors.
6. Zell am See
Zell am See is an instant heart-stealer, with its bluer-than-blue lake (Zeller See), pocket-sized centre studded with brightly painted chalets, and the snowcapped peaks of the Hohe Tauern that lift your gaze to postcard heaven. You can dive into the lake and cycle its leafy shores, hike and ski in the mountains and drive high on the Grossglockner Road. Every year, more than one million visitors from all round the world – from families to playboys in souped-up Mustangs – do just that, in search of the Austrian dream.
7. Graz
Austria’s second-largest city is its most relaxed. Graz is an appealing place dotted with leafy green parkland, a sea of red rooftops and a narrow but fast-flowing river loudly gushing through its centre. A very beautiful bluff – connected to the centre by steps, a funicular and a glass lift – is the city's signature attribute. Architecturally, Graz hints at nearby Italy with its Renaissance courtyards and baroque palaces. That said, there's a youthful energy here too, with a handful of edgily modern buildings, a vibrant arts scene and great nightlife (thanks in part to its large student population, some 50,000 in four universities). This extends to both sides of the Mur, although the Lend district, across from the historic centre, skews young and edgy.
8. Hallstatt
With pastel-coloured houses that cast shimmering reflections onto the glassy waters of the lake and with towering mountains on all sides, Hallstatt’s beauty alone would be enough to guarantee it fame. Boats chug tranquilly across the lake from the train station to the village, situated precariously on a narrow stretch of land between mountain and shore. (So small is the patch of land occupied by the village that its annual Corpus Christi procession takes place largely in small boats on the lake.) The sheer volume of visitors here can be nerve-fraying, especially in summer, with a sea of cars, buses and tour groups descending. The centre of Hallstatt is at Hallstatt Markt, and Hallstatt Lahn is on the edge of town near the funicular to the Salzbergwerk. The train station is across the lake from Hallstatt; to get into town you have to take the ferry.
9. Feldkirch
Visitors who delve into the alleys and archways, cobbled squares and tight-knit side streets of Feldkirch on the edge of the Austrian Vorarlberg region discover a unique blend of Swiss, Francophone and Germanic heritage. The action centres on fairy-tale Marktgasse, which bustles with authentic beer houses and Rhineland eateries, while it’s the soaring Schattenburg Castle crowning the hillsides just on the edge of town that really draws the eye; a formidable collection of four keeps and fortified bulwarks that was once the home of the Montfort Earls.
10. Bad Gastein
With belle-époque villas clinging to forest-cloaked cliffs that rise above thunderous falls, and views deep into the Gastein Valley, Bad Gastein is a stunner. The town runs both hot and cold, with first-class skiing, high-level hiking and hot springs still hailed for their miraculous healing properties. Though the damp is rising in places, the higgledy-piggledy resort has kept some of the grandeur of its 19th-century heyday, when Empress Elisabeth came to bathe and pen poetry here.
11. Salzburg
The joke 'If it's baroque, don't fix it' is a perfect maxim for Salzburg: the storybook Old Town burrowed below steep hills looks much as it did when Mozart lived here 250 years ago. Standing beside the fast-flowing Salzach River, your gaze is raised inch by inch to graceful domes and spires, the formidable clifftop fortress and the mountains beyond. It's a backdrop that did the lordly prince-archbishops and Maria proud. Beyond Salzburg’s two biggest money-spinners – Mozart and The Sound of Music – hides a city with a burgeoning arts scene, wonderful food, manicured parks, quiet side streets where classical music wafts from open windows, and concert halls that uphold musical tradition 365 days a year. Everywhere you go, the scenery, the skyline, the music and the history send your spirits soaring higher than Julie Andrews' octave-leaping vocals.
12. Wienerwald
The Wienerwald encompasses gentle wooded hills to the west and southwest of Vienna, and the wine-growing region directly south of the capital. For the Viennese, it’s a place for walking, climbing and mountain biking. Numerous walking and cycling trails in the area are covered in the Wienerwald Wander-und Radkarte, available free from local tourist offices and the region’s main office, Wienerwald Tourismus. Attractive settlements, such as the grape-growing towns of Perchtoldsdorf and Gumpoldskirchen, speckle the Wienerwald. Picturesque Mödling, only 15km south of Vienna, was once favoured by the artistically inclined: Beethoven’s itchy feet took him to Hauptstrasse 79 from 1818 to 1820, and Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg stayed at Bernhardgasse 6 from 1918 to 1925. About 20km from Mödling is Heiligenkreuz and the 12th-century Cistercian abbey Stift Heiligenkreuz. The chapter house is the final resting place of most of the Babenberg dynasty, which ruled Austria until 1246. The abbey museum contains 150 clay models by Giovanni Giuliani (1663–1744), a Venetian sculptor who also created the Trinity column in the courtyard.
13. Bregenzerwald
The wooded limestone peaks, cow-nibbled pastures and bucolic villages of the Bregenzerwald unfold to the south of Bregenz. This rural region is great for getting back to nature for a few days, whether cheese-tasting in alpine dairies, testing out hay and herbal treatments in spa hotels, or curling up by the fireside in a cosy farmhouse. One lungful of that good clean air and you’ll surely want to grab your boots, slip into your skis or get on your bike and head outdoors.
Source: Lonely Planet; The Crazy Tourist
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