Vienna and Budapest recommendations

bobblehat

I'm off to these fine cities next week and was wondering if anyone has any tips on what to see. Will only be there for the day so want to maximise my time in both.

Any suggestions much appreciated.

thecolourbox

I'll pop back with some Vienna tips as I used to live there, but am at work currently do will be later on....

bobblehat

ok thanks

joneve

Can't give many recommendations for Vienna if you're only there for a day, as there's loads to see. The Schonbrünn Palace is great (like a less tourist-y Palace of Versailles) but is a bit out of the main part of the city (we walked it, but it took about an hour if memory serves) and would take most the day. 

If you want to catch some Opera and you're there overnight, you can usually pick up "standing room" tickets to whatever Opera they're showing that night for very little money (used to be less than 10Euros). Good to experience if you don't want to just tick the box to say you've done it, but don't want to sit through the whole thing (we happened to pick a night when there was a run of Don Carlos, which just so happens to be one of the longest Operas ever apparently!). 

thecolourbox

If you're only in Vienna for a day, I'd say unless you're really into palaces and gardens, that Schoenbrunn is probably a trek too far. Likewise, unless you're a fan of The Third Man film or love fairgrounds, Prater Park is probably not worth it (although both can be good if you have more days to spare).

If I had a day to see stuff, I'd start by getting the Ubahn straight to Stephansplatz - that's right in the centre, nice cathedral and a busy square with loads of roads off it. Just wandering about around there can be pretty good in general. But I'd go down the street named Graben, left at the end down Kohlgasse and you'll reach the Hofburg - the old imperial court. Big squares, lovely old buildings, museums are good too. Good taste of old imperial Vienna.

From there you've got the Inner Ring Road, which is a lovely walk in itself. The Rathaus (city hall) is impressive, then you've also got the Parliament building, a couple of nice theatres, down to the brilliant opera house. As joneve said you can get cheap standing tickets for the Opera if you fancy that, but there's a queue so find out the times you need to be there.

Near the Opera there's the secession building, which was my favourite. A stunning gold dome that looks amazing if you're there in sunshine. And also the Stadtpark which is a fairly unremarkable but nice enough park, but has some brilliant statues in, including the gold Johann Strauss memorial.

If you are going for art, then the Albertina is great, and Belvedere has lots of Klimt including The Kiss and I think a fair bit of Kakoshka as well.  Bit further out mind you

Stuff to avoid:
- Karlsplatz - nice church but full of vagrants and I never felt very safe around there
- The concerts they try to sell you on the street - they are ok but not amazing, and you'll probably pay over the odds for them.
- Prater Park at night. Unless you're into, erm, illicit encounters

Not sure if you're there for the evening, but thought I'd recommend food and drink related stuff anyway cos I like to reminisce:
- If you like cheese, try a Kasekrainer hot dog. Amazing cheese laced hot dog in a roll, delicious.
- Ideally eating dinner gets cheaper the further outside of the 1st district (within the ring road) you get. But you  may not have time for that.
- My favourite restaurant was a bizarre place that serves all the types of food you can imagine, in pancakes. http://palatschinkenkuchl.wien/ is the place, quite central by the cathedral. Try their Kaiserschmarrn which is like scrambled pancakes with sugar and jam.
- Cafe Oberlaa is best for cakes
- If you want a nice (albeit expensive) cocktail bar, Nightflys in Dorotheregass by Stephansplatz is a very cool Rat Pack themed cellar type bar, where yours truly used to play jazz piano when I lived there. The best cocktails, an amazing collection of expensive whisky, they are also big into cigars if that's your thing. Lovely bar especially now they have separate smoking & non-smoking areas (separated by glass doors, don't walk into them)
- Sachertorte (chocolate cake with apricot jam) is very nice but expensive from Hotel Sacher and there's a queue. If you want to try it, they'll have it in any cake shop.
- Try a proper Wiener Melange coffee if you can, lovely mocha type coffee

Handy Tips:
- Don't expect the Viennese to be overly friendly, especially if they are serving you in a restaurant or bar. They aren't all that keen on foreigners
- It's not very big so if you can avoid the underground, it's better as you'll see more and save money (although the underground is embarrassingly cheap compared to TFL prices).
- You'll get a lot of people walking straight into you. I used to think it was pickpockets but it wasn't, people there will literally walk from A to B with no regard for who is in the way - diverting to avoid somebody just doesn't seem to enter their heads at any point. They are very direct in every sense, but quite literally in the case of getting from where they are to where they want to be. There's no polite apologising and wry giggling at it like you would here, they'll just walk straight through you

p90fool

If you're only in Vienna for a day do a cycle tour. We did a three hour one with a guy called Wolfgang who was funny and very informative.

The riding was leisurely, to say the least, but we saw way more of the city in that time than we could have any other way. 

We did it in the morning, which left the afternoon free to explore the bits we liked best in more detail. 

joneve

p90fool said:

If you're only in Vienna for a day do a cycle tour. We did a three hour one with a guy called Wolfgang who was funny and very informative.

The riding was leisurely, to say the least, but we saw way more of the city in that time than we could have any other way. 

We did it in the morning, which left the afternoon free to explore the bits we liked best in more detail. 

+1 for this. When we travelled Europe, we did a number of these in different cities that we were only in for a few days. Allowed us to see everything and then go back and re-visit bits further if we fancied it. 

thecolourbox

Or if you are cool enough...
https://www.hotrod-tour-wien.com/homewien/seite124/

Fuengi

Budapest - if you are in any way a fan of baroque art then the National Gallery is a must. Some astonishing nationalistic and religious images and they have a portrait gallery in the same building, well worth a look.

Be careful with your phone and wallet. My BJJ instructor was there recently and on two separate occasions somebody tried to steal his phone. I don't think it went particularly well for the robber on either occasion! 

Blueingreen

If you're interested in opera, Budapest has advantages over Vienna.  Its opera house isn't as famous, and the standard of production won't be quite as good, but it will be a fraction of the price for decent seats, the opera house interior is gorgeous, standards are still very high.

 In fact it's worth going in to see the opera house during the day even if you don't go to a production.

In both places just walking around soaking it all in is probably the best thing.  In Budapest you need to visit Buda Castle and walk through it, great views across the river.  In Vienna the town centre generally and you can cover most of it in half a day (longer if you're visiting galleries etc)

For art in Vienna there's the secession building as mentioned by thecolourbox and one of the other museums (can't remember the name but easily verifiable from a guidebook) has by far the most solid collection of Klimts, Schiele etc.  It's not as strong an art centre as you may imagine though - the main attractions are Austrian art from around the secessionist period - there aren't huge collections of great art to compare with Italy, Spain, Paris, London, NYC etc.

The best retaurant we found in Vienna was Artner Auf Du Wieden, speciality grilled meat on a Josper Grill.  I'm not the biggest grilled meat fan but the grilled pork was spectacular.  There's another branch of Artner within the Ringstrasse but we didn't go there so can't compare.  A couple of highly rated and well recommended restaurants we went to served decent enough food but were sparsely occupied and devoid of atmosphere on week-day nights, so watch out for that.  Austrian wine is suprisingly excellent,  consistently good and great value.

Best in Budapest, Zellers Bistro, buzzy, good food, wine also excellent and they will let you have samples if you're not sure which one to order.

Thecolourbox said Vienna wasn't friendly, which may be true, but it has a very civilised feel to it and you do feel very safe wandering around the centre.  Budapest has a younger, grungier feel to it and is probably a bit friendlier.

thecolourbox

Yes absolutely re the Viennese unfriendly thing - it's all very civilised and people are not aggressive or threatening at all. They are just never very hospitable and it's more like tolerance of you being there than a gushing welcome if that makes sense, as you might expect in a tourist city. Strangely, I always associated that kind of attitude with Paris but Mrs Thecolourbox and I went to both cities within a few months and found the Parisians to be charming, friendly and welcoming. The Viennese are more...erm....blunt

Oh and at risk of sounding a bit Basil Fawlty - do NOT mention the war at any point, under any circumstances

RaymondLin

I can only contribute with pictures.

bobblehat

Wow,  
Thanks for all the replies and a special thank you to Thecolourbox , great stuff.

I'll be sure to check out http://palatschinkenkuchl.wien/  "scrambled pancakes with sugar and jam" sounds like a winner.

thecolourbox

Not a problem, if you've any specific questions feel free to PM me and i'll help. I was there for  a year but have been back a few times and love the place like no other.

Re the Kaiserchmarrn - yes do it, definitely do it. Apparently Franz Joseph I's favourite dessert, very tasty

bobblehat

Will do , thanks again

ArchtopDave

Vienna is a city I really love. Nobody has mentioned Apfelstrudel - something I adore. Also, if you have any interest in horses, there's the Spanish Riding School, either a quick tour of the stables, or you can book the riding performances. I'm also a sucker for the open carriage rides around the streets - really expensive, but I cannot resist them if I've got enough spare cash. 

AustrianJohn

thecolourbox said:

Re the Kaiserchmarrn - yes do it, definitely do it. Apparently Franz Joseph I's favourite dessert, very tasty

Although classed as a dessert, Kaiserchmarrn is a meal in itself. A meal of Wiener Schnitzel followed by Kaiserchmarrn will defeat all but the largest of appetites.

Vibetronic

Guesthouse Vienna is also worth a visit for the cafe on the ground floor...very nice cakes and you can get a table (unlike the Sacher round the corner!). It's also a great place to stay as you get wine in your room which is replenished on a daily basis! Hundertwasserhaus is worth walking to, about 30 mins from the centre. We went to the Mozart museum too; I found it really dull, but our friends enjoyed it. There is a guitar shop somewhere on the eastern side, but I really couldn't be bothered to find it last time we went. 

joneve

AustrianJohn said:

thecolourbox said:

Re the Kaiserchmarrn - yes do it, definitely do it. Apparently Franz Joseph I's favourite dessert, very tasty

Although classed as a dessert, Kaiserchmarrn is a meal in itself. A meal of Wiener Schnitzel followed by Kaiserchmarrn will defeat all but the largest of appetites.

Challenge Accepted. 

joneve

ArchtopDave said:

Vienna is a city I really love. Nobody has mentioned Apfelstrudel - something I adore. Also, if you have any interest in horses, there's the Spanish Riding School, either a quick tour of the stables, or you can book the riding performances. I'm also a sucker for the open carriage rides around the streets - really expensive, but I cannot resist them if I've got enough spare cash. 

Good shout that. One of the best parts of coffee stops when skiing in Austria! 

AustrianJohn

joneve said:

AustrianJohn said:

thecolourbox said:

Re the Kaiserchmarrn - yes do it, definitely do it. Apparently Franz Joseph I's favourite dessert, very tasty

Although classed as a dessert, Kaiserchmarrn is a meal in itself. A meal of Wiener Schnitzel followed by Kaiserchmarrn will defeat all but the largest of appetites.

Challenge Accepted. 

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.