The first thing you need to know when you visit Vienna, and this applies to the whole of Austria, is that I hope you like Wiener Schnitzel, a lot. I don’t think I ate in a single restaurant that didn’t have Wiener Schnitzel on the menu and must have eaten it half a dozen times in as many days in Vienna and the Salzburg lakes district.  There’s not a lot of variety of food, it’s all the same same, pork and potatoes in different variations and ways.  I’m a big fan (I would say huge fan) of Wiener Schnitzel but not so much after this trip, in fact, I’d be happy if I never ate another Wiener Schnitzel for a year.  I guess we’re not, and have never been big foodies so we didn’t try too hard to find a decent restaurant but probably the most disappointing thing about Vienna and Austria was the lack of different food options.  A lot of Italian, and mostly western. By day 5 of this trip (in Prague) I was absolutely craving any form of Asian food and I am a fish n chips and mince pie all the way so that’s saying something.

If you’re thinking to visit Vienna, also do the Salzburg Lakes District or Salzkammergut lakes region, you can easily get a train or drive there from Vienna.  From Hong Kong, we flew into Vienna, spent 3 nights, flew to Prague, spent 3 nights, drove down to Hallstatt via Cesky Krumlov via Linz, spent 3 nights in Hallstat, then drove back to Vienna.  That wasn’t a bad way to do it.  If you’re not interested in Prague, hire a car in Vienna and drive to Salzburg, our only regret was that we didn’t actually stay in Salzburg city.

To visit Vienna, we flew from Hong Kong to Vienna on Austrian Airlines Business Class, which was about the same price as a full priced Cathay Pacific Economy Class fare.  Good airline and would fly with them again, although all of our flights were delayed, the one from Vienna to Prague was cancelled, so we ended up having to fly to Dusseldorf then Prague and wasted half a day. That was a real pain in the ass but that’s the first time ever we’ve had a flight cancelled so bound to happen sooner or later.

If you’re planning to visit Vienna, send us any questions or comments you have via email or ask us on twitter.