Vienna

The Habsburgs' 1,441-room summer residence includes a hilltop Gloriette with a panoramic view over the city that Napoleon used as his headquarters in 1805 and 1809.

A baroque hilltop complex where you can stand in front of Klimt's 'The Kiss' in its permanent home and look out over formal gardens toward the Vienna skyline.

One of the world's great art museums, housing Vermeer, Bruegel, and an Egyptian burial collection inside a palatial 1891 building that is itself worth the entrance fee.

Austria's national opera house sells standing-room tickets at the door for around €4, making world-class opera accessible on any budget if you arrive an hour early.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser's wavy, mosaic-covered museum dedicated to his own colourful work feels like stepping inside a living painting.

Vienna's oldest Baroque public park hides two hulking World War II flak towers amid leafy avenues, porcelain workshops, and a serene atmosphere beloved by locals.

A hauntingly beautiful 18th-century medical museum displaying an extraordinary collection of hand-painted wax anatomical models commissioned by Emperor Joseph II.

Vienna's funeral museum in the basement of the city's oldest undertaker catalogues the city's elaborate death culture, including a 19th-century reusable coffin with a trapdoor.

A vaulted wine cellar beneath the Albertina that has been serving Austrian Grüner Veltliner by the glass since 1857, largely undiscovered by tourists staying above ground.

A perfectly preserved 1899 Art Nouveau metro pavilion built exclusively for Emperor Franz Joseph, who reportedly used it only once, now open as a small free museum.

A family-run two-Michelin-star restaurant in Brigittenau where three generations of the Mraz family cook a precise tasting menu that shifts with the Austrian seasons.

Nestled inside the Museum Quarter's leafy garden, this elegant restaurant serves creative Austrian cuisine in one of Vienna's most romantic outdoor dining settings.

Consistently ranked among Europe's top restaurants, Steirereck reinterprets Austrian alpine ingredients with techniques like aging cheese in hay and curing fish in beeswax.

An Austro-Greek chef with two Michelin stars serves dishes like Styrian trout with fermented cream in a minimalist room that keeps the focus entirely on the plate.

Perched on the 18th floor of the Sofitel with floor-to-ceiling views over the Ringstraße, Das Loft pairs Viennese-inflected modern European cooking with the most cinematic dining room in the city.

Open since 1939 and still run by the founding family, this smoky, mahogany-panelled café near the Graben serves its famous Buchteln pastries fresh from the oven each evening at 10pm.

A focused Austrian wine bar near the Naschmarkt stocking over 600 labels from the Wachau, Burgenland, and Steiermark, with knowledgeable staff who pour generous tastings.

A sprawling brewpub in the 7th district that ferments its own Märzen and Weizen on-site and fills its vaulted rooms with locals eating Stelze pork knuckle past midnight.

Adolf Loos designed this 27-square-metre marble and onyx bar in 1908, and drinking a Negroni inside it feels like sitting inside a precise architectural argument.

A former workers' sauna complex in the Prater converted into an outdoor club with a pool, wooded garden, and a booking policy that draws leading Berlin and Vienna electronic acts.

Tucked under the arches of the U6 elevated metro line in the Gürtel district, this long-running indie and alternative music venue pulses with live bands and DJ sets until dawn.

A legendary techno and electronic club built into the Danube Canal embankment with a sound system designed by the club itself and a terrace that stays open until sunrise.

Perched on the Donaukanal, this celebrated club draws top-tier international electronic music talent to its intimate dance floor and riverside terrace.

Vienna's oldest jazz club has operated since 1972 in a Roman cellar beneath the first district, booking live acoustic and electric jazz seven nights a week.

Set inside the 19th-century Volksgarten park pavilion opposite the Burgtheater, this institution runs themed nights ranging from Viennese waltz to 1980s synth-pop without a trace of irony.