Vienna Travel Forum

is one day enough to sight see in vienna?whats the weather like in june. is it safe for 2 girls travelling? which is the best hostel there in the main down town district if there is one
thanks a ton

One day is not enough to visit Vienna. But if you have already decided that you cannot stay more than one day, here are my suggestion to make the most of it.
How to make the most out of 1 day in Vienna?
First of all buy a 24-hours travelcard, then:
1) Start with a complete tour of the Ring by tram (list of the sights in my Vienna page). Start at any point of the Ring, but get off the tram at Burgtor;
2) Walk under the Burgtor, see the Heldenplatz and the "new" wing of the royal palace (Hofburg), walk across the other courtyards of the palace and under the dome of the Michaelertor;
3) Have a cup of coffee and a slice of cake at the cafe on your left-hand side when you get out of the Michaelertor in the Michaelerplatz;
4) When you get out of the cafe, take the street named Kohlmarkt up to the Graben;
5) Walk the Graben, admire the elegant shops but be careful not to miss the historic and artistic beauties of the place;
6) At the end of the Graben you will see Stephansdom, the cathedral;
7) After taking an adequate number of pictures of the Cathedral, walk southward along the Kartnerstrasse, the trendiest street in town;
8) At the end of the street you will see the Opera;
9) If you wish to have lunch, the informal Augustinerkeller is nearby (details in my Vienna page);
10) Take the D tram in front of the Opera (other side of the avenue, so use the underground crossing) and go to the Schloss Belvedere, one of the most beautiful palaces in Vienna;
11) Visit the exhibition of paintings (Klimt, Schiele etc) inside the Schloss Belvedere;
12) Take the tram D again (opposite direction) to get back, but get down at Schwarzenbergplatz;
13) A short walk will take you to the Karlskirche. Admire, take pictures and then walk to the underground station Karlsplatz;
14) Take the line U1 to Praterstern. When you get out you will see the big ferris wheel of the Prater;
15) Get into one of the wagons and have a view of Vienna from this vantage point. You will be able to see the Danube from there;
16) Give your tired feet a rest;
17) For a nice evening out, take the tram 38 from Schottentor to Grinzig and have dinner in one of the many typical Heuriger (wineries cum restaurant).

Just a quick note for you. On June 6,12,16,20,22,26, and the 29th, matches of the European soccer championships will be played in Vienna. During that time period, matches will also be held in Salzburg and Innsbruck. Gary

The first match in Vienna is on June 8th, not the 6th. Gary

Hmm.... knowing the soccer "fans" probably June is not the best timing for safety.
You don't want to travel on the train filled with soccer fans (or military recruits).

Speaking about train: don't buy any Eurail passes, they are a rip-off, esp. for Austria, Germany, Switzerland, everything east of Austria. Passes for Italy, France, Spain is proven to be useless, too.

y is the eurail bad.? im thinking of the 21 day pass for all over europe.. isnt it more convenient. i dont mind the price as long as its comfort and frequent... can hop on and off when ever i want

If you're any kind of art lover I would highly recommend the kunsthistoriches museum. I've been to most of the worlds major art museums and this one of my favorites.

21-day Eurail is one of the worst deal, actually.
You can hop on-off with regular tickets, too. I know the topic pretty well.
I am one of the (relatively) few who can tell you the prices pretty precisely.

FORGET THE EURAIL. IT'S ALMOST A SCAM.

Read this case please - this is how they almost cleaned a VT-er from $1000

http://forum.virtualtourist.com/discussion-404935-1-1-Travel-0-0-Prague-discussion.html

1) The regular European international tickets are valid for 2 month, unlimited days, not 21 day!
2) In Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Serbia you can buy CITY-STAR round-trip tickets to West Europe, (in Hungary also "GO WEST" tickets) valid for 1-2 month and travel like on Eurail - for Pennies on Dollar
3) For some destinations you can buy on-line tickets from German Rail and they will be delivered for free to India or you can print them out (they could be delivered via e-mail as pdf file) - that works!

Gyuri, The train is probably actually the calm part. The fun starts after the game, when the losing fans get drunk(er), burn cars, and break windows. Of course, now that I think about it, the winning fans do roughly the same thing. Gary

Yep, it's the same international circus. The level of destruction depends on, how good the police is. Austrians are well-trained. But the fans travel by trains from place to place, drink, vomit on the trains etc. so the travel is not necessarily pleasant.

now im scared of the soccer
might have to cancel the entire plan at this rate.
also if not the eurail then what are my options of booking on a similarly good train where one pass can serve most eu countries?

That behavior is not widespread. It just isn't pleasant to be in the area if it starts. They should have enough enforcement to keep it well under control. The Swiss have part of the tournament as well, and they are bringing in police from Germany and France to help. I'm sure the Austrians will do likewise. You can always schedule your trip to avoid the areas around game days since you'll be in Europe for a bit of time. Gary

There is - unlike you would believe - (almost) no such thing as "booking". We "book" trains only if there is a good economy benefit (i.e. 29 Euro prices or such over huge distance). Otherwise - esp. for two people - the best is to take CITY-STAR tickets where available, TCV tickets if the TCV tariff in a particular country is very degressive (France) or less than domestic (Switzerland) or do some combinations.

There is NO SINGLE ONE-PASS SOLUTION for Europe. What is sold as "pass" is since several years a marketing trick - it's not a pass but a scam because you need to "upgrade" it all the time you use train with mandatory reservation. That "upgrade" can be as low as 1-2 Euro or as high as few hundred Euro - depending on the train and service. Daytime trains in France, Italy, Spain have 10-30 Euro upgrade prices, it's often (Italy) cheaper NOT to use the pass and just buy the ticket.

The soccer timing is indeed unlucky: there are several hundreds of troublemakers. You can travel - but use other itinerary.

1) The girls can entirely avoid the area going via Czech Republic. There is a Hungary-Slovakia-Czech-Germany CITY-STAR ticket, they can visit so many places till French border they will be tired.
For France they can use TCV tickets written in Hungary.

2) The girls can go Budapest-Venice-France, but they will need a double Croatian transit visa, tickets are cheap in Hungary and continue with TCV tickets sold in Hungary.

In all cases the better point to start is the Eastern part of Europe. They fly form India, so probably ask several consolidator agents there. With some luck you will pay even less for the airplane tickets, it would be a double-saving than.

Have you booked your accomodation yet? If not, this might be the bigger problem for Vienna in June during the championship than running into hooligans. I looked at several hotels and B&B type pensions about two weeks ago, most cheap places were fully booked, others asked for three nights minimum, some were asking 400,500 Euro per night! I was able to find a reasonable pension through VT member Globetrott's page on Vienna.

I think too that booking accommodation will be the bigger problem than the hooligans. Don't worry about the soccer championsship, I'm sure it will be a lot of fun to be in Switzerland and in Austria during that time.
For accommodation you might want to check out this home page:
http://www.hospitalityclub.org/
Good way to get accommodation and meet locals.
Have fun in Europe

all of june is also no good time to travel to Switzerland, because they have the same kind of soccer-dilemma like in Austria !

I have some scary ideas where to go, but i am afraid to tell. :-/

There have been a lot of posts about the Euro 2008 tournament taking place in Vienna in June. Accommodation will be at a premium as already mentioned, so you will probably struggle for accommodation around this time. I think, however, that fears of hooliganism are slightly wide of the mark - there have been incidents in Vienna (e.g. when Red Star Belgrade played Leicester City in 2000 or 2001) but generally despite the all-day drinking possibilities, I would anticipate most fans to be well behaved.

Hi ;)

First of all: If you are from India and ever saw one of your bigger cities, you really don't have to be scared in Vienna or of our soccer-fans ;)))

Just avoid the stadions right after a match and the second district at night. You should be very safe in the first district, there will be a fan-mile with enough security ;)

Second: its not easy to find a cheap accommodation for june :(

third: for the minimum-vienna-tour take about 4 days, you will have a lot to see ;)

well, i would still like to know if 2 days is enough in vienna & what would be the travel plan for those 2 days. i want to cover all the major tourist hot spots in terms of tourism
also is it better to do it in a tour where they explain everythng to u and u dont have to stand in lines?i dont mind paying a little extra for that

thank u guys
u have been really helpful!

No, two days is not enough...you would need more like two weeks.
So you just have to do your research and decide what is most important to you to see within the time you have.

If you still plan to go to other areas - than not. Remember, each time you travel you lose a day either with the airports or with the trains. Going TO Vienna, staying for 2 days, going FROM Vienna is equal losing 4 days. Either you go to BP or to Vienna. For city panorama, biggest El Greco collection in the world, more "wow!" feeling and for buying your European train tickets the choice is obvious, that's BP hands down.