Budget · 3-hour walk · Vienna
The Innere Stadt in three hours
The cathedral, the Graben, the imperial palace and the opera, finishing at the market.
Vienna's first district is a ring road with a thousand years inside it, and everything on this walk is within that ring. It is flat, entirely paved and almost impossible to get lost in as long as you keep the cathedral spire in view. The Hofburg is the only ticket; the rest is streets, and the streets are the point.
The route, stop by stop
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St Stephen's Cathedral
The roof tiles are the photograph and the catacombs are the surprise. The south tower is 343 steps with no lift.
30 min here Walk here → -
Graben
A widened medieval moat lined with shopfronts, with a plague column in the middle of it commemorating 1679.
20 min here Walk here → -
Hofburg
Six hundred years of Habsburg residence. The Sisi Museum and the imperial apartments are one ticket and about an hour.
45 min here Walk here → -
Vienna State Opera
Standing-room tickets go on sale eighty minutes before each performance for a few euros. The guided tour is the daytime alternative.
20 min here Walk here → -
Naschmarkt
Vienna's biggest market, a hundred and twenty stalls long. Saturday adds a flea market at the far end.
30 min here Walk here →
More in Vienna
Every walking route in Vienna, or the full Vienna guide for where to stay and what a day costs.