20 historic places
Historic Places in Austria
The Habsburgs, Mozart, and the edge of empire
A curated guide to historic places to visit in Austria — imperial Vienna, Salzburg and Mozart, Habsburg palaces, the sieges that turned back the Ottomans, and the memory of the Anschluss.
Heritage800Hallstatt
The salt village so ancient it named an entire European Iron Age.
Heritage1077Hohensalzburg Fortress
The mountaintop fortress never taken by siege in nearly a thousand years.
Heritage1089Melk Abbey
The Baroque abbey on the Danube that inspired a medieval murder mystery.
Heritage1125Graz Old Town & Schlossberg
The fortress hill Napoleon could not take—so he made them blow it up.
Heritage1147St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna
The Gothic giant whose bell was cast from cannons captured from the Turks.
Historical1279Hofburg Palace, Vienna
The winter palace from which the Habsburgs ruled Europe for six centuries.
Heritage1500Golden Roof, Innsbruck
The balcony an emperor gilded with 2,657 copper tiles to watch the square below.
Cultural1590Klagenfurt / Wörthersee
The Carinthian capital guarded by a dragon born from a giant's tooth.
Cultural1606Mirabell Palace & Gardens, Salzburg
The palace an archbishop built for his mistress, now singing Do-Re-Mi.
Historical1683Kahlenberg (Siege of Vienna 1683)
The hill from which the largest cavalry charge in history saved Christendom.
Historical1696Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna
The 1,441-room palace where a six-year-old Mozart proposed to a princess.
Cultural1723Belvedere Palace, Vienna
The Baroque palace where Austria was reborn free—and Klimt's Kiss now hangs.
Cultural1756Mozart's Birthplace, Salzburg
The yellow house where a prodigy who would die at 35 first drew breath.
Nature1800Eagle's Nest area / Salzkammergut lakes
The imperial lake district where emperors summered and a film found its hills.
Historical1815Congress of Vienna (Hofburg)
The dazzling congress that redrew Europe's map while it danced.
Cultural1869Vienna State Opera
The opera house whose first architects were destroyed by its harsh reviews.
Historical1889Braunau am Inn
The quiet border town that produced the 20th century's greatest criminal.
Cultural1891Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna
The apartment where the human mind was mapped—until the Nazis drove its explorer out.
Historical1938Heldenplatz, Vienna
The square where 200,000 Austrians cheered Hitler's annexation of their country.
Historical1938Mauthausen Concentration Camp
The granite quarry where prisoners were worked to death on the Stairs of Death.