Austria Discovery Guide

Austria is two holidays in a small country. One is imperial: Vienna's Habsburg palaces, a concentration of European painting and music few cities match, and coffee houses where one cup buys the afternoon. The other begins an hour away in mountains covering about sixty per cent of the country -- Salzburg under its fortress, Innsbruck's glacier, Hallstatt on its lake.

The main travel issue

The summer peak: July and August are hot in Vienna and busy on every lake and mountain railway, and Salzburg's festival fills the city and its hotel prices outright.

The solution

Let the railway carry the trip. ÖBB's dense, punctual network reaches almost every valley on a coordinated timetable, so no car is needed, and a Klimaticket covers a year of it. Come in May, June or September, when the high passes are open, the flowers are out and the August crowds have gone.

• Vienna

If you have a week

Three nights in Vienna, two in Salzburg, and two in the Salzkammergut lakes or in Tyrol. The trains between them are fast and scenic and the whole thing works without a car.

If you came for music

The Musikverein and the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Staatsoper — where standing tickets cost a few euros and go on sale shortly before the curtain — and the Salzburg Festival in July and August, which books out a year ahead.

If you want mountains

Tyrol and Vorarlberg for the highest and most dramatic country, with the Großglockner high alpine road crossing at 2,504 metres. The Zillertal, the Ötztal and the Stubai have glaciers; Carinthia in the south is warmer and has lakes worth swimming in.

If you want the quieter Austria

Styria for wine, pumpkin-seed oil and the hills around Graz; Burgenland for Lake Neusiedl, a shallow steppe lake shared with Hungary; and the Wachau, a UNESCO-listed stretch of the Danube with terraced vineyards, abbeys and a cycle path along both banks.

Austria is a small republic with the institutional habits of a large empire, and the gap between the two is where a good deal of its character sits.

Formality

Titles are used and matter — Herr Doktor, Frau Magister — and greetings are formal, with Grüß Gott the standard in most of the country. The distinction between the formal Sie and familiar du is observed carefully.

The coffee house

Listed by UNESCO as a cultural practice rather than a business model. One cup buys the table and the newspapers for as long as you want them, and being hurried is a sign that something has gone wrong. The waiter’s slight brusqueness is part of the form.

Vienna and the provinces

Vienna holds a fifth of the population and is regarded by the rest of the country with a mixture of pride and suspicion. Tyrol and Vorarlberg in particular have strong separate identities, distinct dialects and an alpine self-image that owes little to the capital.

The reckoning

The national story that Austria was Hitler’s first victim rather than a participant held until the 1980s and was publicly dismantled after the Waldheim affair. The reckoning with that period is recent and is still under way.

Hallstatt is the clearest case of a place overwhelmed: a village of under eight hundred people receiving up to a million visitors a year, most of them for an hour. The village has installed barriers at the most photographed spot and asked for fewer coaches. Going early or late in the day, staying a night, or choosing Gosau or Obertraun nearby all help.

Take the train. Austria’s railways are almost entirely electrified and largely hydro-powered, and the Klimaticket gives unlimited travel on nearly everything. It is cheaper and less stressful than driving, and mountain valleys have limited parking by design.

In the Alps, stay on marked paths — the meadows are farmed and are next winter’s hay. Close gates, keep dogs leashed near cattle, and give cows with calves a wide berth.

Alpine huts run by the Austrian and German alpine clubs are a better and cheaper way to spend a night high up than any valley hotel, and membership supports the trail network directly.

May, June and September are the best months for the mountains and the cities alike: mild, clear, flowers in June, and the high passes open without the August crowds.

July and August are the summer peak, warm in the valleys and hot in Vienna, with every lake and mountain railway busy. It is also when Salzburg’s festival fills the city and its hotel prices.

December to March is the ski season, reliable above about fifteen hundred metres, with Christmas and February half-term the most expensive weeks of the year. Vienna’s Christmas markets run through December and the ball season fills January and February.

April and November are the in-between months. Mountain lifts, hotels and restaurants close, high passes are shut and the weather is unsettled — but the cities are cheap and quiet.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the country

Austria is expensive but less so than Switzerland next door. The lunchtime Mittagsmenü, offered by most restaurants on weekdays, is the single best value available.

Paying for it. The currency is the euro. If you are carrying €10,000 or more, or the equivalent, you must declare it to customs on entering or leaving the European Union — which does not apply to movements within the EU or in transit to a non-EU country. Budget the vignette in separately if you are driving, and note that alpine passes and tunnels often charge on top of it.