Vienna First District Walking Tour
Vienna, Austria
Rating: 
Trip Type: Walking Tours
Duration: 3 hours
Unfold Vienna’s layers of history on this 3-hour walking tour of the Innere Stadt, the first district and historical city center. Visit St Stephen’s Cathedral and St Rupert’s Church, walk down the Ringstrasse past Hofburg Palace and explore the age-old Vindobona neighborhood. Learn about Vienna’s Celtic and Roman origins from your guide, witness the legacy of the Babenbergs and Habsburgs, and discover how modern Vienna has emerged into a major European capital for arts and culture. Numbers are limited to six on this small-group tour, ensuring a more personalized experience.
More About This Activity All Walking Tours →
Unfold Vienna’s layers of history on this 3-hour walking tour of the Innere Stadt, the first district and historical city center. Visit St Stephen’s Cathedral and St Rupert’s Church, walk down the Ringstrasse past Hofburg Palace and explore the age-old Vindobona neighborhood. Learn about Vienna’s Celtic and Roman origins from your guide, witness the legacy of the Babenbergs and Habsburgs, and discover how modern Vienna has emerged into a major European capital for arts and culture. Numbers are limited to six on this small-group tour, ensuring a more personalized experience.
Meet your guide in central Vienna for a tour of the first district, Innere Stadt, the historical core of the city and the most central of all the 23 districts. You'll get an overview of the many forces that have helped shape Vienna's remarkable history and culture as you follow the course of the Old Town walls, framed by the famous Ringstrasse boulevard.
Visit St Rupert’s Church (Ruprechtskirche), one of Vienna’s oldest churches overlooking the Donaukanal (Danube Canal). Continue through the area of Vindobona, occupied by the ancient Celts and Romans and later the heart of the medieval city.
Passing through a compact neighborhood once inhabited by the Babenburg court, arrive in Freyung Square, where grand palaces reveal the dominance of the imperial Habsburgs of the 18th century. While many of the streets of first district are quiet, close and narrow, the Habsburgs carved out the entire area to display their wealth and power.
Briefly follow the Ringstrasse past the Austrian Parliament Building and Hofburg Palace, which has housed some of the most powerful people in European and Austrian history, including the Habsburg rulers. Today it is the official residence of the President of Austria. Turning back towards the Vienna city center, learn how the Habsburgs’ infrastructure drew the artists, musicians and authors who created Viennese culture.
If time permits, stop at a local Viennese cafe to refuel with a torte and coffee (own expense). End your walk at St Stephen’s Cathedral (Stephansdom), a Gothic masterpiece and symbol of the city’s centuries of survival in the midst of political and religious turmoil. Admire the cathedral’s glow in the evening light, learn about the structure’s significance and listen as your guide points our interesting details, including a symbol of resistance to Nazism on the façade.
Your tour ends at St Stephen’s Cathedral, and you’re free to enter on your own.
« Go Back