Laminated City Center Street Map of Vienna, Austria - Folding pocket size travel map with metro map featuring lines & stations
Revised 2008
Think of Vienna and one thing should come to mind. Not music, although we’ll come to that later. Not the Boys Choir. Not waltzing. Not wiener schnitzel (invented here), not sacher torte (also invented here), nor filtered coffee (invented here and drunk by the tankerloads). Not even Lipizzaner Stallions. The one thing that epitomizes Vienna is: schlag.
Schlag, shortened from Schlagobers, is whipped cream. Desserts are traditionally served with it. Viennese coffee is light espresso topped with it. The white poufy dresses at the annual New Years Eve Ball, Austria's waltzing extravaganza, look like they’re made of it. The Baroque and Rococo architecture is decadent and looks like it’s embellished with it. Even the most famous Emperor, Franz Josef, sported a sweeping moustache and muttonchop sideburns that gave him the appearance of having dipped his face in it. This is a pristine city, precise and orderly, softened by the excess that a good dollop of whipped cream (literal and figurative) adds.
Start your culturally caloric tour within the Ring Road, or Ringstrasse. Each section of the ring has a different name ending in –ring. This is helpful in orienting yourself and keeps you from going around in endless circles trying to find an address. Inside the ring is the historical center of Vienna and most prominently placed is the Hofburg, or Imperial Palace, home to so many museums and cultural venues that it’s difficult to count. Most cities would be happy to have half of these venues, much less all of them in one grand location.
This is the seat of the Habsburg dynasty, one of the largest and most powerful ruling families of Europe (Marie-Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI and Queen of France was a Habsburg – she must have said “let them eat cake, mit schlag!”).
Started in the 1200’s, the original castle was enlarged, expanded and elaborated on for the next 700 years. Had WWI not ended the Austrian monarchy, the Habsburgs would probably still be working on the palace today. Here you’ll find the Imperial Apartments where Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife Empress Elizabeth (nicknamed Sisi) spent their unhappy marriage; the Lipizzaner Stallions prance and parade in the ring at the Spanish Riding School in the center of the palace; and the Austrian National Library, an ornate repository of knowledge. The Wiener Sängerknaben, or Vienna Boys Choir, perform Sunday Mass at the medieval chapel within the Hofburgh.
The angelic voices of the Vienna Boy’s Choir are only one note in the symphony that is the musical heritage of this city. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Hayden, Brahms and both Strauss’s (Jr. and Sr.) all either lived, studied, composed, performed or died in Vienna. Today, concert halls are booked throughout the year. Music is as much a part of daily life for the Viennese as, well, you guessed it, schlag.
There are plenty of other sites and activities in the city: walks along the Prater, the museums surrounding Marie Theresien Platz, the gardens of the Rathaus Park, St Stephan’s Cathedral, Karlskirche, the Belvedere Palaces-upper and lower, the Demel – café extraodinaire, the Sigmund Freud House and the Clown Museum.
All of these sites can be easily found on our STREETWISE® Vienna Map and are listed in the complete index along with streets, hotels, metro stations, places of worship, places of interest, parks and plazas, and other museums and cultural sites. A separate Vienna metro map is included to speed travel within the city or enable you to visit outlying areas of town.
STREETWISE® Maps publishes the best laminated folding maps available for purchase on the market today. Simple to read and fold for effortless use, all of our detailed travel maps are pocket size for discretion so you don't stick out like a tourist. Browse the boxes below to see other STREETWISE® laminated maps in addition to this Vienna map.
STREETWISE® Vienna Map 2008
Map Scales:
Main Vienna, Austria Map 1:10,000
Vienna Metro Map N/A
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