Austria-Switzerland

Top Hotels https://www.theaficionados.com/

Top 10 things tourists to Austria get wrong.

  • Vienna: Sunday Mass at the Hofburg Chapel is fully scored Mass (Mozart, Brahms, Hadyn) – a taste of the Hapsburg past (look in the right side chapel  to view Hapsburg hearts)
  • Vienna Coffee-Houses. Here are just some of the ways they serve coffee in Vienna – now you can order like a local at these awesome places  :Cafe Central the classic – Trotsky’s haunt); Cafe Hawelka YES, you must go here! (Hawelka IS Vienna) Dorotheergasse 6 (GO HERE! esp if you’re into modern art; great place to try an Einspänner); Cafe Sperl (haunt of artists and military officers – and Adolph Hitler, who was neither; generally devoid of tourists); Café Prückel; Café Museum [Built by Adolph Loos in 1899, the starting point for all modern interior design]; cafe Diglas mmmm
  • UND Cafe
Burke_Ehrenhaft_Shevchik_CafeMuseum_Vienna
Class of 2016 enjoying the scene at Cafe Museum
  • Instead of a tourist restaurant, go to a Gasthaus (traditional taverns). This is ‘Old-School Austria! In Vienna: Wild, Heidingers,    Rebhuhn, and the Bierklinik (where you can find a Turkish cannon ball embedded in the wall – very old-school indeed!)
  • Spend the afternoon in a traditional wine tavern near the center if Vienna. Extremely Viennese, especially when the music starts!
  • Maxing Stuberl – a cozy traditional Austrian wine tavern next to Schonbrunn Palace that dates back to 1805.

  • Wilhelm Schnattl (Vienna) – a special place/make reservations before you depart
  • Halle Cafe-Restaurant (Vienna) – hip scene/good food/convenient for a break from the museums
  • Hotel Sacher, Vienna – home of the most famous chocolate cake, created for
    Klemens von Metternich; go to the hotel’s  upscale café if you wish the full Sachertorte experience (Vivaldi also lived in the hotel, but alas, before the cake was invented)
  • Loos American Bar (Vienna) – if you have any interest in architecture and/or modernism, you must stop in to the tiny American Bar in central Vienna for a dry martini.
  • Like open-faced sandwiches? One word: Trzesniewski!
  • StielgKeller, Festungsgasses 10, Salzburg – This brew-house/restaurant is carved into the mountain; great food and nice location (get an outdoor table), but for a more traditional night go to Augustiner
  • Augustinerkeller Brau, Salzburg – Brewing since 1621, this is Austria’s largest traditional beer hall; get your litres yourself from massive wooden barrels and don’t pass on the shaved radish (goes well with beer).
  • Buzi Hutte (Innsbruck) – a truly special place/traditional food and ambiance/worth the extra effort to find it (it is situated in the northern hills above town.  You have to ask a local). So traditional, it’s CASH only.
  • Zappa Music Bar, Rechengasses 5, Innsbruck – a smallish, dark, chill university hangout (one of my go-to favorites, actually, when I lived in the Internationale Residences next door – that was in the 80s!). OK, so it’s a bit of a dump, but it was our dump, and cheap.
  • Weisses Roessl (Innsbruck) – a traditional Austrian restaurant – cozy place for a meal and a beer. Mozart stayed here on one of his tours.
  • Hofkirche, Innsbruck – final resting place of Emperor Maximilien I (visit the church, find the tomb, skip the Imperial residence)

SWITZERLAND

Aescher: the journey is part of the package / amazing hotel location