Zell am See lives inside a postcard it did not have to invent. The town curls around the western shore of Lake Zell, a deep blue ribbon of water, while behind the rooftops the ground climbs from the Schmittenhöhe straight up to the ice of the Kitzsteinhorn. Few towns in Austria pack three landscapes into…
Most cities make you choose between the old town and the mountains. Innsbruck does not. You can stand in a medieval lane before a roof of gilded copper, then ride a funicular and two cable cars to a summit more than 2,300 metres above the sea, all between breakfast and lunch. The capital of Tyrol…
The train from Vienna slows beside the Salzach river, and there it is: a pale stone fortress spread along a green ridge, watching over a skyline of domes and Baroque towers. Salzburg is a small city with an outsized silhouette, and the list of things to do in Salzburg starts with that view. Below the…
Graz greets you with a puzzle. A medieval clock tower stands on a green hill, its big hand pointing at the hour and its small hand at the minutes, the wrong way round on purpose. Below the hill, a smooth blue creature the size of a ship seems to have landed beside the river: the…
The boat pulls away from the little station pier, and Hallstatt rises out of the morning mist across the water: a spill of steep roofs, two church towers and a waterfall of lanes between the lake and the rock. The list of things to do in Hallstatt starts with that crossing. Behind the postcard view…
Things to do in Vienna start with a palace that holds 1,441 rooms, and the city never really lowers the scale after that. The imperial capital of the Habsburg dynasty lines the banks of the Danube with marble halls, a cathedral tower from the Middle Ages, the oldest zoo in the world, and gardens grand…