Visit the Cathedral Church of St. Stephen and experience the place where Vienna’s famous composers found hope, love, and inspiration. It was here Joseph Haydn sang in the choir as a young man and where Amadeus Mozart married Maria Constanze in 1782, after a scandalous romance. Each year Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is performed in honor of the composer whose funeral was held in the Cathedral just 10 months after he arrived in Vienna in 1741.
A trip to the winter residence of the once ruling Habsburgs, Hofburg Palace, is an inspired journey through time. Built and expanded over the centuries the palace’s evolving architecture remembers Vienna’s many historical eras and places that witnessed notable events, like the premier of Beethoven’s 8th symphony in the Redoute Wing.
Vienna Prater remembers the happy sound of laughter as joy has echoed in Vienna’s amusement park for over a century. Filled with carousels, roller coasters and home of the Vienna Giant Ferris Wheel the park is as much a part of the city as its palaces and churches. The Ferris wheel was built in 1897 as part of Emperor Franz Josef’s golden jubilee. Experiencing jubilation and exhilaration are key to creating unforgettable moments.
This church is like a memory of Europe’s greatest architectural marvels. The church’s design is an homage to other great churches on the continent. While its columns derive from those that once stood on the Temple in Jerusalem, its dome resembles those of the Pantheon and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and Les Invalides in Paris. Baroque elements in the cathedral draw on those found in Christopher Wren’s masterpiece, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
The Schönbrunn Palace is unforgettable. Once the summer palace to the empire’s Habsburg rulers, today the palace is 400 acres of charming gardens, opulent galleries, and impressive corridors that echo with the reverberations of remembrance.
As the city and empire modernized, this magnificent building was designed in the neo-Gothic style in 1883 as a reminder for the new age of the past’s heritage. For those wanting a stirring bird’s eye view of the city, all it takes is walking up 331 steps to the Hall’s tower.
Explore exquisite tradition at the Spanish Riding School where horses and their riders still train their signature dressage move, ‘air above the ground’, just as they have for over the last 400 years. The gracefulness of the school’s Lipizzan horse comes from their intelligence and gentle nature.
