Let's travel together #344 - Vienna in December: A Trip with a Few ...

I traveled to Vienna, Austria, in 2023, and ever since, I've been sharing stories about this trip, always highlighting the beautiful aspects of my experience. However, I never really mentioned the downsides of visiting Vienna in December.

First, it's well known that Vienna is especially popular in December due to its 17 Christmas markets, which create a magical and authentic atmosphere unlike anything you’d typically see elsewhere. However, my friends and I didn’t specifically plan our trip around this experience. Instead, our main goal was to travel on a low budget and book our tickets when they were at their lowest price. That’s how we ended up paying around €50 for a round-trip flight (flights only), which seemed like a great deal. With this saving, we had enough of our planned budget left to find suitable accommodation and bring home plenty of souvenirs.

Our trip happened to take place in December, just a few days after the Christmas markets started popping up all around the city. We thought this would make it a "2-in-1" experience, and we considered ourselves lucky. However, since it's hard to fully imagine a trip before actually experiencing it, we didn’t anticipate any major disadvantages of traveling during this time of year.
The first challenge was the cold weather, which made us freeze from morning until afternoon. As I mentioned, we were traveling on a low budget, so we didn’t check any baggage as this would have significantly increased the cost of our flight tickets. With only a small backpack, we couldn’t bring many clothes, packing just a few T-shirts and an extra hoodie. As a result, we ended up wearing the same outfits for most of the trip, including what we had worn on the flight.
Anyway, while we found solutions for this, getting some hot drink to accompany us during the day, another problem that came totally unexpected was to have lots of the places we had written down on our 'must see' list, cut off only by seeing them from the outside.

Some places were overcrowded, preventing new visitors from entering until the previous group had left which also led to long queues. Other points of interest were closed or undergoing renovations because of travelling off-season, while some were occupied by local concerts taking place during the holiday season.

As a result, we created many wonderful memories, but in my heart, the experience still feels a little incomplete.

Since I don’t feel it would be fair to dedicate a separate blog post to each place, given that we couldn’t fully experience them, nor do I want these moments to be lost in time or never shared with you, I decided to write this post. Here, I’ll include some of the places we missed due to the reasons mentioned above and bring attention to this unexpected situation, which could serve as a helpful lesson for some of you.

Of course, some people travel exclusively for the magical Christmas atmosphere, without intending to visit the museums or palaces near the Christmas markets, and that’s totally fine. However, for those who do want to explore these landmarks, I think this insight could be quite useful. No Grinch attitude intended!

1. Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien (Maria-Theresien-Platz)

The first place we came across early in our trip was the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which we were eager to explore from the inside. However, upon arriving, we realized it was also the site of one of Vienna’s main Christmas markets, and the crowds made it difficult to enter.
So, we decided to go with the flow, wandering through the market in search of souvenirs and temporarily forgetting about our museum visit. Since we had several other similar locations on our list, we told ourselves that skipping this one would be fine as we could focus on the next destinations instead. But we were far from realizing that this might actually be our single opportunity.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum, dating back to 1891, is Vienna’s Museum of Art History, and it is the largest art museum in Austria and one of the most important museums in the world.

2. Rathausplatz

Next up on our list was Rathausplatz, which is a square in Vienna's first district. The building you see on the left in the image is called Rathaus, which is the town hall of Vienna.
If you've visited Vienna before or are familiar with this style of architecture, you'll understand when I say that it's easy to mistake this building for one of the cathedrals or churches in town. We initially thought it was one of those until we figured out its true purpose.
Guided tours are available free of charge for tourists, but during our trip, we couldn't find much information about them. So, we decided to take a break and enjoy another Christmas Market before heading to our next stop.

3. Heldenplatz

Just like Rathausplatz, Heldenplatz is another public square strategically located near many other places of interest.
The square is dominated by the imposing building you see in the picture on the left. Located in the Innere Stadt district, it houses the residence of the President of Austria in the adjoining Hofburg wing, while the Federal Chancellery is located on the adjacent Ballhausplatz.
There are small museums and galleries that are occasionally hosted inside, but unfortunately, the one we tried to visit was closed during our trip.

4. The Hofburg

Right across from Heldenplatz, you'll find The Hofburg, the former principal imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty in Austria, dating back to the 13th century. While Schönbrunn Palace served as the summer residence for the Habsburgs, The Hofburg was their winter residence.
The palace is open to tourists and features a museum as well as apartments designed in the imperial style. However, when we made it inside, there was no one available to assist us, so we abandoned our attempt to visit the palace.
I don't recall seeing a Christmas Market directly at this location, but if you walk through the small path under the arch, you'll reach another place we had hoped to visit, but it ended up being another failed attempt.

5. The Court of Vienna

What you see in the images is The Court of Vienna, and yes, as you might have guessed, another Christmas Market is set up here.
Although visiting the court itself isn't possible for obvious reasons, the entire building houses several other points of interest, which were also on our list.
Before heading to one of those, we made a stop at the Christmas Market that seemed the least crowded of all the ones we’d seen so far. It was here that we walked away with plenty of presents for our loved ones, as the prices were much more affordable than at the other markets so I don't think that it was a complete fail afterall.

6. Austrian National Library

However, the main reason we ventured all the way to this part of town was to visit the Austrian National Library, which we were really looking forward to. Unfortunately, it turned out to be closed during our visit.
While I don’t have much experience visiting national libraries in my own country, I always enjoy visiting them during my trips abroad. They seem fascinating and like a portal that allows you to step back in time.
Sadly, this turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments of our trip. We returned home feeling a bit let down because we had planned our 'must-see' list the week before our trip, and there was no prior announcement about the closure.

Even so, I tried to remain optimistic and consider these fails an experience to pay more attention to for the future trips so I can avoid similar situations.

While Vienna in December is undoubtedly a magical experience, filled with festive markets, stunning architecture, and rich history, it’s also important to be prepared for the crowds and occasional closures that come with the holiday season. Despite a few setbacks, we still left the city with unforgettable memories and a newfound appreciation for its charm.

Other places I've seen during my stay in Vienna:

more coming soon...

^{Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences.

At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe.

Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (300+ articles written on this field), but also approaching other topics as well, like game reviews, lets plays, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 750+ blog posts.

Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, owning a YouTube channel for each of the two.}

~ @GabrielaTravels ~

[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 48.16175 lat 16.36857 long One of the most magical places you can see on the globe especially during the Christmas Holidays d3scr))

Let's travel together #344 - Vienna in December: A Trip with a Few Hiccups