I recently visited Austria’s capital, Vienna, for the first time and liked it much more than I expected.
I always imagined the Austrian capital as a posh, polished city full of buttery cakes and glittering opera houses. While there are certainly elements of those stereotypes, it’s also diverse and a little gritty.
Almost 40 percent of Vienna’s population was born abroad, and there’s a sizable community from the Western Balkans. That shouldn’t surprise me, given the country’s history and location, but it wasn’t something I’d ever thought about.
Vienna seems like a very livable city, but there’s plenty to do, even if you’re passing through and aren’t all that interested in the typical tourist sites.
Join the Pride Parade
If you can time it right, I highly recommend visiting Vienna during the annual pride parade. It was one of the best pride celebrations (Regenbogenparade) I’ve ever attended. Better than New York or London. The music selection was excellent, over 300,000 people attended, and everyone was friendly and having a spectacular time. The organizers claim it’s the largest annual demonstration in Austria, and I believe it.
The parade circles the Vienna Ring Road (Ringstraße), in the first district, and you can follow along with the crowd or stand on the side to watch the revelers. One furniture shop opened its doors to let the paraders rest on the sofas and chairs for sale. There’s a real sense that the entire community has bought into the event.
Learn about Vienna’s social housing
During the trip, I visited Karl Marx Hof, allegedly one of the largest residential buildings in the world. Vienna’s municipal city council began construction on the building in the 1920s, during the height of a period known as Red Vienna (Rotes Wien), when the Social Democratic Workers’ Party experimented with new forms of social policy prior to the eventual fascist takeover of Austria.
The social housing policy from the 1920s still impacts the city, where at least 25 percent of residents live in government-owned housing and another 40 percent live in government-subsidized housing. Homeownership and participation in the private rental market are exceptionally low for a major city in Western Europe, and most people still only spend a small fraction of their income on their living space.
What’s more, the building’s designers were students of Austrian architect Otto Wagner, a leading member of the Vienna Secession and Art Nouveau movements. Tucked away in the building’s old washroom is a museum showcasing the history of Red Vienna. I couldn’t recommend it more.
Go vintage clothes shopping
Neubau, in Vienna’s 7th district, is one of the hippest neighborhoods in the city. It has no shortage of bars, cafés, art galleries, and vintage clothing shops. I found quite a few stores that sold used clothing by the kilo. There’s one on practically every corner when you’re walking down Neubaugasse Street. I stopped at RetroSchatz and bought 3 shirts for €14.
Go clubbing
The club I visited during my only free weekend in Vienna was the smaller of the city’s two most popular techno clubs. It’s called Das Werk.
I had low expectations for the city’s nightlife. I assumed the music would be subpar because nowhere compares to Berlin. I was wrong. The techno was excellent.
Multiple people told me Grelle Ferelle is bigger and better. The two clubs are next to each other in warehouses along the Danube River. A special shoutout to the Austrian journalist who scribbled a list of club recommendations on a scrap of paper for me.
Find the Balkan Mile
On the hunt for a diverse neighborhood I would probably live in if I were to move to Vienna, I took the number 46 tram to Schuhmeierplatz, in the direction of Ottakring. It had started to rain, so I ducked into a nearby shop, only to find myself in a bookstore that sold translated literature and poetry in Serbo-Croatian (the language of the former Yugoslavia).
The neighborhood is filled with cafés and restaurants from the Balkans, Cyprus, Turkey, and the wider Middle East. You can find burek, ćevapčići, or pretty much any other regional food you want. I spent the rainy day walking through the Brunnenmarkt, allegedly Vienna’s longest street market, fantasizing about all the specialty foods I would buy if I had kitchen access.
Visit a museum
I only had time to visit one museum during my free weekend in Vienna and chose the Leopold. It has a decent collection of paintings by Gustav Klimt. My favorite was Death and Life.
I am now also a fan of Egon Schiele, who I wasn’t familiar with before my trip to the Leopold. His existential angst is palpable, and I found it utterly relatable. According to a plaque in the Leopold, Schiele was “especially fascinated by death and described the process of ‘coming and vanishing’ as the central, transgressive path to a deeper understanding of the world.”
I found this moving and purchased a graphic novel of his autobiography in German.
Check out the municipal trash incinerator
If you had told me before visiting Vienna that I would buy an espresso in a cute coffee shop inside a municipal energy company, I would have been unable to imagine what you were talking about. But that is exactly the experience I had.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser, an Austrian visual artist and designer passionate about the environment, redesigned the Spittelau incinerator in the 1980s. He was known for saying things like, “The straight line leads to the downfall of our civilization.”
Vienna’s municipal waste incinerators produce energy for around 50,000 of the city’s households. You can tour the incinerator, and the employees will explain the whole process in addition to Vienna’s robust rules about recycling. The incinerator is also close to nightclubs.
