Vienna

Vienna carries imperial memory through music, palaces, coffee houses and grand boulevards. The city's elegance lies in ceremony, proportion and a cultural life that still feels deeply cultivated.

For more than six centuries Vienna was the seat of the Habsburgs, and the city still reads like a plan of their power. The Hofburg, the imperial winter palace, lies at the centre; St Stephen’s Cathedral rises above the medieval lanes; and the Ringstrasse, laid out in the 1860s on the line of the old walls, circles the Inner City with the State Opera, the Parliament, the City Hall and the great museums.

The collections are among the richest in Europe: the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Albertina, the Belvedere with Klimt’s Kiss, and the MuseumsQuartier in the former imperial stables. Schönbrunn lies to the south-west. Music is daily life here, from the Musikverein and the Konzerthaus to the Opera, and the coffee house and the vineyard taverns of Grinzing remain institutions rather than attractions.

Vienna’s social season runs through winter. The year opens with the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic, and January and February are the months of the balls — several hundred of them, culminating in the Opera Ball shortly before Lent. Advent brings Christmas markets to the Rathausplatz, the Freyung and the courtyards of Schönbrunn.

Spring and early summer are the most comfortable months, with the Wiener Festwochen arts festival and the Summer Night Concert in the gardens of Schönbrunn. July and August are warm and the State Opera closes for its summer break, though outdoor festivals and the Danube take its place. September and October bring the new season and the wine harvest on the city’s own vineyards.

Hotel Sacher Wien has faced the State Opera since 1876; Hotel Imperial, a Luxury Collection Hotel occupies a palace built for the Duke of Württemberg on the Kärntner Ring; Park Hyatt Vienna fills a former bank headquarters on Am Hof; Rosewood Vienna lies a few steps from St Stephen’s; and Anantara Palais Hansen Vienna occupies a building by Theophil Hansen on the Schottenring.

LVXVRY books Hotel Imperial through Marriott STARS & Luminous, Park Hyatt Vienna through Hyatt Privé and Palais Hansen through Anantara Journeys — at the official hotel rate, with the privileges each programme attaches to the stay. For the Sacher and Rosewood Vienna, LVXVRY advises on and arranges the stay, including around the balls.