My vision of Vienna has always erred towards the Christmas card idyll of ballgowned waltzes around baroque ballrooms, or white Lipizzan horses clip-clopping across cobbled streets. It’s somewhere between a Gustav Klimt painting and a Richard Strauss opera – all gold leaf, intricate architecture and old-world refinement.
The coffee house remains the Austrian capital’s cultural backbone – and in my head, everyone here would be dressed in their Sunday best, sipping coffee from a china cup, sitting at shiny marble tables. Newspapers would be hanging from wooden frames and waiters in black waistcoats would be carrying shiny silver trays.
Kaufeehouses still exist, and there are Unesco-listed institutions where Sigmund Freud, Klimt and Leon Trotsky once lingered for hours. Nowadays, elderly men read newspapers slowly beneath fading frescoes, students write in notebooks for entire afternoons and even tourists instinctively lower their voices. Yet that is only one side of Vienna.
The skyline still belongs to domes, spires and palaces, yet on my first trip to the city, I’d decided to make it my mission to experience more than the ornately embellished facades, horse-drawn carriages and grand buildings that speak of vanished empires.
Horse-drawn carriages have been a symbol of Vienna since the late 17th century (Sara Darling)
Read more: The eccentric Capital of Culture where screaming choirs and air guitar championships reign
After flying in from London and settling into my accommodation, Hotel Motto in the sixth district, I was about to discover that the city’s old-world refinement opens up to something far more interesting than its chocolate box image suggests.
Beneath the polished, stately surface, I would find a confident, rebellious energy. And as the city was hosting the Eurovision Song Contest 2026, I had a front row seat.
I was in Vienna for several days ahead of the contest starting, the week when Europe’s biggest pop spectacle descends with its sequins, fireworks, and occasional piano smashing. Fans draped in flags were beginning to arrive. Some 100,000 visitors were expected to turn up to the city from across Europe and beyond.
As I wandered the streets, Eurovision playlists drifted from bars and cafes, and conversations about favourite entries spilled between coffee houses and market stalls. For a city so often associated with emperors, opera and etiquette, there was something wonderfully unexpected about watching it prepare for Europe’s loudest, queerest and most theatrical celebration of pop culture, and the accompanying live shows, screenings, drag brunches, club nights and outdoor celebrations, which were to spill out across the Austrian capital.
Eurovision is taking place in Vienna for 2026 at the Wiener Stadthalle (WienTourismus/Christian Stemp)
Vienna’s architecture is often thought of as defining the city. Theatre buildings line the Ringstrasse in the city’s centre, and the State Opera, Parliament and Kunsthistorisches Museum stand shoulder-to-shoulder like monuments to imperial ambition. But the city is far from frozen in time; upon further inspection, I discovered that former imperial buildings now house concept stores, pop-up shops, independent galleries and co-working spaces.
While hunting for the spirit associated with the singing event, I found myself on a delightfully silly quest. I asked a local where I could find Conchita Wurst (Austria’s unforgettable 2014 Eurovision winner), only to be cheerfully directed to the nearest Würstelstand street food stand for a sausage.
It’s an easy mistake – Conchita and Vienna’s legendary hot dogs are both national treasures. Here, sausages are taken seriously – so much so that the humble hot dog stand has been recognised alongside coffee houses and wine taverns on Austria’s Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage list since 2024 – and whether for lunch or a midnight feast, the next sausage stand is never far away. In the compact city there are more than 120 of them.
Onto a wiener: hot dog stands have been recognised on Unesco lists since 2024 (Sara Darling)
Read more: The eccentric Capital of Culture where screaming choirs and air guitar championships reign
In fact, I found that reinventing customs is something that the city does very well. In Neubau and Leopoldstadt, matcha cafes sit comfortably beside generations-old bakeries still serving sachertorte (the chocolate sponge cake thought to have been invented by the Austrian confectioner Franz Sacher in the 1830s).
The Freihausviertel district mixes preloved stores, including Flo Vintage, with independent cafes and late-night bars. Students spill onto pavements outside Vollpension, the beloved intergenerational spot where pensioners bake cakes for a younger, creative crowd. At the traditional Cafe Goldegg, locals linger and play cards over home-cooked apfelstrudel beneath wood panelling untouched for decades. While nearby concept stores modernise the area and fill it with low-key music and contemporary design.
Food markets reveal the city at its most authentic. Meidlinger Markt is where I felt most like a tourist; I rubbed shoulders with residents crowding counters at Roter Bar Buffet, which serves natural wine, small plates, and modern Austrian cooking. It was the most authentic version of Viennese food I experienced.
And for a city with so much history, Vienna’s underground scene is thriving – in repurposed industrial spaces and independent galleries. But it’s after dark that Vienna’s alternative soul really reveals itself.
Even though the waltzes of my imagination exist, the ballroom season takes place around December to February, so for the rest of the year, the city spotlights a diverse music scene. The epicentre is the Gürtel – a 13km arterial road that curves around Vienna’s inner districts, separating the centre from the outer neighbourhoods – where Otto Wagner’s historic Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) railway viaducts have been transformed into one of Europe’s most atmospheric nightlife zones.
Under the rumbling U6 subway line, brick arches house a string of cult venues that have defined the city’s alternative sound for decades. The area’s tolerance for loud music (thanks to the constant traffic overhead) allows DJs and bands to push volumes and creativity without restraint.
Every summer, the Gürtel Nightwalk festival turns the entire strip into one long open-air party with stages, DJs and art installations. Down by the water, the Donaukanal becomes Vienna’s summer living room. Street art covers concrete embankments for miles, while beach bars and open-air stages host everything from reggae sound systems to underground techno.
Read more: As an LGBT+ person, visiting the same places isn’t boring – it’s vital
The contemporary art scene also thrives beyond the big institutions. Galleries such as Hubert Winter, just around the corner from MuseumsQuartier – the arts and culture complex in the 7th district of Vienna – mix Austrian and international artists with a sharp eye on the present. Public Art Vienna turns tram stops, underpasses and public spaces into temporary galleries.
Particularly relevant was choreographer and performance artist Florentina Holzinger’s entry to this year’s Venice Biennale. Her Seaworld Venice (on display until 22 November, 2026) turned the Austrian Pavilion into a surreal hybrid: an underwater theme park, a working sewage treatment plant where naked performers moved through the water alongside jet skis. Both controversial and political, the piece has become one of the most discussed installations in Europe and has most certainly put Austria on the map.
The Heidi Horten Collection combines the modern and classical elements of Viennese life (Gottfried Bechtold, Elf Elf, 2006 / Simon Veres, Heidi Horten Collection)
A personal favourite though, was the vast contemporary art collection at the Heidi Horton Collection which opened in 2022. Here I saw work from the likes of Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon.
After immersing myself in Vienna, I realise the Eurovision contest is not transforming the city so much as amplifying a side of it that has always existed beneath the polished surface. Once the fever of the event has died down, the picturesque Ringstrasse will still be lit up at night, the City Hall will always glow, and the golden Johann Strauss monument in Stadtpark will stand strong for another 100 years. Moreover, you can go to a pub quiz hosted by a six-inch heel-wearing drag queen, shop at a weekly flea market or go to an underground techno club in a bunker.
Does Vienna need a rebrand? It already understands drama and camp on a deep, instinctive level. Beneath the waltzes, sachertorte, and imperial grandeur is a confident, rebellious, and wonderfully friendly city with a creative heart that refuses to be pinned down. That tension of old-world elegance meeting cutting-edge creativity is what makes Vienna such an ace city for a break. I arrived expecting a postcard and left completely charmed.
Sara was a guest of Visit Austria
How to get there
Austrian Airlines and Jet2 operate regular direct flights to Vienna from all major London airports, as well as Manchester.
Where to stay
Located in the heart of the city, Hotel Motto effortlessly blends 1920s Parisian flair with modern Viennese design and a touch of Scandinavian calm. It also has a relaxing sauna.