Vienna Travel Guide

What to Do for Free in Vienna

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by

Juliette Vale
in

(info taken from visitingvienna.com)

Architecture and Art

Wien Museum MUSA

The MuseumsQuartier (MQ) houses various museums and institutions as a sort of melting pot of contemporary art and culture. Open courtyards, bars and cafés invite you to wander through the complex.

You do need a ticket for most of the big exhibitions, but…

  • The MQ’s Freiraum and Salon exhibition space usually hosts a couple of exhibitions each year. These are often (though not always) free.
  • The MQ Art Box is a permanent glass-sided container in the main courtyard with an art installation inside that changes every two months or so.
  • Around nine of the passageways between buildings and courtyards form what the MQ calls micromuseums, which means the thoroughfares have one or more distinctive features. A typical example might be a creative ceiling fresco.
  • The MQ Libelle is an open space, art installation, and viewing platform on the roof of the Leopold Museum. Also free.

Parks & Places

Museum view from the Volksgarten

Vienna is famously full of public city parks requiring no entrance fee. And some of them look rather delightful. Here some suggestions:

  • Most people go to Schönbrunn to tour inside the 18th-century palace that housed various emperors and empresses (including Franz Joseph and the famous Sisi). But the huge landscaped gardens and wider park are free to visit, with the exception of a couple of small locations.

The park has such (free) delights as a Roman ruins (albeit fake), an obelisk, a rose garden, and a botanic garden. View the wonderful exterior architecture of the palace (obviously) but also see the giant Palm House, the Gloriette, and much more from outside at least.

You need tickets to go inside the palaces, which feature excellent art exhibitions and provide a home for Klimt’s The Kiss. But the main gardens are free, as is the adjoining botanical garden run by the university of Vienna.

Free Events & Festivals

Karlsplatz Christmas market at night

You can enjoy them without buying anything. Just soak up the atmosphere, breathe in the scents, revel in the lights and historical surrounds, and browse the stands with all their crafts, gourmet foods and other items not normally sold in your average department store.

Tropical fruit at a market

(The year-round Naschmarkt food market offers its own sensory experience)

  • Europe’s biggest free open-air music festival takes place in Vienna (usually in June): the Donauinselfest draws in something like 2.5 million visitors
  • Two notable open-air film festivals in summer are free.
    • The Rathaus Film Festival takes place on the square in front of city hall and features concerts from different genres (but with a focus on classical and opera)
    • The Frameout open air film festival at the MQ offers a mixture of films
  • Free concerts also dot the Vienna event calendar, for example…