Is nineteen days too long for one trip?

It is longer than most people take and shorter than the route deserves. The saving grace is that the travel is trivial: six trains, none over three hours, all city centre to city centre. If nineteen is too many, cut Berlin to two nights and Dresden to one and you have sixteen days with nothing important lost. Cutting Brno or Bratislava saves less time than it looks, because both are short hops on legs you are making anyway.

Which direction should I go?

North to south as written. Berlin and Budapest both have wide flight choices, the gorge scenery between Dresden and Prague sits on the left going south, and finishing in Budapest means ending in the cheapest and most relaxed of the seven rather than the most formal. Reversing it works fine if the flights are better that way.

Do I need a rail pass?

Almost certainly not. Six point-to-point tickets bought in advance on the national operators' sites will cost less than an Interrail pass covering the same trip, because every leg here is short and advance fares in Germany, Czechia and Austria are cheap. A pass makes sense if you intend to add a lot of unplanned day trips.

Three fit naturally. Cesky Krumlov between Prague and Brno, though it is off the direct line and needs a bus. Olomouc between Brno and Vienna, an hour and a half from Brno with a baroque centre second in size only to Prague's. And Gyor or the Danube Bend between Bratislava and Budapest. Any of them adds two nights.

Can I copy this and change it?

Yes. The most common changes are dropping Dresden to make it seventeen days, adding two nights in the Wachau valley between Brno and Vienna, or extending past Budapest to Croatia, which is six hours further south on a single train.

Nineteen days from Berlin to Budapest: five countries down one railway line, and not a single long day

Three nights in Berlin, two in Dresden, three in Prague, two in Brno, three in Vienna, two in Bratislava and three in Budapest, with six trains and no leg over three hours.

Copy this itinerary

Length: 19 days, 18 nights
Where you stay: Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Brno, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest
Places: 55 across 19 days

OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

This is the spine of central Europe and it is easier to travel than almost anywhere else on the continent. Berlin to Dresden is two hours and a quarter. Dresden to Prague is the same, and the second half of it runs through a sandstone gorge with the Elbe alongside. Prague to Brno is two hours forty, Brno to Vienna an hour and a half, Vienna to Bratislava just over an hour, and Bratislava to Budapest two and a half. Six trains, five countries, and no day that eats more than a morning.

The cities are not variations on each other. Berlin argues with its own history in public and leaves the scars showing. Dresden burned in a night and spent sixty years putting itself back. Prague was never seriously bombed and is full because of it. Brno does nothing for anybody's benefit. Vienna keeps the furniture of an empire. Bratislava crowned Hungary's kings for two and a half centuries and is now the cheapest capital on the route. Budapest is the one people extend their stay in.

Nineteen days is enough to give each of them its proper length rather than a morning, and short enough that nothing needs to be repacked more than six times.

Highlights

The two hours of Elbe gorge between Dresden and the Czech border, worth a window seat on the left
A monastery library above Prague with a crocodile hanging in the corridor between the halls
Mies van der Rohe's house in Brno, with an onyx wall and windows that sink into the floor
The crown of the Holy Roman Empire, in a case at eye level in the Hofburg
A castle terrace in Bratislava from which you can see two other countries
An outdoor thermal pool in Budapest in the evening, steaming, with chess going on in the water

Where to stay

Berlin, three nights

Berlin is not a beautiful city and does not try to be. It is large, flat, cheap and full of gaps, and the gaps are the point: the cleared block where the Gestapo headquarters stood, the double line of cobbles where the Wall ran, the field of grey blocks a hundred metres from the Brandenburg Gate.

Three nights covers the government quarter, one day on Museum Island and one on the Wall and the Nazi period. It leaves out Potsdam, the lakes and the nightlife. Stay in Mitte to walk everywhere, or Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg to pay less and eat better.

Dresden, two nights

By train from Berlin, Berlin Central Station to Dresden Central Station, about 165 km.

On the night of 13 February 1945 the centre of Dresden was destroyed by fire in a matter of hours. What stands there now was rebuilt in stages between the 1950s and 2005, and the city is open about it: the Frauenkirche is speckled with black stones salvaged from its own rubble and you can see exactly which ones they are.

Two nights is right. The old town is ten minutes across and holds one of the great picture collections in Europe and a treasury of Saxon excess. Cross the river in the evening, where the damage was lighter and the city goes out.

Prague, three nights

By train from Dresden, Dresden Central Station to Praha hlavní nádraží, about 117 km.

Prague came through the war with its centre intact, which explains both the beauty and the crowds. Gothic, Renaissance and baroque layers all still standing where they were put, and several million visitors a year come to look at them.

Three nights gets you the castle at opening rather than at noon, a morning in Josefov instead of an hour, and one evening on the bridge after the day trippers have gone. Sleep on the Old Town side to walk everywhere or in Vinohrady to pay Czech prices.

Brno, two nights

By train from Prague, Praha hlavní nádraží to Brno hlavní nádraží, about 186 km.

The second city and the capital of Moravia, where the other half of the country lives. Four hundred thousand people, tens of thousands of them students, and no interest whatsoever in impressing visitors, which after Prague is restful.

Two nights buys a house that changed twentieth-century architecture, a crypt of mummified monks, a hilltop prison and the discovery that Czech wine exists and is good. It is also the cheapest stop between Berlin and Bratislava.

Vienna, three nights

By train from Brno, Brno hlavní nádraží to Wien Hauptbahnhof, about 111 km.

Capital of an empire of fifty million people, with the furniture still in place: a ring road where the walls were, palaces at either end, an opera performing most nights of the season and coffee houses where sitting for two hours over one cup is correct behaviour.

Three nights covers the old city, one imperial palace, one great picture collection and one evening of music, and leaves the outer districts and half a dozen major museums untouched.

Bratislava, two nights

By train from Vienna, Wien Hauptbahnhof to Bratislava hlavná stanica, about 55 km.

The only capital in the world that borders two other countries, and from the castle you can see both. For two hundred and fifty years, while the Ottomans held the middle of Hungary, Hungarian kings were crowned here and the Hungarian parliament sat here.

The old town is six streets, which is why day trippers off the Vienna boat conclude there is nothing here. Two nights gives you the castle, the coronation church, an evening with people who live here and a half day at the ruin on the cliff downriver.

Budapest, three nights

By train from Bratislava, Bratislava hlavná stanica to Keleti pályaudvar, about 161 km.

Two cities that merged in 1873: hilly, quiet Buda on the west bank and flat, loud, nineteenth-century Pest on the east, with a river a third of a kilometre wide between them. Everything grand in Pest went up in one burst before 1914 and everything on the Buda hill was rebuilt after the siege of 1945.

Three nights gets the castle hill, the Jewish quarter, a long afternoon in a thermal bath and an evening on the river. Stay in Pest, in the fifth, sixth or seventh district.

Day by day

Day 1 in Berlin

Unter den Linden, a field of grey blocks and the glass dome

Start at the gate, because everything in this part of Berlin is measured from it. Twelve sandstone columns of 1791, a chariot on top, and a century and a half of being used as a backdrop by whoever was in charge, ending with a wall running past it for twenty-eight years.

One block south, a field of concrete blocks stands on sloping ground with no inscription on it anywhere. The information centre underneath is free, holds the names, and half an hour in it changes the rest of the day.

Finish at the parliament. The dome is glass and spirals up directly above the debating chamber, so from the walkway you look down through the floor at the seats. Book the slot before you leave home and take the last one of the evening.

14:30
Brandenburg Gate
Historic
Berlin's only surviving city gate, built in 1791 by Carl Gotthard Langhans on the model of the entrance to the Athenian acropolis. It stood inside the death strip from 1961 to 1989. Free and permanently busy.
15:15
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Historic
Peter Eisenman's 2,711 concrete stelae, opened in 2005, deliberately without symbol or inscription. Walk into the middle where they rise over your head. The underground information centre is free and takes about forty minutes.
17:00
Coffee near Potsdamer Platz
Eat
Half an hour off your feet before the parliament slot. Anywhere off the square rather than on it.
18:30
Reichstagsgebäude
Architecture
The German parliament with Norman Foster's glass dome of 1999 over the rebuilt chamber. Free, but only with an online registration made in advance and matched to your passport. Evening slots get the best light.
20:30
Dinner in Mitte
Eat
Walk east along the Spree. The Vietnamese kitchens in the side streets north of Oranienburger Tor cost a third of what the riverside terraces do.

With more time: Landing in the morning instead, the Tiergarten starts at the gate and runs three kilometres west, and walking its paths is the cheapest cure for a flight.

Day 2 in Berlin

Museum Island, Nefertiti and a dome walkway

Five museums on one island in the Spree, begun in 1830 as a Prussian statement, wrecked in the war and still being put back. Walk the outside first, twenty minutes of colonnades and courtyards, so the geography makes sense.

Then pick one and do it properly. The Neues Museum is the one to pick. It holds the painted limestone bust of Nefertiti, carved around 1345 BC, in a domed room of her own, and the building itself is half the exhibit: David Chipperfield rebuilt it between 1997 and 2009 without disguising a single war wound.

Finish across the road at the cathedral, which is Wilhelmine, enormous and only a century old. The reason to pay is the walkway around the dome, which puts you level with the television tower and looking straight down the island.

09:30
Museumsinsel
Landmark
The island in the Spree carrying five state museums, a UNESCO site since 1999 and permanently half under scaffolding. Start with the colonnade courtyard and the Lustgarten.
10:30
Neues Museum
Culture
Egyptian and prehistoric collections in a building rebuilt with its war damage left visible. Nefertiti is upstairs on her own. Book a timed slot in summer to skip the ticket queue.
13:00
Lunch at Hackescher Markt
Eat
Ten minutes north, and the linked courtyards behind the square are worth the walk by themselves.
14:30
Berliner Dom
Religious
The Hohenzollern court church of 1905, wrecked in 1944 and reconsecrated in 1993. Pay to climb about 270 steps to the dome walkway, which is the best cheap view in central Berlin.

With more time: The Alte Nationalgalerie on the same island holds the German nineteenth century and is rarely busy, and the Pergamon Museum is shut for a rebuild that will not finish this decade.

Day 3 in Berlin

The Gestapo cellars, the real Wall, and the painted one

One day on the twentieth century, in the order it happened. The cleared block on Niederkirchnerstrasse is where the Gestapo and the SS ran the country from 1933 to 1945. The buildings are gone, the cellars are exposed, and the documentation along them is free and unsparing. Ninety minutes.

Then north to Bernauer Strasse, where a full section of the border stands as it was: outer wall, patrol road, lamps, raked sand, inner wall, watchtower. This is the one that lands. The street had apartment blocks whose front doors opened into the West and whose windows were bricked up in 1961.

In the afternoon go east to the painted stretch along the river, 1.3 kilometres of inner wall covered in 1990 by artists from twenty-one countries in the few months when it was still possible to get at it. It is the longest piece left standing and the least like a memorial.

09:30
Topography of Terror
Culture
Free indoor and open-air documentation on the site of the Gestapo and SS headquarters, with the excavated cellars and a long stretch of original Wall above them. Ninety minutes, and read the outdoor panels.
12:00
Berlin Wall Memorial
Historic
The only place the border survives complete, along 1.4 km of Bernauer Strasse: wall, death strip, patrol road and tower, with a free visitor centre and a viewing platform.
14:00
Lunch in Mitte or Prenzlauer Berg
Eat
The streets north of the memorial are residential and full of bakeries and cheap lunch counters.
15:30
East Side Gallery
Culture
The longest surviving section of the Wall, 1.3 km beside the Spree, painted in the spring of 1990 by more than a hundred artists and restored twice since. Free, open, and busiest in the middle of the day.

With more time: The Jewish Museum in Kreuzberg needs three hours and Daniel Libeskind's building does half the work before you read a caption. It is the obvious fourth Berlin day if you have one.

Day 4 in Dresden

Two hours to Dresden, and a church rebuilt from its own rubble

A mid morning EuroCity puts you in Dresden for lunch. The station is a quarter of an hour on foot from the old town, or four minutes on a tram.

What you walk into is a reconstruction, and knowing that improves it. The church in the middle of the Neumarkt collapsed two days after the firestorm of February 1945, lay as a heap of stones through forty years of East German rule, and was put back between 1994 and 2005 using every original stone that could be identified. Those are the black ones.

Then the long porcelain mural along the palace wall, and the terrace above the river at the end of it, which the nineteenth century called the balcony of Europe and where the city still takes its evening walk.

09:30
Train to Dresden
Travel
Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Dresden, two hours and a quarter, roughly every two hours. Book a Sparpreis in advance and reserve a seat at summer weekends.
13:00
Lunch on the Neumarkt
Eat
Drop the bag first. The square in front of the church is priced for the view; one street back is half.
14:30
Frauenkirche
Religious
Destroyed in February 1945, left as rubble for half a century and rebuilt by 2005 with its salvaged stones set back in place, which is why the walls are piebald. The gold cross on the dome was made in London and paid for by Coventry.
16:00
Fürstenzug
Other
A hundred metres of Saxon rulers on horseback along the palace stable wall, made of roughly 23,000 Meissen porcelain tiles in 1907 and almost untouched by the firestorm. Free, outdoors, and there is exactly one woman in it.
16:45
Brühlsche Terrasse
Leisure
Five hundred metres of raised terrace above the Elbe, public since 1814, with the old town behind and the river meadows opposite. Walk it slowly at the end of the afternoon.
19:30
Dinner across the river
Eat
The north bank came through the raid far better and is where the city eats and drinks now. Ten minutes on foot and half the price of the Neumarkt.

Day 5 in Dresden

A baroque party courtyard, a royal hoard and a room of Friedrichs

Three collections within four hundred metres, none of them rushed.

The Zwinger first, because it is free to walk into and best early. It is not a palace but a party venue, built between 1710 and 1728 for a Saxon elector with money and appetites: an open court ringed by pavilions with a crown gate at one end and stone nymphs everywhere.

Then the treasury in the royal palace, which is Augustus the Strong's private hoard laid out as he arranged it in 1733. A cherry stone carved with more faces than seems possible, a whole miniature Mughal court in gold and enamel, and the green diamond it is named after. Jewels were stolen from here in November 2019 and most came back, damaged, at the end of 2022.

Finish in the museum on the terrace, which holds the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Caspar David Friedrich's landscapes, painted in this city, and Degas's small bronze dancer in her real tulle skirt.

09:30
Zwinger Palace
Historic
A baroque pleasure courtyard of 1710 to 1728, with Permoser's stonework, a pavilion of Meissen porcelain bells and the crown gate everybody photographs. The courtyard is free and open all day.
11:15
Grünes Gewölbe
Culture
The Saxon treasury in two halves on two tickets. The Historic Green Vault keeps its 1733 arrangement of mirrored rooms and needs a timed ticket booked days ahead; the New Green Vault shows the same craft object by object and is easy to get into.
13:30
Lunch on the Theaterplatz
Eat
Between the opera house and the river, or in the arcades behind the palace where the lunch menus are meant for people who work here.
15:00
Albertinum Museum
Culture
The gallery of new masters on the Bruehl terrace: Caspar David Friedrich, Otto Dix, Gerhard Richter and Degas's little dancer with her real skirt. Quieter than the old masters and open later.

With more time: The old master gallery in the Zwinger holds Raphael's Sistine Madonna, whose two bored cherubs escaped onto every fridge magnet in Europe, and Vermeer's girl at the window, restored in 2021 to reveal a painted cupid somebody had covered over.

Day 6 in Prague

Up the Elbe gorge into Bohemia, and the square at dusk

The finest two hours of the whole route. Leave Dresden mid morning and sit on the left. After Bad Schandau the railway is pinned between the river and the sandstone, cliffs come down to the water on both sides, castles appear on top of them, and somewhere in there you cross into the Czech Republic without the train slowing.

Prague main station is ten minutes from the old town. Drop the bag and go straight to the square, which has been the middle of the city for a thousand years: Gothic on one side, baroque on another, and a bronze reformer in the middle who was burned at the stake in 1415.

The clock on the town hall goes off on the hour, the apostles parade, a skeleton pulls a rope, and it is over in forty-five seconds. Everybody knows it disappoints. Climb the tower instead.

Then hold the last hour of light for the bridge, when the crowd thins, the statues go black against the sky and the castle comes up floodlit on the ridge ahead.

10:00
Train to Prague
Travel
Dresden to Praha hlavni nadrazi, two and a quarter hours, every two hours. Reserve a seat and take the left side facing forward for the gorge.
13:00
Late lunch near the station
Eat
Eat up in Vinohrady above the station rather than in the arcades below it. Prices halve in three hundred metres.
15:00
Old Town Square
Architecture
Gothic, Renaissance and baroque fronts round one open square, listed by UNESCO in 1992, with the Jan Hus monument of 1915 in the middle. Free and always open, and a different place after ten at night.
16:15
Astronomical Clock
Architecture
Running on the side of the old town hall since 1410 and still keeping medieval time, with a dial that tracks the sun, the moon and the zodiac. The hourly show lasts under a minute; the tower lift does not.
19:00
Charles Bridge
Architecture
Sixteen arches, 516 metres, begun in 1357 and the only crossing in Prague until 1841. The thirty baroque statues along the parapet are copies. Walk it west in the last hour of light.
20:15
Dinner in the Lesser Town
Eat
Cross and walk two streets uphill before sitting down. A menu in six languages outside the door means triple the price for worse food.

Day 7 in Prague

The castle at opening, and a library with a crocodile in the corridor

Be at the gates when they open. This is the most visited place in the country and the difference between nine and eleven is the difference between a hill and a scrum. Take tram 22 up so you can walk down.

It is a walled quarter rather than a castle: seven hectares of courtyards, palaces and gardens with a cathedral in the middle. That cathedral was begun in 1344 and only finished in 1929, which is obvious from thirty metres away, and the Mucha window in the north aisle is art nouveau glass of 1931 in a Gothic frame.

Then five minutes further uphill to the monastery on the ridge, whose two baroque library halls are lined floor to ceiling in gilded wood and old books, with a cabinet of curiosities in the corridor between them that includes a crocodile hanging from the ceiling. You look in from the doorways.

Walk down through the orchards afterwards, fifteen minutes of vines and apple trees with the whole city underneath, which almost nobody does.

09:00
Prague Castle
Nature
Seat of Czech rulers since the ninth century and of the president now, a walled quarter rather than one building. Go at opening. The guard changes hourly and there is a fanfare at noon in the first courtyard.
11:15
St. Vitus Cathedral
Religious
Begun in 1344 and not finished until 1929. Charles IV and a dozen Bohemian kings are in the crypt, the crown jewels sit behind a door with seven locks, and the Mucha window of 1931 is in the north aisle.
12:45
Lunch on the castle ridge
Eat
The lanes west of the castle towards the monastery hold a couple of pubs still charging Czech prices, which this close to the gates is remarkable.
14:15
Strahov Monastery
Religious
A Premonstratensian monastery of 1143 above the castle with two baroque library halls, a picture gallery and a corridor of curiosities. Libraries viewed from the doors; the gallery you walk through.

With more time: Petrin hill runs south from the monastery, with a funicular for the tired and an iron lookout tower of 1891 at the top that is a fifth the height of the Eiffel Tower on ground high enough to match it.

Day 8 in Prague

Josefov: the names, the stacked graves and the oldest synagogue in Europe

A morning in three streets, and the heaviest hours of the nineteen days. Prague's Jewish quarter was cleared and rebuilt as art nouveau apartment blocks around 1900, leaving six synagogues, a town hall and the cemetery standing in the middle of it. They survived the war because the occupiers meant to keep them as a museum to a people they were destroying.

Start in the Pinkas synagogue, whose walls carry 77,297 hand-painted names, every Czech and Moravian Jew known to have been murdered. The Communist authorities closed the building in 1968 and let the plaster rot; the names had to be painted again in the 1990s. Upstairs are children's drawings from Terezin.

The cemetery is entered through it: twelve thousand headstones on a plot the size of a large garden, burials stacked twelve deep because the community was never allowed more ground, and the earth heaved up between them.

Finish across the street at the Old-New synagogue, finished around 1270 and still holding services, which makes it the oldest working synagogue in Europe.

09:30
Pinkas Synagogue
Religious
The interior walls carry 77,297 names of Czech and Moravian Jews killed in the Holocaust, with the camps listed in larger letters at the front and a room of children's drawings above. Take the ticket covering the whole quarter.
10:45
Old Jewish Cemetery
Historic
In use from the fifteenth century to 1787, with over 20,000 people buried in about twelve layers. Rabbi Loew's tomb is halfway round the path, covered in pebbles and paper wishes.
12:00
Old-New Synagogue
Religious
Finished around 1270 and Europe's oldest synagogue still in regular use, with five-ribbed vaults built that way so the ribs never form a cross. The Golem is supposed to be in the attic, which has no stairs.
13:00
Lunch behind Parizska
Eat
Parizska is the most expensive street in the country and is lined with luxury boutiques. One block east, lunch costs a third as much.

With more time: Letna park on the bluff north of the river has the best view back over the bridges and a beer garden under the trees, and the giant metronome up there stands on the plinth where a colossal Stalin stood until it was dynamited in 1962.

Day 9 in Brno

Into Moravia, a bullet-shaped clock and bells at eleven

Two hours and forty minutes southeast across the Bohemian uplands. The change is gradual and then complete: by the time you get off, the beer has become wine and the prices have dropped by a third.

Brno is the second city, capital of Moravia, and does nothing whatever for your benefit, which after three days in Prague is a relief. Its main square is a long shape with trams down the middle, and at the top of it stands a black granite object the height of a house that is an astronomical clock, was installed in 2010, cannot be read by anybody, and is described by locals in terms that do not print well. At eleven each morning it releases a glass marble, which people queue to catch.

The old town hall nearby has a stuffed crocodile hanging in its passage, which the city calls a dragon and everybody knows is a crocodile, and a pinnacle above the door that leans at a deliberate angle because the stonemason was not paid.

Finish on the cathedral hill for sunset. Listen for the bells the next morning: Petrov rings noon at eleven, and the story goes back to the Swedish siege of 1645, when the besieging general said he would give up if the city had not fallen by midday.

09:30
Train to Brno
Travel
Praha hlavni nadrazi to Brno hlavni nadrazi, two hours forty, at least hourly, with private operators competing so a first class seat costs less than a taxi. Book ahead and reserve.
13:00
Late lunch near the station
Eat
Brno is a student city and the lunch menus five minutes from the station are priced accordingly.
14:30
Freedom Square
Architecture
The heart of the city, a long reversed triangle with trams down the middle. The black granite clock at the top releases a glass marble at eleven every morning and nobody can tell the time from it.
15:30
Old Town Hall
Architecture
Gothic, with a crocodile hanging in the entrance passage that the city insists is a dragon, a cartwheel beside it, and a pinnacle over the door left crooked because the mason went unpaid.
17:00
Petrov Cathedral
Religious
Two neo-Gothic spires on the ridge above the old town, added at the start of the twentieth century to a much older church, and the silhouette on the ten koruna coin. It rings noon at eleven. The terrace looks north over the city.
19:30
Dinner and a wine cellar
Eat
Nearly all Czech vineyards are in Moravia, so the evening here happens in a wine cellar rather than a pub. Ask for Veltlinske zelene, and in September for burcak, the cloudy young wine that is stronger than it tastes.

Day 10 in Brno

A house that changed architecture, mummified monks and a Habsburg prison

Mies van der Rohe built a house on a slope above Brno in 1929 for a young couple who had the money to let him do exactly what he wanted. It has a wall of onyx that glows red when the sun is low, plate glass windows that sink into the floor at the touch of a switch, and no load-bearing walls at all, and it is one of the buildings modern architecture is measured from. The family fled in 1938. Tours are limited, in small groups, and go months ahead.

Come back into town for the Capuchin crypt. Air circulating through it mummified the bodies laid there in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and about twenty-four monks lie on the bare earth with a few local nobles in glass-topped coffins beside them. There is an inscription at the door about what you are and what they were.

Then up to the castle on the hill, which the Habsburgs turned from a fortress into the hardest prison in the empire. Italian revolutionaries, Polish rebels and Czech nationalists were held in the casemates, and the tunnels are cold enough in August to want a jacket.

09:00
Tugendhat Villa
Culture
Mies van der Rohe's house of 1929 to 1930, a UNESCO site, with an onyx wall, windows that retract into the floor and no internal load-bearing structure. Small guided groups only, booked months ahead. The garden alone is worth the walk if tickets are gone.
12:00
Lunch in the centre
Eat
Come back down the hill and eat around the cabbage market, which has been a working vegetable market since the thirteenth century and has a baroque fountain in the middle of it.
14:00
Capuchin Monastery
Historic
A seventeenth-century crypt where air circulation mummified the dead: about two dozen monks laid on bare earth and a few local grandees under glass. There is a plain inscription at the door and it is not a novelty.
15:30
Špilberk Castle
Historic
The royal castle of Moravia, turned by the Habsburgs into the harshest prison in the empire, holding Italian and Polish revolutionaries in casemates cut into the rock. Bring a jacket for the tunnels and stay for the view.

With more time: The Gothic church below the square has an ossuary discovered by a survey in 2001 that holds the remains of some fifty thousand people and is reckoned second in Europe only to the Paris catacombs. Its entrance is out on the square.

Day 11 in Vienna

An hour and a half to Vienna, a cathedral and a hundred and fifty Habsburgs

Ninety minutes south and the scale changes completely. Brno is four hundred thousand people; Vienna is nearly two million and was built to run an empire of fifty.

Start at the cathedral in the middle of the old city. The south tower is 136 metres of pierced Gothic stone and can be climbed on foot, 343 steps up a spiral with no view until the top. The roof carries 230,000 glazed tiles in chevrons with a double eagle picked out among them, and the whole thing burned in April 1945 when fire spread from shops nearby.

Five minutes away, under a plain church on a small square, are the Habsburgs: a hundred and fifty of them in metal boxes since 1633, including a double sarcophagus the size of a car in which Maria Theresa lies beside her husband. Their hearts are in one church and their organs in another, which was the arrangement.

Then do the thing Vienna is for. Order a coffee by its proper name, take a newspaper off the rack, and sit for two hours in a marble room with a waiter who will not hurry you.

09:30
Train to Vienna
Travel
Brno hlavni nadrazi to Wien Hauptbahnhof, about an hour and a half, several times a day, with competing operators on the route. Cheap and rarely full.
12:30
Lunch in the first district
Eat
Drop the bag. Avoid the lanes immediately behind the cathedral, which are schnitzel at tourist prices; five minutes in any direction is two thirds of the money.
14:30
Stephansdom
Religious
The Gothic cathedral at the centre of the old city, its south tower 136 metres and 343 steps, its roof carrying 230,000 glazed tiles with a double eagle in them. It burned in 1945 and was rebuilt in seven years.
16:00
Kaisergruft
Other
The Capuchin crypt, where 150 Habsburgs have lain since 1633, from plain iron caskets to Maria Theresa's vast double tomb surrounded by crowned skulls. Cheap, cold, rarely busy, about forty-five minutes.
17:15
Café Central
Other
A coffee house of 1876 under a vaulted ceiling where Trotsky played chess and half of pre-war Vienna read the papers. Order a Melange, take a paper from the rack and stay.
20:00
Dinner in the seventh district
Eat
Neubau, behind the museum quarter, is where Vienna eats without performing: small rooms, wine by the quarter litre and no dress code.

Day 12 in Vienna

The crown of the Holy Roman Empire, twelve Bruegels, and the opera for the price of a sandwich

The Hofburg is a district rather than a palace: a winter residence that grew for six hundred years and now holds a president, a riding school, a chapel with a boys' choir and two of the best collections in Europe. Go to the treasury first and go early.

What is in it is hard to take in. A hooped octagon of gold plates and uncut stones, made for emperors and used at coronations for eight hundred years, sits in a case at eye level. Beside it are the Holy Lance, a coronation cloak embroidered in Palermo in 1133, and a narwhal tusk the Habsburgs kept as a unicorn horn.

Across the square, the picture museum has more Bruegel panels than anywhere else on earth, twelve of them in one room including the hunters coming home over the snow. Two hours, and the cafe under the dome is part of it.

Then queue for standing places at the opera. They go on sale ninety minutes before the curtain, cost less than a plate of pasta, and buy three hours of one of the great orchestras from a rail at the back.

09:15
Schatzkammer
Culture
The imperial treasury in the Hofburg: the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, the Holy Lance, the Habsburg crown jewels and the coronation robes. Quiet before ten, and about ninety minutes of looking.
11:30
Kunsthistorisches Museum
Culture
Habsburg pictures in a palace built for them in 1891: twelve Bruegels in one room, Vermeer's painter at work, Velazquez, Titian and Arcimboldo's vegetable heads. Two hours minimum.
14:15
Late lunch on the Museumsplatz
Eat
The courtyards across the road are full of benches, cheap counters and students, and are a considerable relief after two palaces.
18:00
Wiener Staatsoper
Culture
One of the great orchestras in Europe in the pit, most nights of the season. Standing places go on sale at the Operngasse door ninety minutes before curtain, cost under twenty euros and are never sold online. Bring a scarf to tie to the rail.

With more time: If nothing is on, the state hall of the imperial library is eighty metres of baroque bookcase under a painted dome and takes forty-five minutes, and it is the room people photograph and then stand in without speaking.

Day 13 in Vienna

Schoenbrunn early, the market at noon, and Klimt in the afternoon

Schoenbrunn is fifteen minutes out on the underground and worth being at by nine. It has 1,441 rooms, of which the standard tour shows about forty, and the state rooms are narrow enough that one coach party fills them. Behind the palace the gardens climb to a colonnade on the ridge, free to walk up, with the whole city below.

Come back for lunch at the long market built over the top of a covered river: about a hundred and twenty stalls, Turkish and Balkan and Viennese in roughly equal measure, cheap at the western end and priced for visitors at the eastern one. On Saturdays a flea market runs off the far end for another half kilometre.

Finish at Prince Eugene's summer palace on the slope above the ring, which holds the largest collection of Klimt anywhere and, at the top of the main stairs, the one everybody comes for. Painted in gold leaf between 1907 and 1908, it is smaller than people expect and hangs on its own.

09:00
Schönbrunn Palace
Historic
The Habsburg summer palace, of whose 1,441 rooms the Grand Tour shows about forty, with formal gardens, a maze and a colonnade on the ridge behind. Timed tickets; take a nine o'clock slot in summer.
12:30
Naschmarkt
Architecture
Vienna's long market, about 120 stalls over half a kilometre, built along the top of a covered river. Eat at the western end where the prices are for locals. Saturday brings a large flea market onto the far end.
15:00
Schloß Belvedere
Historic
A baroque summer palace of 1717, now the national gallery, holding the largest collection of Klimt in the world with The Kiss at the top of the main stairs. The gardens between the two palaces are free and open late.
20:00
Dinner near the Belvedere
Eat
The fourth district below the gardens is residential and has good, unshowy restaurants that do not need booking.

Day 14 in Bratislava

An hour to Slovakia, and the church where Hungary crowned its kings

The train to Bratislava is a commuter service and takes an hour, which makes crossing an international border feel like going to work. Ask for the ticket that includes the city's buses and trams at the far end.

Bratislava's old town is six streets and a few squares, and the reason to take it seriously is inside the cathedral. Between 1563 and 1830, with the Ottomans holding the middle of Hungary, this was the coronation church of the kingdom: eleven kings and eight queens, Maria Theresa among them, crowned here and paraded through streets that still have brass crowns set into the pavement.

Two minutes away, the archbishop's palace has a hall lined with mirrors where France and Austria signed the peace that ended the war of Austerlitz the day after Christmas in 1805. The English tapestries hanging there were walled up and forgotten for a century and only found during building work in 1903.

Finish at the gate, the last of four still standing, and eat on the square below it.

10:00
Train to Bratislava
Travel
Wien Hauptbahnhof to Bratislava hlavna stanica, an hour and five minutes, roughly hourly. Buy the ticket that includes Bratislava city transport.
12:00
Lunch on the main square
Eat
Terraces on all four sides and a fountain of 1572 in the middle. It is the one place in the city charging a premium, and it is a small one.
13:30
St. Martin's Cathedral
Religious
The coronation church of Hungary from 1563 to 1830, with Maria Theresa crowned here in 1741. A gilded replica crown weighing 300 kg sits on the spire and brass crowns in the pavement outside trace the route.
14:45
Primate's Palace
Historic
A pink neoclassical palace of 1781 whose Hall of Mirrors saw the Peace of Pressburg signed in December 1805. Upstairs hangs a set of six English tapestries found bricked into a wall in 1903. Cheap, quick and almost empty.
16:00
Michael's Gate with Tower
Historic
The only one of four medieval gates still standing, a 51 metre tower with the archangel on top and a baroque cap added in 1758. The narrowest house in Europe is in the lane beside it.
19:00
Dinner in the old town
Eat
Order bryndzove halusky, potato dumplings with sheep's cheese and bacon. A main course and a beer runs to about ten euros two streets off the square.

Day 15 in Bratislava

The upturned table, and a ruin that spent forty years on the Iron Curtain

The castle is a white box with four corner towers on a rock above the Danube, and the locals call it the upturned table. It burned down in 1811 after a garrison fire, stood as a shell for a hundred and forty years and was rebuilt from the 1950s, so what you walk into is essentially new. Go for the terrace: Austria is straight ahead across the river and Hungary a few kilometres to the left, and nowhere else in Europe can you stand in one capital and see two other countries.

In the afternoon take bus 29 out to the cliff where the Morava runs into the Danube. There has been a fort on that rock since the Celts, the Slavs held it in the ninth century, and Napoleon's troops blew it up in 1809. The layer that makes the trip worth it is more recent: from 1948 to 1989 this was the outer edge of the Eastern bloc, the rivers below were the border, and a monument at the foot of the cliff names the people shot trying to swim it.

Come back up the hill in the evening for the Soviet memorial on the ridge, where about six thousand eight hundred soldiers who died taking the city in 1945 lie under an obelisk with the best view in Bratislava.

09:30
Bratislava Castle
Historic
The white four-towered castle on the rock, gutted by fire in 1811 and rebuilt from 1953. The terrace looks across the Danube into Austria with Hungary a few kilometres downstream. The museum inside is skippable; the walls are not.
12:00
Lunch below the castle
Eat
The lanes down to the old town have several unpretentious kitchens. A Slovak daily menu chalked outside will feed you for under eight euros.
14:00
Devín Castle
Historic
A ruined fortress on the cliff where the Morava meets the Danube, Celtic then Roman then Great Moravian, blown up by Napoleon's army in 1809 and sealed inside the border zone from 1948 to 1989. Bus 29 from below the bridge, about 25 minutes.
18:30
Slavín monument
Historic
The Soviet military cemetery and obelisk above the city, finished in 1960, where about 6,800 soldiers killed in the fighting of spring 1945 are buried. Free, always open, and the roofs at sunset are the best view here.

With more time: The Slovak National Gallery on the embankment reopened in 2022 after a very long rebuild and is now one of the better modern museums in central Europe, with a cafe people come to on its own account.

Day 16 in Budapest

Down to Budapest, iron shoes and the parliament at dusk

Two and a half hours along the Danube through Slovak and then Hungarian flatland, crossing the border near Sturovo without ceremony. Budapest Keleti is a cathedral of a station of 1884 with a glass roof and a good deal of soot, ten minutes by metro from the middle of Pest.

Spend the afternoon at the water's edge, because the first sight of this river from the Pest side is what people remember. The chain bridge was the first permanent crossing between the two towns, opened in 1849, designed by an Englishman and built by a Scot with the same surname who was no relation. The retreating Germans destroyed every Budapest bridge in January 1945; this one was back by 1949 and had a full restoration finished in 2023.

A few hundred metres north, sixty pairs of iron shoes stand at the water's edge. In the winter of 1944 Arrow Cross militia brought Jewish Hungarians here, made them take off their shoes because leather had value, and shot them into the river. The memorial went up in 2005 and is the quietest place in a loud city.

Then the parliament at dusk: 268 metres of neo-Gothic along the bank, finished in 1904, with a dome 96 metres high because the country was founded in 896.

09:30
Train to Budapest
Travel
Bratislava hlavna stanica to Budapest Keleti, two and a half hours, running every second hour. Reserve on Fridays and Sundays; otherwise walk on.
13:00
Late lunch in the fifth district
Eat
Drop the bag and eat near Vorosmarty ter but not on it. One street back does a two-course lunch for the price of a coffee on the square.
15:00
Szechenyi Chain Bridge
Architecture
The first permanent bridge between Buda and Pest, opened in 1849, designed by William Tierney Clark and built by Adam Clark, who were not related. Blown up in 1945, rebuilt by 1949 and restored again by 2023. Walk it.
16:00
Shoes on the Danube memorial
Historic
Sixty pairs of iron shoes cast in 1940s styles and bolted to the embankment where Arrow Cross militia shot Jewish Hungarians into the Danube in the winter of 1944. Installed in 2005. Free, exposed and unmarked.
17:00
Parliament
Visit
268 metres of neo-Gothic on the embankment, finished in 1904, with a dome 96 metres high in a nod to the year 896. English tours run several times a day and take 45 minutes; the outside at dusk is free and better.
19:30
Dinner in the seventh district
Eat
The old Jewish quarter behind Kiraly utca is where Budapest eats and drinks now, from Israeli grills to ruin bars in bombed-out courtyards. Loud, cheap and open late.

Day 17 in Budapest

The castle hill, a tiled roof and a hospital in the caves

Cross to Buda in the morning. The hill is a limestone ridge with a rebuilt medieval quarter along the top, reached by a funicular of 1870 from the bridgehead or on foot up a zigzag in twenty minutes.

The church at the top has been rebuilt so often that dating it is a matter of taste: a Gothic core, a Turkish century as a mosque, and a nineteenth-century restoration that added the roof of glazed Zsolnay tiles now on every postcard. Two Habsburgs were crowned kings of Hungary in it, in 1867 and 1916.

Next door, a terrace of white stone with seven turrets, one for each Magyar tribe that arrived in 895, built between 1895 and 1902 purely as a viewing platform. It was never a bastion and no fisherman ever defended it.

Then go underground. The limestone under the hill is riddled with caves that were linked into a system of cellars, and in 1944 an emergency hospital was installed in them, working through the siege with two hundred beds and no water. In the 1950s it became a secret nuclear bunker. It opened to visitors in 2008 and the tour is guided, cold and better than it sounds.

09:30
Matthias Church
Religious
Gothic at the core, a mosque under Ottoman rule, and given its patterned Zsolnay tile roof in Schulek's restoration of 1874 to 1896. Franz Joseph was crowned here in 1867 and Charles, the last of them, in 1916.
11:00
Fisherman's Bastion
Other
A white stone terrace of 1895 to 1902 with seven turrets for the seven Magyar tribes, built as a viewing platform and never as a defence. The upper terraces charge in the middle of the day and are free before nine and after seven.
12:15
Lunch below the walls
Eat
The restaurants on the castle streets are priced for the coach trade. Walk down the Vienna Gate side into Vizivaros, where the same lunch costs half.
14:30
Hospital in the Rock Nuclear Bunker Museum
Culture
A wartime hospital built into natural caves under the castle hill, running through the 1945 siege with 200 beds, rebuilt as a secret nuclear bunker and opened to visitors in 2008. Guided tours only, about an hour, and 18 degrees down there in August.

With more time: Gellert hill rises south of the castle and takes half an hour to climb, ending at a citadel of 1854 and a bronze woman with a palm leaf who has stood up there since 1947. Sunset from the top covers the whole river.

Day 18 in Budapest

The largest synagogue in Europe, a joke castle and a long soak

Start in the seventh district at a synagogue built in 1859 in a Moorish style for a congregation that wanted to look Hungarian and modern at once, seating close to three thousand. Behind it is a garden that is also a mass grave: about two thousand people who died in the ghetto in the winter of 1944 lie under the lawn, and a steel weeping willow stands over them with a name on every leaf.

Then take the little yellow metro under Andrassy, which opened in 1896 and is the oldest underground railway on the European continent, out to the square at the top with its colonnade of Hungarian kings.

Behind it, in the city park, is a castle that is a joke made permanent: built in 1896 in wood and cardboard as a temporary pavilion showing off every architectural style in the kingdom at once, and rebuilt in stone because the public refused to let it go.

Finish in the water. The yellow baths across the park draw from a well sunk into hot rock beneath the city, run eighteen pools indoors and out, and stay open into the evening. Take flip-flops, take a towel, and give it three hours.

09:30
Great Synagogue and the Jewish Museum
Visit
The largest synagogue in Europe, finished in 1859, seating nearly 3,000, with a museum next door on the site of Theodor Herzl's birthplace. The garden behind holds about 2,000 graves from the ghetto winter and a steel willow inscribed with their names.
12:00
Vajdahunyad Castle
Historic
A castle assembled from copies of buildings all over the old kingdom, put up in wood for the millennium exhibition of 1896 and rebuilt in stone by 1908 because nobody would let it be pulled down. Free to walk round; the moat freezes into a rink in winter.
13:15
Lunch in the park
Eat
Kiosks by the boating lake and a couple of proper restaurants near the zoo gates. Eat lightly before three hours in warm water.
14:30
Széchenyi Thermal Bath
Leisure
Eighteen pools in a yellow neo-baroque palace of 1913, fed from a well drilled deep under the park, with three large outdoor pools open in the evening. Bring flip-flops and a towel or hire both, and buy online to skip the weekend queue.

With more time: If a large public bath is not the idea, the Gellert baths on the Buda side are art nouveau, half the size and calmer, with a glass-roofed hall of blue and green tiles worth the entry on its own.

Day 19 in Budapest

An Ottoman bath at eight in the morning, and out

Budapest has been a spa town since the Romans and a Turkish one since the sixteenth century, and three Ottoman bath houses are still working. The one under the Buda hill was built in the 1550s under a Turkish governor, and its central pool sits in an octagon under a dome pierced with coloured glass, held up by eight columns, essentially unchanged.

Go at opening. It is hot, dim and nothing like a modern spa, and there is a rooftop tub from the last refit that looks straight up the river. Check the timetable first: the historic pool is men only on most weekdays, women only on one, and mixed at weekends.

Then out. Nineteen days ago you were at the Brandenburg Gate; the airport bus goes from Deak ter, and the trains west leave from Keleti.

08:00
Rudas Thermal Bath
Leisure
An Ottoman bath of the 1550s with its original octagonal pool under a pierced dome on eight pillars, plus a modern rooftop tub facing the river. Single sex on weekdays and mixed at weekends, so check first. Opens at six.
10:45
Breakfast on the Buda side
Eat
The cafes around Doebrentei ter do good coffee and a plate of cheese and paprika sausage, which is the correct thing to eat after a bath.
12:00
To the airport or onward
Travel
The 100E bus runs from Deak ter to the airport in about forty minutes on a separate ticket. For onward trains, Vienna is two and a half hours, Zagreb six and Bucharest a night away.

Before you go

The six trains

Berlin to Dresden and Dresden to Prague are the same EuroCity continuing south, two hours and a quarter each, roughly every two hours. Reserve a seat on the second one and sit on the left for the gorge.

Prague to Brno takes two hours forty with competing private operators on the line, which is why the trains have seat service and cost so little. Brno to Vienna is ninety minutes. Vienna to Bratislava is an hourly commuter train of just over an hour, and Bratislava to Budapest a EuroCity of two and a half hours.

Every one of these runs city centre to city centre. Nothing on this route needs a car, an internal flight or a night train, and the total time in a seat across nineteen days is about twelve hours.

Four currencies

Euros in Germany, Austria and Slovakia; Czech koruna in Prague and Brno; Hungarian forint in Budapest. Neither the Czech Republic nor Hungary is joining the euro any time soon.

Cards work everywhere. Avoid the exchange booths in central Prague and in the Budapest tourist streets, which are the worst value in Europe, and use a bank machine while refusing its offer to convert for you.

What to book before you leave

Four things. The Reichstag dome in Berlin, which is free but needs an online registration matched to your passport, usually two or three weeks ahead. The Historic Green Vault in Dresden, which sells limited timed tickets days in advance. Villa Tugendhat in Brno, which goes months ahead and is the one booking on this route that people miss. And the Hungarian parliament tour in Budapest.

Everything else takes walk-ins, including the Vienna opera, whose standing places go on sale at the door ninety minutes before the curtain and cannot be bought online at all.

When to come

May, June and September. Long evenings, terraces and beer gardens open, Prague busy rather than solid. August is hot in Vienna and Budapest and worst of all in the narrow streets of the Prague old town.

Winter has two arguments: Christmas markets in all seven cities through December, and Budapest's outdoor thermal pools at two degrees, which is the single best thing on this route and only works in the cold.

Packing and pace

Seven beds in nineteen days, and the shortest stay is two nights, so this is not a suitcase-a-day trip. Carry-on size is enough and makes the station walks painless.

The two-night stops are deliberately the smaller cities. If you want to slow down further, the nights to add are in Prague and Budapest, and the nights to take are from Berlin, which is the easiest of the seven to come back to on its own.

Twelve hundred kilometres, six trains and about twelve hours in a seat. Berlin leaves its scars visible, Dresden rebuilt itself from photographs and salvaged stone, Prague never had to, Brno gets on with its own life, Vienna kept the imperial furniture, Bratislava kept the coronation church, and Budapest keeps the baths open in the snow.

Go in May, June or September, book the four things that need booking before you leave, and take the left-hand window out of Dresden.

Go deeper on one city

Each of these covers a single stop on this route in its own right.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Is nineteen days too long for one trip?: It is longer than most people take and shorter than the route deserves. The saving grace is that the travel is trivial: six trains, none over three hours, all city centre to city centre. If nineteen is too many, cut Berlin to two nights and Dresden to one and you have sixteen days with nothing important lost. Cutting Brno or Bratislava saves less time than it looks, because both are short hops on legs you are making anyway.
Which direction should I go?: North to south as written. Berlin and Budapest both have wide flight choices, the gorge scenery between Dresden and Prague sits on the left going south, and finishing in Budapest means ending in the cheapest and most relaxed of the seven rather than the most formal. Reversing it works fine if the flights are better that way.
Do I need a rail pass?: Almost certainly not. Six point-to-point tickets bought in advance on the national operators' sites will cost less than an Interrail pass covering the same trip, because every leg here is short and advance fares in Germany, Czechia and Austria are cheap. A pass makes sense if you intend to add a lot of unplanned day trips.
Could I add a stop?: Three fit naturally. Cesky Krumlov between Prague and Brno, though it is off the direct line and needs a bus. Olomouc between Brno and Vienna, an hour and a half from Brno with a baroque centre second in size only to Prague's. And Gyor or the Danube Bend between Bratislava and Budapest. Any of them adds two nights.
Can I copy this and change it?: Yes. The most common changes are dropping Dresden to make it seventeen days, adding two nights in the Wachau valley between Brno and Vienna, or extending past Budapest to Croatia, which is six hours further south on a single train.

Highlights

Where to stay

Berlin, three nights

Dresden, two nights

Prague, three nights

Brno, two nights

Vienna, three nights

Bratislava, two nights

Budapest, three nights

Day by day

Unter den Linden, a field of grey blocks and the glass dome

Brandenburg Gate

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Coffee near Potsdamer Platz

Reichstagsgebäude

Dinner in Mitte

Museum Island, Nefertiti and a dome walkway

Museumsinsel

Neues Museum

Lunch at Hackescher Markt

Berliner Dom

The Gestapo cellars, the real Wall, and the painted one

Topography of Terror

Berlin Wall Memorial

Lunch in Mitte or Prenzlauer Berg

East Side Gallery

Two hours to Dresden, and a church rebuilt from its own rubble

Train to Dresden

Lunch on the Neumarkt

Frauenkirche

Fürstenzug

Brühlsche Terrasse

Dinner across the river

A baroque party courtyard, a royal hoard and a room of Friedrichs

Zwinger Palace

Grünes Gewölbe

Lunch on the Theaterplatz

Albertinum Museum

Up the Elbe gorge into Bohemia, and the square at dusk

Train to Prague

Late lunch near the station

Old Town Square

Astronomical Clock

Charles Bridge

Dinner in the Lesser Town

The castle at opening, and a library with a crocodile in the corridor

Prague Castle

St. Vitus Cathedral

Lunch on the castle ridge

Strahov Monastery

Josefov: the names, the stacked graves and the oldest synagogue in Europe

Pinkas Synagogue

Old Jewish Cemetery

Old-New Synagogue

Lunch behind Parizska

Into Moravia, a bullet-shaped clock and bells at eleven

Train to Brno

Late lunch near the station

Freedom Square

Old Town Hall

Petrov Cathedral

Dinner and a wine cellar

A house that changed architecture, mummified monks and a Habsburg prison

Tugendhat Villa

Lunch in the centre

Capuchin Monastery

Špilberk Castle

An hour and a half to Vienna, a cathedral and a hundred and fifty Habsburgs

Train to Vienna

Lunch in the first district

Stephansdom

Kaisergruft

Café Central

Dinner in the seventh district

The crown of the Holy Roman Empire, twelve Bruegels, and the opera for the price of a sandwich

Schatzkammer

Kunsthistorisches Museum

Late lunch on the Museumsplatz

Wiener Staatsoper

Schoenbrunn early, the market at noon, and Klimt in the afternoon