Austria Holidays and Escorted Tours
Austria manages to be two holidays at once. Vienna is a city of imperial palaces, picture galleries and concert halls, where the Lipizzaner stallions still train under the chandeliers of the Hofburg. Two or three hours west, the country turns into lakes, cog railways and valleys of hay meadows below limestone peaks.
Our Austrian holidays fly out from the UK and use a coach and an English-speaking guide once you land, so nobody has to navigate the Ringstrasse or an alpine pass. Most run four to six days, with palace entries, concerts and lake cruises booked and paid for before you leave.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Austria Tours
The Austrian tours in the current programme run from four to six days. Prices typically include return flights and transfers in the UK and at the destination, hotel accommodation, breakfast every day and most evening meals, all listed excursions and entrance fees, coach transport throughout and an English-speaking guide. Concert tickets are included where the tour is built around a performance. Each tour page lists its own inclusions, and anything not listed is not included.
The Austrian holidays we run at the moment fly from the UK, with a coach and guide waiting at the other end for the touring itself. Vienna is around two hours in the air from the south of England. Our Bregenz opera holiday has flights from Heathrow and Manchester; other tours depart from London Heathrow with alternative airports sometimes available. Ask us what departure airports apply to the date you are considering.
More than you might expect in the cities, less than you might fear in the mountains. Vienna's first district, Salzburg's old town and Innsbruck all involve guided walks on cobbles, and Salzburg has slopes and steps. The mountain sections are reached by cog railway, boat or coach rather than on foot. If you are unsure whether a particular itinerary suits you, ring us and we will talk you through the day-by-day walking.
Yes, where the concert is part of the itinerary. On our Vienna Strauss and Mozart holiday the concert at the Wiener Konzerthaus is included with Category A tickets. The Bregenz holiday includes the festival performance on the lake stage, along with the Lindau marionette opera. Programmes and performance dates are set by the venues and change from year to year, so ask us what is scheduled for the departure you are looking at.
Solo travellers are common on Open Group departures and are not made to feel like an afterthought. Prices are quoted per person sharing a twin or double, so a single room carries a supplement: on our Bregenz holiday it is £170, and on Vienna's Musical Delights £110. Supplements differ by tour and by hotel, and single rooms are limited in number, so ask us early for the departure you want.
Yes. Any of these itineraries can be run as a Private Group for a club, society, choir or group of friends, with the tour to yourselves. Some of our Austrian holidays are costed on a group of around 25 to 30 travellers, so tell us roughly how many you expect and we will quote accordingly. We can also adjust the excursions to suit a gardening group, a music society or a local history group.
Vienna, Salzburg and the Tyrol
Most Austrian itineraries are built around Vienna, and rightly so. Three nights gives you time for Schönbrunn, the Kunsthistorisches Museum's Bruegels and Vermeers, the state rooms of the Hofburg, a morning at the Spanish Riding School and an evening at a Heuriger on the city's edge, where the wine growers sell their own vintage by the quarter litre.
Salzburg is a different proposition entirely: a compact baroque stage set squeezed between the Salzach and the Mönchsberg, with Mozart's birthplace on the Getreidegasse and the fortress looking down on all of it.
The Tyrol is where the coach earns its keep. Innsbruck sits with the Nordkette rising straight out of the rooftops, and our six-day Vienna and the Tyrol tour pairs it with Ambras Castle, Swarovski Crystal Worlds and Rattenberg, Austria's smallest town, which has been cutting and blowing glass for centuries.
Concerts, Opera and Musical Vienna
Vienna is the reason so many people come to Austria in the first place, and the music is not an add-on here. Our Strauss and Mozart tour ends with a concert at the Wiener Konzerthaus on Category A tickets, and spends time at the apartment on Praterstrasse where Johann Strauss II wrote The Blue Danube, at the House of Music, and at the Zentralfriedhof, where Beethoven, Brahms and the Strauss family lie within a few paces of one another.
Away from the capital, the Bregenz Festival puts opera on a stage built out over Lake Constance each summer, with the audience on the shore and the lake as the backdrop. Our Bregenz holiday adds a guided walk around Lindau, the marionette opera and a look behind the scenes, and a cruise on the lake.
Ask us about concert and festival dates, as they change from season to season.
Lakes, Salt Mines and Mountain Railways
The Salzkammergut, east of Salzburg, is a landscape of deep green lakes and old spa towns, and it is best seen from the water and the rails rather than through a coach window.
- Lake Wolfgang — a cruise past St Wolfgang and the White Horse Inn of the operetta
- The Schafberg cog railway — open since the 1890s, grinding up to a summit terrace above 1,700 metres with the lakes laid out below
- The salt mines — the trade that named Salzburg and paid for its baroque churches
- Chiemsee — a steam train and a boat to Herreninsel, where Ludwig II built his own answer to Versailles and never finished it
Austria's borders are close on every side, so several of these itineraries slip briefly into Bavaria, and our Best of Four Countries tour also takes in South Tyrol and Switzerland.
Travelling as a Group in Austria
The pace is unhurried by design. Two centres rather than five, half board at most hotels so dinner is settled, and enough time in Vienna to sit down in a coffee house without watching the clock. Hotels on these tours are graded three and four star, and the tour pages say which.
Anyone can join an Open Group departure and travel with other individuals and couples, which suits solo travellers and couples equally. If you belong to a club, a U3A branch, a choir or a church group, the whole tour can be run as a Private Group instead, on your dates and with your own party.
Austrian old towns are cobbled and Salzburg and Innsbruck both involve slopes and steps. Nothing is strenuous, but tell us about mobility or dietary needs when you enquire so we can be straight with you about a particular itinerary.
