The most beautiful cities in Austria

Welcome to one of Europe’s most beautiful countries. Austria’s landscapes, regions and townscapes provide almost the full range of European variety in the centre of the continent. Austria is often associated, rightly, with winter sports, but there is so much more on offer. Its alpine areas are rugged and picturesque, but that’s far from being the whole story.

Bad Ischl

Bad Ischl, a spa town in the Salzkammergut and site of an imperial summer villa, became the height of 19th century fashion. In the 21st century it returned to the spotlight as the central venue of the 2024 European Capital of Culture program.

This quiet town in a picturesque landscape was one of the favourite escapes of the empress Elisabeth and the unlikely site where World War I was launched.

A visit to the Kaiservilla and its park is a must as a counterweight to the weighty impression of the grand palaces of Vienna. The villa and the Marmorschlössl cottage nearby, with their memories of the lives of the imperial family, offer a far more personal connection with the closing decades of the Habsburg monarchy.