DAY ONE

Start your morning at Schönbrunn Palace as it opens. For much of the Habsburg era, this was the family’s principal summer residence, and arriving early gives you the best opportunity to explore before the crowds build. The state rooms – Maria Theresa’s apartments, the Great Gallery, the Hall of Mirrors – take a couple of hours to cover properly, and the formal gardens, fountains and pathways leading towards the Gloriette are as much a part of it all as the interiors.

Time for lunch at Café Gloriette, which provides an opportunity to stay a little longer within the palace grounds. Sitting above the gardens, it offers one of the finest views back across Vienna and a useful reminder of the scale of the imperial estate.

This afternoon, take a direct U4 underground line from Schönbrunn to Karlsplatz (just 15 minutes), then a short five-minute stroll to Belvedere Palace. Schönbrunn explains the power of the Habsburgs; the Belvedere tells a different story through art. The Upper Belvedere’s Klimt collection – The Kiss pulls in the largest crowd, but the surrounding rooms deserve as much time – is within Baroque state rooms whose gilded interiors are as much of a draw as the paintings. Allow a couple of hours and don’t rush the gardens between the two palaces on the way out.

As evening falls, a visit to a Viennese coffeehouse is less a refreshment stop than a cultural institution in its own right. Opened in 1861, Café Schwarzenberg on the Ringstrasse is one of the most atmospheric – marble tables, newspapers on wooden rods, waiters who don’t hurry you – and the ideal spot to enjoy a tradition that forms part of daily life throughout the city.

Dinner awaits at Plachutta Wollzeile – a mere 15-minute stroll from the coffee house through Vienna’s scenic centre. It’s one of the classic addresses for tafelspitz, the boiled beef dish served with bone marrow, chive sauce and rösti. It’s so closely connected with Viennese cooking that not ordering it really is a missed opportunity.

DAY TWO

Begin your morning early at St Stephen’s Cathedral – the South Tower climb and the catacombs both require separate tickets and queues build quickly. The surrounding Innere Stadt fills the rest of the morning: the Hofburg’s imperial apartments and Sisi Museum, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, whose collection alone can easily occupy several hours, or simply the streets of the first district, its hidden courtyards and grand squares appearing in quick succession once you step away from the main thoroughfares.

Lunchtime beckons at Zum Schwarzen Kameel on Bognergasse – Vienna’s oldest wine bar, open since 1618 – a real Viennese institution. Its long wooden counter is stacked with open-faced sandwiches and the wine list attracts as many Viennese as it does visitors. The standing-room section at the bar is the best way to take it in.

Your afternoon leads you to the Vienna State Opera. Sitting at one end of the Ringstrasse, the Musikverein is a short walk away at the other. A behind-the-scenes tour of the Opera in the afternoon covers the stage mechanics and the building’s history. Later, an evening performance at the Musikverein’s Golden Hall – the finest concert hall in the world by many accounts, its acoustics calibrated over 150 years of performance – is a wonderful way to end the day. Standing room tickets are available from two hours before the performance, but even without taking in a performance, the buildings themselves provide exceptional insight into the role that music continues to play in the city.

For dinner, choose Gasthaus Wild in the Landstraße district, an easy walk from both the Opera and Musikverein. Open daily, excluding Mondays, the restaurant serves Austrian classics – schnitzel, goulash, liver – in a room that feels more neighbourhood than tourist trap.

DAY THREE

Your final morning takes you to the Naschmarkt, which runs along Wienzeile in the 6th district, where traders, cafés and food stalls have been charming Viennese shoppers for generations. Arriving in the morning means you’ll see just how the market works, whether you’re browsing produce, stopping for breakfast or just watching the city go about its business; and if you go on a Saturday, there’s the weekly flea market to explore alongside the regular food stalls.

A special lunch is waiting at Lugeck in the first district – a contemporary take on the traditional Viennese inn, its menu of Austrian classics enjoying a slightly lighter touch than the older establishments, in a room conceived by Gregor Eichinger that manages to be both fresh and entirely Viennese at the same time.

Afternoon adventures offer an introduction to Vienna’s wine-growing tradition in the heurigen – wine taverns serving their own Austrian wines with cold platters of bread, cheese and cured meats. Out in the wine villages on the city’s northern edge, Grinzing, Nussdorf and Neustift am Walde are all reachable by tram, and the heurigen here offer a rural side of Vienna many first-time visitors never expect to find so close to the city. A pine branch hanging above the door means the heuriger is open; arriving in the afternoon and staying until dark is exactly the right approach.

For your farewell dinner, head back to the city to Griechenbeisl in the first district, one of Vienna’s oldest restaurants, whose history stretches back to 1447. Its vaulted rooms and dark wood panelling set the scene for Austrian cooking that has stayed largely consistent across several centuries. Beethoven, Schubert and Mark Twain are among the names recorded in the guest book, which the restaurant maintains with appropriate pride.

Finish with a stroll along the Ringstrasse, the grand boulevard encircling the historic centre. As the Opera House, museums, parliament and city hall light up after dark, it allows you one last reminder of the ambition and confidence that transformed Vienna into the city it is today.