Choir songs emanate from a palace chapel. Mozart and Schubert’s pieces ring out through evocative opera houses. Houses reminisce of when Beethoven and Haydn composed their scores. Handcrafted for classical music lovers this ten-day tour explores the country that lives and breathes music. Even today it flows from bandstands, cafes and concert halls, a pre-eminent legacy discovered on this luxury overland journey from Vienna to Salzburg. Click...
Customizable Itinerary
Day 1
Vienna – An Elegant Hotel and Place in the Capital
Imperial and inimitable, Vienna is the kind of city you expect to see in a movie. The central streets effortlessly transport you to a bygone era, mixing Hapsburg elegance with early Jugendstil. Grand avenues are lined with palaces, but most of the interesting stuff is along the side streets, where everyday townhouses illustrate dedication to fine art and design. Touch down in Vienna and transfer to a hotel in the city’s old urban core. After a brief orientation, the day is at your leisure. There’s so much to soak up on the surrounding streets, so many architectural snippets to admire on the quiet lanes of the Hapsburg capital. The guide can point you towards one of Vienna’s classical cafes, where both music and facade comes from the late 19th century.
What's Included:
Day 2
Vienna – Houses of the Grand Masters and Evening at the Opera
Day 3
Vienna – Choir Song, Fine Art Galleries, and Viennese Cafes
Day 4
Eisenstadt to Lake Neusidle – The World of Joseph Haydn and the Vineyards of Burgenland
Day 5
Baden to Krems – A Spa Town of Musical Legends
Day 6
Krems – Before the Music: Discovering Medieval Austria
Day 7
Linz – Wagner’s Operas Along the Danube and Anton Bruckner’s City
Day 8
Salzkammergut to Salzburg – Mozart, Strauss and So Many Other Classical Music Memories
Day 9
Salzburg – A Sound of Music Tour and an Evening Concert
Day 10
Salzburg to Munich – Departure
Trip Highlights
- Listen to choir song in Vienna’s Imperial Palace Chapel
- Discover the houses where the world’s greatest composers lived and worked, including Schubert, Johann Strauss, and Haydn
- Experience the opera in Mozart’s Salzburg, at a concert in the medieval Hohensalzburg fortress
- The house where Beethoven composed is one of the unexpected highlights of a stop in the royal spa city of Baden
- Explore the Nibelung lands made famous by Wagner’s operas
- Discover Linz, the city of Anton Bruckner, and Eisenstadt, where Haydn made his name and music
- Travel back to a time before the music with a day along the Danube River, around Krems and the Wachau Valley
- Attend an opera performance at Vienna’s State Opera House, an ode to many of the composers that made Austria the home of classical music
- Enjoy so many Austrian delights, like the vineyards of Burgenland and eating pastries in a decorous Viennese cafe
Detailed Description
Austria breathes classical music. You hear it in extravagant Viennese cafes, feel it in stately opera houses, sense it in the houses where operatic scores were composed. This is the country of legends, home to so many that shaped the musical world: Mozart, Johann Strauss, Haydn, Schubert, Wagner, Bruckner; Beethoven isn’t Austrian but composed many of his masterpieces here. Odes to these musicians continue to dominate the atmosphere across the country. It’s perhaps not surprising that a country so vested in classical music continues to play operatic scores above modern compositions. Performances take place everywhere from park bandstands to medieval castles, all part of the evocative cultural climate that’s making Austria so unique to visit.
Handcrafted for classical music lovers or just the curious, this ten-day tour explores the places and people that defined music and culture throughout the centuries. Traveling from Vienna to Salzburg overland, you go in search of the famous notes – like Mozart and Haydn – along with the lesser-known tales that hide behind mountains or shy away from fame. With music as a focal point, you dive into so many other aspects of Austria’s culture, like Vienna’s fine art and cafes, medieval histories along the River Danube, and The Sound of Music popularized by Julie Andrews in Salzburg. Barely a moment goes by without another note, but the itinerary balances music with all those other grand Austrian highlights, notably the majestic European Alps.
Start with three days in Vienna, the first left free, so you can rest and relax in the old capital of the Hapsburgs. Spend day two with the music. You visit Schubert, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven’s homes, each of their houses contrast the settings where music’s great masters composed their operas. That evening, you feel the music, the State Opera House one of the world’s most enchanting venues. Visit the Imperial Palace Chapel, where the sounds of the Vienna Boy’s Choir reverberate around the walls. The Museum of Fine Arts and a famous Viennese pastry are two more highlights as you fully settle into this private cultural tour.
Travel to Eisenstadt, where a princely dynasty employed Haydn as court composer; from the palace to the composer’s house and mausoleum you take an immersive look at a legend’s history. The surrounding area has superb wine and you spend the night along the lakeshore in Neusidle. Soak into the soothing water of Baden on day five, a famous spa town where Beethoven wrote many of his masterpieces, and Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus was both inspired and first performed. You’ll visit the small parish church that still hums with those hypnotic organ notes. There’s a delightful old-world hotel in Austria’s oldest city, a little break from the music as you travel the Danube area to discover Austria’s medieval past.
Along the shores of the Danube is the land popularized by Wagner’s operas, various places to explore as you continue to Linz, home of another Austrian heavyweight: Anton Bruckner. He was known as God’s musician and St. Florian Abbey is where he worked endlessly on the music. You’re now in the mountains, vistas all around as the private tour continues through the Salzkammergut Lake District, where the story extends to Brahms, Kalman, Oscar Strauss and Fran Lehar. By the afternoon, you’re in Salzburg, where the music revolved around one name: Mozart. It’s a blissful little city, a corner of Europe that you want to pick up and take back home.
Another musical score made Salzburg famous and even if you are not fond of The Sound of Music, a movie-based tour is a great lens from which to discover the city. So take in the palace and gardens, admire the alpine views, and see the Austria that seems to manifest itself in the imagination. An evening concert at Hohensalzburg Fortress provides a fitting final tribute to this country of classical music, the setting as memorable as the musicians that continue to breathe life into the country. From Salzburg, you will be transferred to Munich for your departure flight, a far shorter transfer than returning to Vienna.
Consider reading about the best Austria tour companies whom we work with.
Starting Price
$4,900 per person (excluding international flights)
Your Zicasso trip is fully customizable, and this sample itinerary is a starting place for your travel plans. Actual costs are dynamic, and your selection of accommodations and activities, your season of travel, and other such variables will bring this budget guideline up or down. Throughout your planning experience with your Zicasso specialist, your itinerary is designed around your budget. You can book your trip when you are satisfied with every detail. Planning your trip with a Zicasso travel specialist is a free service.
What's Included
- Accommodations
- In-country transportation
- Some or all activities and tours
- Expert trip planning
- 24x7 support during your trip
Your final trip cost will vary based on your selected accommodations, activities, meals, and other trip elements that you opt to include.
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