The Wien Rathaus City Hall in Vienna, Austria is Spectacular

In May of 2018, we took a two-week trip through Munich, Prague, and Vienna. While many European cities have amazing architecture I really enjoyed our visit to the Wien Rathaus City Hall in Vienna. It was one of the free things I mentioned in my post 7 Free Things to do in Vienna.  It is beautiful and definitely much larger than I envisioned before our visit.  I loved that it was built in gothic style, with a tower similar to gothic cathedrals. Just the tip of the iceberg so to speak, lol

The best part was that they offer free tours. Most tours get a Council Chamber, the two Coat of Arms Halls, the Stone Halls, Festival Hall, Senate Chamber, Grand Staircases, and the Arcade Courtyard with a view up the Rathausmann.  Tours take place on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1 pm. Guided tours are conducted in the German language and are free of charge! I was a little concerned about this as we don’t speak much German at all. However they have multilingual audio guides available, also for free, in English, French, Italian, and Spanish. You just have to make sure to leave them your ID until you return the guide.

Earlier I mentioned the tower on the Rathaus, but I didn’t mention that it is 103 meters tall. It is also surrounded by 4 further towers, and has over 1575 rooms! Like I said it is HUGE. We climbed up and down so many stairs that I lost track but seemed like it was at least 5-6 stories.  It was designed by Friedrich von Schmidt between 1872 and 1883, is 20,000 square meters, has 2000 windows, and has seven large courtyards.

I can’t recall the name of the first room we visited, which has the most stairs, but it is where they have the Governor’s pictures, flags, and banners.  Really nice looking but we didn’t have much time to look around or take pictures. But it was very nice.

Another interesting room at the Wien Rathaus was the Coat of Arms Room. They call them the “Little Wappensaal” and feature wall-hangings representing the coats-of-arms of all nine federal provinces and the Republic of Austria, as well as the coats-of-arms of the provincial capitals.

Just like here in the US, I always love to look at the Chamber rooms. The most striking feature of this 14-meter-high room is a huge chandelier in the historicist style, with a diameter of five meters and 213 lights. It is amazing. Gene joked about having to change the light bulbs, lol. I couldn’t get a good picture of the ceiling, but it is beautiful too. The stained glass windows were also quite impressive.

What wasn’t impressive was my falling on the steps during on tour of this beautiful room. I was sitting on the edge of one of the seats in the gallery and was trying to move for another person on the tour. What I didn’t realize, was that I was at the end of the aisle. Down I went and hit my head, my side, and my back. I was not feeling good after we left that room. However, this was the last room, so I was able to make it. Sadly, I also have an unwanted souvenir, a broken Fitbit 🙁  However, the rest of the tour was amazing.

I knew I had wanted to see the Wien Rathaus City Hall while in Vienna, but I was shocked at how huge and how beautiful it was. I was thrilled to be able to see it, and I will definitely not remember our visit, lol.  Here is a link to a website with more information. If you are in Vienna, it should definitely be on your list.  Please check out some of my other posts from our visit to Austria:

Danube River Views in Vienna, Austria – Unique and Amazing
Our Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg, Austria
The Prater in Vienna: Austria’s Playground for Everyone

Wien Rathaus City Hall Visitor Information

Address:

1080 Wein Vienna, Friedrich-Schmidt-Platz Wien, Austria

Phone:

43 1 4000-4001

Hours:

Mon-Fri 7:30am – 6 pm
Closed Sat and Sunday

Tours:

Tours take place on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1 pm, except on Council or Diet meeting days and public holidays.

Guided tours through the Vienna City Hall offer visitors a close-up look at its staterooms. The itinerary comprises the Council Chamber, the two Coat of Arms Halls, the Stone Halls, Festival Hall, Senate Chamber, Grand Staircases, and the Arcade Courtyard with a view up the Rathausmann.

Guided tours are conducted in the German language and are free of charge. A reservation for individual visitors is not necessary. Please note that tickets for the guided tours are issued from 7.30 am. These tickets are free of charge. A reservation for these tickets is not possible.

Multilingual audio guides are available for guided tours at the City Information. Their high-quality audio guides are available for free in English, French, Italian, and Spanish. Visitors who rent an audio guide just need to deposit their ID cards. Please note that the audio guides are only available for the guided tours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1 pm.

Directions:

As with any downtown city area is it best to leave the car at home and take public transportation. Vienna has a great and easy system. We took it all over the city and only used the car to get into and out of the area. Here is a couple of ways to get to the city hall using public transportation.

Subway: The Rathaus has its own subway station on the opposite side of the park. Take the U2 line to the Rathaus station.

Tram/bus: the 1, D, and 71 trams stop outside the Rathausplatz square (the stop is called Rathausplatz/Burgtheater).