‘Twas the last weekend of November 2023. I had been ready to get into the Christmas spirit since we returned from our trip to Turkey at the end of October.
I was in the last few weeks of my three-month notice period at what I prayed would be my last ever full-time job. Sam was also winding down from a full-time job with a wide-open December on the horizon. Needless to say, we were feeling merry AF. It was tough to hold us back to the lead-up to this weekend.
We have a recent little Christmas tradition. We have been kicking off the festive season with weekends to European cities with Christmas markets. Then, upon getting home, Christmas in London is in full swing – which I daresay is unbeatable, albeit considerably more expensive.
Year one of this tradition we went to Hamburg. Year two we went to Prague. This year, our third, we were off to Vienna, for a weekend.
Getting into Vienna for a Christmas weekend
The plan was to go ‘after work’ on Friday evening and back on Sunday evening. With no real impetus to demonstrate to our soon-to-be ex-employers that we were working until 6pm on a Friday, I managed to blag a free flight change as our original flight had been moved by ten minutes. We caught a 3.30pm flight from Heathrow which essentially gave us an extra Friday night in Vienna.
Even British Airways was feeling merry. I felt no woe whatsoever parting with £5 for this Elf-themed can of BrewDog lager, or the same amount for a BA Christmas sandwich.
Our flight might have been 3.5 hours earlier than the ones we originally booked, but we still wanted to hustle straight to the hotel to get a full evening out. This is the trouble with weekends in Europe. You always lose an hour on your first night because of the time difference.
Where to stay for a weekend in Vienna
It was about an hour from the airport to our hotel, Jaz in the City. Speaking of our hotel – we were quite lucky with this as our original hotel, which was fine but more budget, cancelled our reservation with only a few weeks until our trip. Prices had nearly doubled since we booked in the summer. Booking.com honoured the original price we paid but put us up in a nearby hotel which was a MAJOR upgrade. It was a real treat staying here and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Vienna for a weekend.
Friday night in Vienna
No time to enjoy it now though – we checked in, dropped bags, and ran right back out. We had a dinner reservation and wanted to stop for a drink first en route. We stopped at Bier & Bierli for a quick bier (obviously). The bar is full of Austrian beers and this is a great place to get to know the different styles. I ordered a Zwickelpils which was a bit too heavy for me.
Every corner we turned had Christmas magic on it. Vienna was a truly excellent city to start our Christmas celebrations.
Dinner was at Huth Gastwirtschaft. This was a strategic reservation, because while we actually wanted to eat here, eating here would also be “free.” Included in our annual £650 charge to hold an Amex Platinum card, is £400 of dining credit. Half of this credit is to be used in the UK, and the other £200 is to be used abroad. If you don’t use it in the calendar year, you lose it. It is limited to a specific list of restaurants published on Amex Dining. We had specifically been saving our abroad dining credit for our weekend in Vienna because there were several places listed that we would have gone to anyway. This doesn’t always happen.
Huth Gastwirtschaft was one of these restaurants. We had our first of many wiener schnitzels. The food was good but we were slightly let down by the beer, brewed at their sister brewery located across the street.
As we walked through a beautiful, spacious city centre, we got overly excited when spotting our first Christmas market. The Stephansplatz Christmas market sits right outside the magnificent St Stephen’s Cathedral. Unfortunately, the sentiment of the occasion didn’t last long in freezing, blustery conditions. Markets earmarked for the next day.
Inadvertent hipster bar crawl
Another stop, another brewpub. We were a bit discouraged from the previous in-house brewed beers but we stopped at 1516 Brewing anyway. It was absolutely heaving and tons of fun. We managed to get seats at the bar and confusingly ordered two Victory Prima Pils (supposedly brewed in-house, but a famous Pennsylvanian beer) and watched the Dolphins vs Jets NFL game. Where were we?!
We walked home with plans to be sensible and go to bed, but said plan was derailed. This is the problem with staying in the hipster district of any city we go to.
We were first compelled to stop at the dive bar Kreisky for a Spaten Brau lager.
Next up we were dragged into the buzzing natural wine bar of R&Bar (sometimes Die Rundbar).
Finally, Bruder presented itself as a dark bar with weird jars and taxidermy in the window. We couldn’t resist.
I rarely order off a cocktail menu, and usually go for a classic, but with a shelf full of ferments on the wall behind the bar I had no real choice. Both drinks were incredibly delicious. If memory serves me correctly the pricing was on par with London but it was a truly unique proposition with their in-house ferments.
Saturday in Vienna
Grateful for the in-room coffee machine, we headed off reasonably early, before 10am. The streets were empty. We walked through our local Christmas market of Spittelberg, but it was still just opening up.
Our first stop was for speciality coffee at the impeccably named Espresso on our way into the historical city centre.
Their natural wine menu also looked incredible and reasonably priced but we just couldn’t bear the thought.
We passed several famous Viennese cafes (think where ‘viennoiserie’ was born). All of them had lines wrapped around the block, so we forewent.
Instead, we headed straight for the biggest Christmas market in the city, situated in the Rathausplatz, outside the magnificent City Hall.
The Rathausplatz was a beautiful square with stunning decorations, but the content at the officially named Vienna Christmas Market just wasn’t as good as the German or Czech markets we have visited. Inferior sausage, bakes, and beer. Sorry Austria..!
The smaller, satellite markets that popped up in local neighbourhoods offered so much more than the grander ones. We stopped at Am Hof Christmas Market which seemed to be owned/run by the butcher on site.
Obviously, we had to stay and ordered a sausage (without bread – so svelte) alongside a butcher-branded bottle of beer (less svelte).
Time to warm up – at Bar Campari. A genius use of marketing budget that actually generates some revenue.
Sat at the bar, we enjoyed our Campari cocktails, a few snacks, and watching the bartenders serve up drinks with the most beautiful touches you could imagine.
Afterwards, another market, another pork sandwich, and another beer. The Altwiener Christmas Market had the highest proportion of independent stalls, and along the south side of the road was a farmer’s market of sorts. We managed to pick up some Christmas gifts, too.
As festive as it is, standing around in Christmas markets in the bitter cold does require the occasional tactical retreat. We ducked into Gösser Bierklinik for some respite and dunkel.
Back to Neubau for the evening
Not wanting to drag the Christmas gifts around town we headed back to the hotel for a coffee, warmup, and to drop them off. We’d spend the rest of the day here, in Vienna’s coolest neighbourhood.
We started with a couple of small beers at Schadekgasse 12, a Berlin-style day-into-night bar with… indifferent service. One more Zwickl and… how would you not order a Schladminger if you see that on the menu?
Then off to 7Stern Bräu for some in-house brewed beers, including their excellent Dunkel Lager.
One final beer before dinner, you can’t come to Austria and not have a Stiegl. We enjoyed ours at Plutzer Bräu. Dinner was more schnitzel, at Schnitzelwirt. This was a very casual, very local place which was perfect for our frame of mind.
Next up we had a nightcap at Camillo Bar, and then a totally unnecessary sausage stop at Hermann’s.
We had seen Hermann’s the night before, and even though we had just eaten, we couldn’t help ourselves for the novelty of the joint. We had a sausage in this little hipster venue in a basement parking lot and went back to our hotel.
Fortunately, our hotel’s bar was having a South American dancing party so we danced off at least one of our four pork dishes from the day.
Final day of a Christmas weekend in Vienna
Our flight back to London was at 4:40pm. We had just enough time for one more walk through the city and lunch.
Finally, we made it to our most local Christmas market – Spittelberg – for a breakfast sausage and… breakfast bottle of Tegernsee.
We strolled through the city towards our lunch reservation and stopped at the incredibly famous Loos American Bar. We had passed on our first night but didn’t stop as there was such a long line for such a tiny space. The interior was beautiful and it is well worth a visit. Sam opted for a very Christmassy New York Flip, and I had a glass of dry Riesling.
Our last meal was one which we had booked a good month out. We felt quite smug as we approached Figlmuller. Others were waiting in a line wrapping around the block, but we walked straight in.
I was feeling a good 5lbs heavier at this point, but we each had a gigantic and truly delicious wiener schnitzel with lingonberry sauce.
Ironically it was only at this stop, our very last, that we had the chance to drink a Vienna lager. Brooklyn Lager made this style famous in craft beer, but the Ottakringers we drank here bore no resemblance to the Brooklyn imitation. It was light but flavourful and so very dry. I loved it.
With a tight schedule to catch our airport train, we paid (with our Amex Platinum – another freebie!) and ran to catch it.
Our weekend trip to Vienna was very quick and focused on Christmas markets, and eating and drinking. The city rose to the occasion of Christmas and was beautifully decorated. We would love to go back and explore at a less festive time to get a better understanding of it. If you are after a bit of Christmas fun and magic, Vienna is a perfect place to spend a weekend.
