Palaces in December: skip the queue, then find the market
Vienna's palaces are the daytime half of a Christmas trip. The markets need darkness, which arrives by about 4 pm, while the state rooms and the palace grounds are best seen in the morning light. This guide covers Schönbrunn and the Hofburg, with the Belvedere and its Klimt as a third option. It ends with day plans that leave your evenings free for the stalls.
Palaces by day, markets by night
December days in Vienna are short. The sun comes up around 7:45 am and sets around 4 pm, and the markets only come into their own once the lights are on. That makes the morning the natural time for palaces. The Hofburg's gardens are not lit in winter, and the park at Schönbrunn needs daylight too, so the grounds are a morning job. Inside, the first slots of the day tend to be the calmer ones. Give the morning to a palace and the dark hours to the markets, and the day never feels rushed.
Schönbrunn's state rooms in winter
Schönbrunn Palace, the Habsburgs' summer residence and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has more than 1,400 rooms, and a visit shows you only a small share of them. Most tours follow a route through 22 state rooms; Rosotravel's listing calls it the Highlights Route and runs it from the Lantern Room to the Hunting Room. The longest room on the way is the Great Gallery, about 130 feet (40 m) from end to end, and on some winter evenings it turns into a concert hall, as our guide to Christmas concerts explains. The palace has its own station on the U4, Schönbrunn, a short walk from the main gate.
Winter suits a visit that is mostly indoors, since there is little to miss outside in December. Good Vienna Tours' skip-the-line tour, from ~$71 on GetYourGuide and about $72 on Viator, meets by the fountain in the Ehrenhof, the main courtyard. A licensed guide takes you past the ticket queue and through the 22 rooms in about two hours, including the Great Gallery and the Hall of Ceremonies, with the stories of the Habsburgs and of Sisi along the way. Afterwards the gardens are yours to explore alone. You can choose a small group of up to eight or a standard group of up to 20. It is the most reviewed tour we list, 4.7 from 8,467+ on GetYourGuide and 4.6 from 1,788+ on Viator. The catch is the headsets, which some reviewers struggled with, and the short time left for the grounds, which hardly matters in winter.
Twenty-two state rooms without the ticket queue
Good Vienna Tours meets you by the fountain in Schönbrunn's main courtyard for about two hours inside with a licensed guide and a headset, from ~$71. Pick the small-group option, capped at eight, for a quieter walk through the rooms.
Out in the palace park
In December the formal gardens are bare, with empty flower beds and leafless avenues. The walk up to the Gloriette, the colonnade on the hill above the palace, still pays off on a clear morning, with the yellow palace below you and the city beyond. On a grey day you can skip it without regret.
The park also holds the zoo, founded in 1752 and the oldest in the world, which makes an easy add-on with children; our guide to Vienna at Christmas with kids pairs it with the market's small Ferris wheel. Then step out into the forecourt, where the Christmas market runs from 6 November to 6 January, open daily from 10 am to 9 pm, with shorter hours over Christmas (until 4 pm on the 24th, then until 7 pm from the 25th). The organizers confirm the exact dates and times only a little before each season opens, so look at the market's own website before you go. The stalls and the ice rink are covered in our guide to the palace Christmas markets.
The Hofburg and the Sisi Museum
The Hofburg was the Habsburgs' palace in the heart of the city, and its curved wing on Michaelerplatz faces the old town, often with a Fiaker waiting in front. Most visitors come for the Imperial Apartments and the Sisi Museum, which tells the story of Empress Elisabeth, known as Sisi. The Silver Collection, with the court's tableware, is part of the same visit.
Two other sights share the complex. The Spanish Riding School trains its white Lipizzaner horses here, and the Imperial Treasury holds the crowns and regalia of the Habsburgs. Both need their own tickets and their own time, so pick one per morning rather than stacking them on top of the apartments.
If you want a guide for the apartments, Rosotravel's Sisi Museum and Hofburg tour, from ~$54 (about $55 on Viator), takes you past the queue into the Sisi Museum and the Imperial Apartments, then out through the courtyards. Outside, the route crosses Heldenplatz and ends in the Burggarten, and you see the Spanish Riding School only from the street. It lasts two to two and a half hours, in groups of up to 25 with headsets from 18 guests, and rates 4.8 from 8,031+ reviews on GetYourGuide and 4.5 from 525+ on Viator. Read the catch before you book. The Sisi Museum is under renovation, with some rooms restricted, and the gardens are neither green nor lit in winter, so take a morning slot. Strollers are not allowed, and neither are large bags or umbrellas, which matters on a wet day.
Klimt and the K&K market at the Belvedere
The third palace is the Belvedere, and the reason to go inside is a single painting, Gustav Klimt's The Kiss in the Upper Belvedere. Tram D stops at Schloss Belvedere, and the Quartier Belvedere S-Bahn station and the main railway station are close by.
In front of the Upper Belvedere, the K&K Christmas market has an imperial theme and a cap of 35 huts, set out only on that side of the palace to protect the gardens. It runs from 20 November to 31 December, on weekdays from 11 am to 9 pm and from 10 am at weekends and on holidays, closing at 5 pm on 24 and 31 December. See the museum in the afternoon and walk out to the huts as the lights come on. On the way back toward the center, the light installations around the fountain on Schwarzenbergplatz make a last stop.
The palaces at a glance
| Palace | What to see inside | Getting there | Christmas market nearby |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schönbrunn | 22 state rooms, including the Great Gallery | U4 to Schönbrunn | In the forecourt, 6 November to 6 January, 10 am to 9 pm |
| Hofburg | Imperial Apartments and the Sisi Museum; the Imperial Treasury separately | Inside the Ring, a short walk from the Graben | Maria-Theresien-Platz across the Ring, 20 November to 26 December |
| Belvedere | Klimt's The Kiss in the Upper Belvedere | Tram D to Schloss Belvedere | K&K market, 20 November to 31 December, from 11 am on weekdays |
Fitting palaces around market evenings
- A Schönbrunn day. Take the state rooms tour in the morning and climb to the Gloriette if the sky is clear. Stay on for the forecourt market at dusk, or book the Orangery concert with its market voucher and make a night of it;
- A Hofburg day. Start with the Sisi Museum and the apartments, then warm up in a coffee house nearby; our food and Punsch guide names the famous ones. Cross the Ring to Maria-Theresien-Platz as the lights come on and finish in the lanes of Spittelberg, which our Old Town guide covers;
- A Belvedere afternoon. Spend the afternoon with Klimt, then walk out to the K&K huts at dusk;
- A wet day. The palaces are the city's best answer to rain, since you can spend hours indoors. Our December weather guide has more ideas for a grey day, and the market hours table shows which stalls are open once it clears.
Whatever the plan, book the morning slot first and build the evening around it, not the other way round.