Schönbrunn Palace

How to visit without queuing for nothing

Schönbrunn is the most-visited attraction in Austria, and entry to the state rooms runs on timed slots — so the mistake to avoid is rolling up mid-afternoon expecting to walk in. In summer and over the Christmas-market weeks the good slots sell out a few days ahead, and the same coach tours that fill the car parks fill the rooms from late morning. Book a timed Grand Tour ticket online before you fly and pick the earliest slot you can stomach, just after the 09:00 opening.

Choose the Grand Tour (about €34, roughly £29) over the shorter Imperial Tour — the extra rooms are the ones worth seeing, including the Rococo Great Gallery and the Napoleon and Vieux-Laque rooms. The route is one-way with an audio guide, so it moves quickly: an hour to an hour and a half inside. Don’t pay extra for anything you won’t use; the gardens, the long walk up to the Gloriette and the maze are the part most people remember, and the formal gardens themselves are free to wander.

One Habsburg palace? Make it this one

Go first thing. The rooms are calmest in the opening hour, and the gardens photograph far better in the soft early light before the crowds reach the Gloriette hill. Allow half a day all in — about an hour for the state rooms and another hour and a half or two for the grounds, the Gloriette viewpoint back over the palace to the city, and a coffee on the terrace. Ride the U4 to Schönbrunn or Hietzing rather than driving; it’s a few stops from the centre and the car parks fill early.

If you book one Habsburg palace in Vienna, make it this one — the Hofburg is grander for imperial apartments, but Schönbrunn pairs the interiors with gardens you could spend a morning in for nothing. Skip stacking it against the Belvedere on the same day; give Schönbrunn its own morning, then take the tram back into town for a coffee house in the afternoon.