Name: Inside the Ring: One Square Mile That Ran an Empire
SKU: 296

For more than six hundred years one family ruled a growing empire from a handful of streets in the middle of Vienna. This walk follows the Habsburgs through them: a cathedral begun by a duke who forged his family’s rank, a roof that carries both the emperor’s eagle and the Republic’s, a plague column on which the emperor kneels, a street aimed at the palace gate, a palace front that took a century and a half to finish, a gate that runs out of room for its titles, a palace the empire never completed, the church where the family married and kept its hearts, a surviving piece of the old city wall, and, at the end, the crypt where the last public Habsburg burial was turned away under its titles and let in only as a mortal human being. No tickets needed; optional layers for the crypts, the Treasury and the stories behind the stones.

The stops

St. Stephen’s: A Forger Builds a Cathedral
The Roof: Two Eagles and a Fire
The Plague Column: The Emperor on His Knees
The Kohlmarkt: A Street Aimed at a Palace
Michaelerplatz: The Front Door and the House Without Eyebrows
In der Burg: The Gate of Titles
Heldenplatz: The Palace That Was Never Finished
Josefsplatz: Weddings and Hearts
Albertinaplatz: The Wall, the Palace and the Cellar
The Capuchin Crypt: Knocking at the Door

Finding the start

Start on Stephansplatz in front of the west front of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the side with the great round-arched door, standing a little to one side out of the stream of people. The Stephansplatz subway station (lines U1 and U3) opens onto the square.

Terrain and access

Level all the way, about two kilometers on paving and some cobbles, with no steps on the route. Crowded pedestrian zones around the cathedral, on the Graben and the Kohlmarkt, especially on weekend afternoons, so mornings are best. Cars and horse cabs drive through the palace courtyard and around Michaelerplatz; traffic at Albertinaplatz and Neuer Markt, with marked crossings. No admissions needed. The Imperial Crypt (ticket, lift down), the ducal crypt under the cathedral (guided tours only, not step-free), the heart crypt (Sundays after High Mass or by appointment) and the Treasury are optional.

Tickets

No admissions needed; the cathedral is free to enter, while the Imperial Crypt, the Treasury and the court library need tickets.

Keep going

Mozart’s Vienna: the Ten Years After Salzburg

What you get

An email from [email protected] with a link and an access code.
Use it on your phone or tablet in an up-to-date web browser, no app store needed. There is no account to set up before you start.
Download it on Wi-Fi before you go. After that it works offline: audio, text, map and pictures.
Your booking includes 2 phones, so two of you can follow along, each on your own. Extra phones are $2.95 each, or a group can share one phone on its speaker.
Play, pause and replay every part, skip back and ahead, or change the playback speed. Keep the screen on or tap play at each stop.

How it was made

Every fact in the narration is checked against a cited source, and legends are told as legends. The narration is written from that research. How our tours are made.