Castles & Palaces
Schönbrunn Palace gardens with Vienna skyline in the background

19 historic sites

Castles in Austria

The former seat of the Habsburg Empire, Austria contains some of Europe's grandest palaces. Vienna alone has three imperial residences open to visitors, while the Austrian Alps hide medieval fortresses of jaw-dropping drama.

Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna from the Gloriette, with formal gardens stretching toward the ochre Baroque facade
UNESCO

austria · Vienna

Schönbrunn Palace

Vienna's imperial summer palace, where Mozart played and Sisi reigned

From €15Explore →
The Hofburg Palace's grand Michaelertor entrance facade in central Vienna, with its imperial dome and statuary against a clear sky

austria · Vienna

Hofburg Palace

700 years of Habsburg rule compressed into one living palace at the absolute centre of imperial Vienna

From €52Explore →
The Upper Belvedere palace in Vienna seen across its Baroque garden, with a cascade of fountains descending the central axis

austria · Vienna

Belvedere Palace

Prince Eugene's Baroque palace above Vienna, home to Klimt's The Kiss and a sloping garden of fountains

From €23Explore →
Mirabell Palace and the Mirabellgarten Baroque parterre in Salzburg, with Hohensalzburg Fortress visible on the Festungsberg across the Salzach
UNESCO

austria · Salzburg — Neustadt, north bank of the Salzach

Mirabell Palace

Salzburg's Baroque garden palace — free to explore, world-famous for its Sound of Music steps and Mozart connections

From €39Explore →
Hohensalzburg Fortress rising above Salzburg's Baroque old town, with the Alps in the background
UNESCO

austria · Salzburg

Hohensalzburg Fortress

Europe's largest and best-preserved medieval fortress, looming above Mozart's Salzburg

From €19Explore →
Hellbrunn Palace and Trick Fountains near Salzburg — the 1619 Archbishop's pleasure palace with Europe's oldest functioning hydraulic garden and the world's oldest mechanical baroque theatre

austria · Salzburg, Salzburg-Umgebung — 4km south of Salzburg city centre

Hellbrunn Palace

Archbishop Markus Sittikus's 1619 pleasure palace — Trick Fountains that still drench unsuspecting guests, mythological grottoes, and the world's oldest mechanical theatre

From €24Explore →
Schloss Ambras on its forested hill above Innsbruck, Tyrol, Austria

austria · Tyrol

Schloss Ambras

A Renaissance archduke's castle of wonders, home to the world's oldest surviving public museum

From €16Explore →
Schloss Hof Palace (Schloss Hof) in Engelhartstetten, Lower Austria — Prince Eugene of Savoy and Maria Theresa's baroque palace complex with seven terraced gardens descending toward the March River, Austria's grandest baroque estate outside Vienna

austria · Lower Austria (Niederösterreich) — Engelhartstetten, Marchfeld, near the Slovak/Hungarian border

Schloss Hof Palace

Prince Eugene of Savoy's baroque country palace and Maria Theresa's summer retreat — Austria's grandest baroque estate outside Vienna, just one hour from the city

From €99Explore →
Hohenwerfen Castle rising on a sheer rock above the Salzach valley, Austria

austria · Salzburg

Hohenwerfen Castle

A medieval castle that seems to grow from a sheer Alpine rock, with falconry displays and Sound of Music views

From €14Explore →
Dürnstein Castle ruins on the limestone crag above the Wachau Danube valley in Austria

austria · Lower Austria, Wachau

Dürnstein Castle

The prison of Richard the Lionheart, high above the Danube vineyards of the Wachau

From €119Explore →
Hochosterwitz Castle's 14-gate defensive path winding up a sheer 175-metre dolomite rock in Carinthia, Austria

austria · Carinthia / Kärnten

Hochosterwitz Castle

Fourteen gates on a sheer rock — Austria's most dramatically defended medieval fortress

From €17Explore →
Schloss Ort on Lake Traunsee — the whitewashed medieval island castle in Gmunden, Upper Austria, seen from the wooden footbridge with the Traunstein peak beyond

austria · Gmunden, Upper Austria — Salzkammergut lake district

Schloss Ort

An 11th-century island castle on Lake Traunsee — free to admire from the footbridge, with a small courtyard fee to go further

From €71Explore →
Aggstein Castle ruins on their rock spur 300 metres above the Danube in the Wachau UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape — Austria's most dramatically positioned castle ruin, associated with 15th-century robber baron Schreckenwald

austria · Lower Austria (Wachau Valley)

Aggstein Castle

The robber baron's castle above the Danube — Aggstein's ruins tower 300 metres above a Wachau bend where the notorious Jörg Scheck vom Waldeck terrorised river merchants in the 15th century, and the UNESCO cultural landscape below is one of Austria's most beautiful

From €10.5Explore →
Kreuzenstein Castle (Burg Kreuzenstein) on its limestone ridge above Leobendorf, Lower Austria — the 19th-century romantic reconstruction built with genuine medieval fragments by Count Wilczek, 25 km north of Vienna

austria · Lower Austria

Kreuzenstein Castle

The polar explorer's dream castle near Vienna — built from 1874 using genuine medieval fragments collected across Central Europe, by the man who funded Austria's Arctic expedition, as a personal memorial to the medieval world he admired

From €189Explore →
Tratzberg Castle (Schloss Tratzberg) above the Inn Valley in Tyrol, Austria — the privately-inhabited Renaissance castle with its corner turrets and stepped gables in the forested hillside above Stans

austria · Inn Valley, Schwaz District, Tyrol — Stans, between Innsbruck and Schwaz

Tratzberg Castle

Austria's finest inhabited Renaissance private castle — the Habsburg genealogical fresco hall and a radio-play guided tour in nine languages above the Inn Valley

From €25.5Explore →
Artstetten Castle with its seven towers above the Lower Austrian countryside near the Wachau Valley — the Habsburg castle where Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Sophie are buried in the castle crypt

austria · Lower Austria

Artstetten Castle

Where Franz Ferdinand and Sophie are buried — the castle whose crypt holds the couple whose assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 started the First World War, in the Wachau valley of Lower Austria

From €23Explore →
Burg Mauterndorf on its ridge above the village of Mauterndorf in the Lungau, Austria

austria · Salzburg

Mauterndorf Castle

An Archbishop's toll castle in Austria's most isolated valley, briefly owned by a German Kaiser

From €14Explore →
Liechtenstein Castle (Burg Liechtenstein) on its hilltop in the Wienerwald, Maria Enzersdorf, Lower Austria — the 12th-century ancestral seat of the House of Liechtenstein, rebuilt in Gothic Revival style 1808–1816

austria · Lower Austria — Maria Enzersdorf, Mödling District, Baden bei Wien region, ~20 km south of Vienna

Liechtenstein Castle

The castle that named a dynasty — the ancestral seat Hugo I built in the 12th century, giving his family the name "von Liechtenstein" and setting in motion the lineage that still rules the Principality today

From €216Explore →
Fort Kniepass in the Saalachtal, Salzburg State, Austria — the 14th-century border fortification at the Kniepass bend in the valley, with wooded Alpine hillsides and the Saalach river valley below

austria · Saalachtal, District of Zell am See, Salzburg State — Unken, near the German-Austrian border

Fort Kniepass

The 14th-century Austrian border fort that became the Alps' longest dry tube slide — a genuine medieval fortification with an adventure trail through its walls

From €12Explore →