15 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.
austria · Vienna
Hofburg Palace
700 years of Habsburg rule compressed into one living palace at the absolute centre of imperial Vienna
austria · Vienna
Belvedere Palace
Prince Eugene's Baroque palace above Vienna, home to Klimt's The Kiss and a sloping garden of fountains
austria · Tyrol
Schloss Ambras
A Renaissance archduke's castle of wonders, home to the world's oldest surviving public museum
austria · Salzburg
Hohenwerfen Castle
A medieval castle that seems to grow from a sheer Alpine rock, with falconry displays and Sound of Music views
austria · Salzburg
Mauterndorf Castle
An Archbishop's toll castle in Austria's most isolated valley, briefly owned by a German Kaiser
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
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
austria · Vienna
Schönbrunn Palace
Vienna's imperial summer palace, where Mozart played and Sisi reigned
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
austria · Lower Austria, Wachau
Dürnstein Castle
The prison of Richard the Lionheart, high above the Danube vineyards of the Wachau
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
austria · Carinthia / Kärnten
Hochosterwitz Castle
Fourteen gates on a sheer rock — Austria's most dramatically defended medieval fortress
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
austria · Salzburg
Hohensalzburg Fortress
Europe's largest and best-preserved medieval fortress, looming above Mozart's Salzburg
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