My Vienna List - 50 things to do in Vienna in 52 weekends

Vienna

Sep 21

Written By Carly

There's a few thousand things I am still yet to do in Vienna - and I've lived here 4 years now. After a summer of running around Europe, spending time anywhere but Vienna, I've been re-evaluating how to better use the time I have living here. How to make the most of my weekends to appreciate this extraordinary expat life.

It's so easy to slide into apathy, or the everyday hustle of living and forget the wonderful variety of where you are. I grew up in a small suburb of Melbourne that was home to a faux medieval castle, just a 5-minute drive away from our home (God knows why they built it in the outer suburbs). Tourists would make the trek to our poky suburb just to walk the grounds, hold weddings and see art exhibitions there. Do you think in the 20 years of living a 5-minute drive from this lovely sight that I ever once visited? Nope.

Living in Vienna, I'm wary of this apathy even more acutely. I don't want to waste a minute of my time here. This city is full of treasures, but you have to work to find them - and it's easy to forget how lucky we are to live here. To truly appreciate this city, and each week I get to live here, I need a challenge to keep me honest and accountable.

So...I'm making one. Wanna join in?

This is #myviennalist. A challenge of 50 Vienna-related activities to complete in 52 weekends. Roughly one activity per week (allowing for Vienna's notorious public holidays!). It's all the things I already 'should' have done in this magnificent city. 50 activities or sights I'm challenging myself to see and do by September 2017. No cheats, no shortcuts - just pure Viennese fun. Most of these I'll be blogging about, all of them you are welcome to do yourself or better yet, join me in completing!The challenge begins this weekend, and I have absolutely no idea if I will have the time and dedication to get through it all. After all, if I really wanted to do these things so badly, I would have done them already!But that's the risky/fun part - I might fail horribly (like I have with learning German) or I might fly high and actually experience the best of Vienna. It's not an Olympic feat, or a 'brave journey'. This is just one small way to make the most of my days here, which is all any of us are trying to do, no matter what city we live in, right?Either way, I hope you'll join me for the wild ride, and that my crazy challenge helps you uncover more of Vienna and make the most of every damn day, wherever you live.

My Vienna List

1. Albertina museum

2. Klimt Villa Wien

3. Wine hike in Burgenland

4. SUP on the Donau Canal

5. Cycle along the Danube to another country

6. Ice skating on Neusiedlersee (if global warming doesn't make this impossible!)

7. Weekend at Rogner Bad Blumau

8. Third Mann Tour of Vienna's sewers

9. Würstel from Leo, the oldest Würstelstand in Vienna

10. Ride the Wiener Riesenrad

11. Movie night at the longest running cinema in the world

12. Freud museum

13. Sunbake nude on the Danube Island FKK zone (this will not be a group activity, but it does terrify my terribly British values!)

14. Sissi's apartments

15. Comedian at Gartenbaukino

16. Drinks on the Ritz Carlton rooftop

17. Hire a boat to cruise along the Donau Canal

19. Lunch & winery tour at a Heuringer

20. Volunteer to help Refugees with Team Osterreich

21. Westlichte gallery

22. Afternoon at Cafe Jelenik

23. Ride a Horse & Carriage in the 1st district

24. Lichtenstein Palais

25. Seegrotte Hinterbrühl

26. Melk Abbey

27. Heiligenbrunn

28. Eggenburg Beinhaus

29. Hallstatt

30. Hike Schneeberg

31. Swim at the Badeschiff

32. Coffee at Coffee Pirates

33. Vienna Wine Hiking Day

34. Cocktails at The Sign

35. Attend a Viennese Ball

36. Cooking class for Austrian food

37. Eisenstadt

38. Asia Therme

39. Speak level B1 German

40. Dinner at Do&Co rooftop

41. Polaroid photo tour

42. Meal at the Sofitel rooftop restaurant

43. Saturday flea market Naschmarkt

44. See an Opera in the Opera house

45. Dinner in the Dark

46. Hike to Otto Wagner church in the 16th

47. Almabtrieb in Tirol

48. Hapsburg burial vault

49. Jewish walking tour Vienna

50. National Library visit to marvel at allllll the books

I'll be posting updates on each activity as I complete them here. Up-to-the-minute progress will be on Facebook and Snapchat if you want to see the fun as it happens!

I'd love to have you join me in this crazy challenge, just use the hashtag #myviennalist anytime you post about ticking something off your Vienna to-do list!

To keep up with progress on the challenge, use the hashtag #myviennalist on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, wherever! You can add your own suggestions to this list, and share your own Vienna list, or photos of when you complete something. I'll be collaborating with other Vienna-based bloggers and creative folk to see what's on their Vienna List, and together we can build the best collection of Vienna activities so you'll never have an excuse to be bored in the city. More importantly though....