The Best Places to Drink and Stay in Vienna

Across the street from the Vienna State Opera, this grande dame hotel has been fielding royals, rock stars, and heads of state since the belle époque, and the velvet-and-crystal interiors make it clear nothing has been rushed since. The 152 rooms and suites are each individually decorated, with marble bathrooms and parquet floors. John Lennon once staged a peace protest in one of them, which feels about right. Ranked among The World's 50 Best Hotels.

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Stucco ceilings from another century sit above marble bathrooms in a historic building on Petersplatz, one of Vienna's more quietly spectacular squares. This is a luxury hotel in the truest sense: rooftop cocktails with a panorama of imperial rooftops, a spa, a brasserie reworking Austrian classics, and rooms that look onto either the city or a hushed inner courtyard. It holds a Forbes Four Star.

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A former palace on the Ringstrasse, steps from the Vienna State Opera, this Ritz-Carlton holds a Forbes Four Star rating and earns it through sheer abundance of things to do without leaving the building. There's a Sicilian restaurant, a steakhouse, a craft cocktail bar, and a rooftop bar on the eighth floor with views over the city. The staff runs market tours at the Naschmarkt for guests who'd like to leave.

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Marble columns, chandeliers, and an ornate staircase fill the lobby of this grand old hotel on the Ringstrasse, which has been around forever and looks exactly like it should. Five restaurants include a rooftop Japanese spot and a proper Arabic kitchen, and Grand Spa No. 605 handles Valmont facials alongside LED therapy. The rooms are comfortable and the staff is genuinely warm, which at this level of architectural drama is a relief.

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Fourteen chandeliers greet you before the front desk does, which tells you everything about where you've landed. This grand luxury hotel on the Ringstrasse occupies a former private palace, and the staff, red velvet, and gilt haven't let the building forget it. Freud and Chaplin once slept here; the Rolling Stones and Lady Gaga kept the tradition going. Vienna in a building, more or less.

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Luminous purple runs through the whole hotel, the owner's favorite shade and a deliberate statement against Vienna's sea of beige traditionalism. Hotel Sans Souci Wien is a boutique stay in the Seventh District where modern art sits alongside antique Versailles-inflected furniture and Jugendstil details, and somehow it doesn't feel chaotic. The service skews relaxed and personal rather than stiff, which is not always a given in this city.

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The grand, marble-columned former bank headquarters it occupies sets the tone before you've even checked in. This luxury hotel in Vienna's first district keeps the imperial bones, brass fittings, and alabaster intact while threading in genuinely local touches, including oversized wall art drawn from Wiener Werkstatte brooch designs. A spa, indoor pool, and a bank-vault cocktail bar round out the offering for anyone who wants history without austerity.

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