The free summer festival
A giant screen, a concert every evening and food stalls around it — Vienna's best free night out.
Gugerell — CC0 · Aciarium — CC BY 4.0 · Donald Judge — CC BY 2.0 · Sandor Somkuti from Wien, Österreich — CC BY-SA 2.0
Much less so: between events it is a green square in front of a fine building, worth ten minutes in passing. The real visit is tied to the season.
Above an ordinary restaurant, below a tourist one; and December's mulled wine carries a refundable mug deposit — return the mug to get it back.
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The square in front of Vienna's city hall, and the most heavily used public space in the city all year: the municipality never leaves it empty for a month, reshaping it season by season for residents before visitors. In summer it becomes a free film festival — a giant screen showing opera and classical concerts every evening, ringed by dozens of food stalls from different kitchens. You sit outdoors, watch and eat without paying any entry. In December it turns into Austria's most famous and most crowded Christmas market, with lit trees, sweets and mugs of hot wine. In January and February it is covered by a vast ice rink whose frozen paths wind between the trees. The rest of the year it is simply a green space in front of Vienna's finest neo-Gothic façade.
A giant screen, a concert every evening and food stalls around it — Vienna's best free night out.
Austria's most famous: lights, sweets and mulled wine before the lit city hall — the essential December experience.
Not one rink but frozen paths winding between the trees — you skate a route, not a circle.
Rathausplatz, Vienna