I've been saving up for a bit and I think I've made

>>1155881
Hey. My gf is from Vienna and I've been to Austria four times since the start of the year.

Hallstat is turning into a bit of a tourist trap and I think spending a day there would be sufficient. It looks beautiful in the winter (especially after snow) but it's completely overrun with Chinese tourists. My gf's mother also said that the town has the highest suicide rate in Austria, which is peculiar.

Vienna is a fantastic city with great nightlife, culinary cuisine, and loads of activities. If you're so inclined, you could take a catamaran for 75 minutes up the Danube River to Bratislava, Slovakia.

I've been to Salzburg and Grundlsee as well. Salzburg is a charming city of 250,000, whereas Grundlsee is more of a mountainous retreat with an enormous fresh-water lake in the middle. The New Years Eve fireworks were unlike anything I've ever seen.

Overall, I like Austria very much. I would see myself moving there if my German language skills improved dramatically. Let me know if you have more specific questions.

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>>1155899
Awesome, thanks for replying. Curious about the suicide rate but I kind of expected it to be touristy, 1 day is plenty. Vienna is likely where I'd stay, I don't know any German at all currently so the larger the city the more English speakers which is fine with me. I would like to learn some German so I don't seem like a douchebag tourist though. Also what is the Danube river, just a cool place to go or anything special there? Also I would love to check out Salzburg, sounds up my alley.

Only question would be besides nightlife and city activities, are there any really awesome nature places to go? Places like pic related. Im from California and I've never really left the US so I've been yearning to see sights that aren't dead grass, beaches and palm trees. Thanks!

Born and raised Austrian here
>>1155930
There's stuff like that everywhere in Tyrol and Vorarlberg, also in Salzkammergut region (which is between Upper Austria, Salzburg and Styria).

If you want to do some hiking, I guess you could just go to Innsbruck and see from there, there's beautiful landscapes all around. Or go to Hohe Tauern national park.

English will be fine practically everywhere in Austria.

Feel free to ask anything, I don't actually know very much though

>>1155958
I'll take note of all those places thanks!

I don't really have questions I was just hoping to take in as much info as possible as I've never left the US before so it'll be my first time.

heads up OP, if youre imagining austria as an alpine beauty dont stay in Vienna, it sits on the flattest area in austria.

go to salzburg and klagenfurt and places in between, you can also go down to slovenia which offers the same alpine beauty with a price reduction

Non-OP here
I'm going to Innsbruck for a few days and I'd like some recommendations about hiking routes if any of you have some experience with those near the city.
I also read that there's a Via Ferrata quite close (Hannes Gasser route), how hard is it?

Any anons have any must sees in Vienna top recomendations that they enjoy doing as there seems to be a lot of anons with expirence of vienna itt. What are some places or things to see that make Vienna Vienna

>>1155881
If you want to hike go to Innsbruck. I live there its beautiful

>>1157280
Hi, I went to Vienna for a short stay couple of months back. Schonbrunn, Hofsburg and St Stephens are the big three tourist spots, in decreasing order of impressiveness.
Maybe it was just me, but I found that Vienna is a beautiful city but the people are not very friendly, I was glad to get out of it in the end. Also, quite an expensive place to stay in.

If you ever decide to visit slovenia for it's hiking routes, which are ample, here's the general website detailing every single route to the mountains - how to drive to the parking, where to start off, how long it takes for the average person etc... in text and pictures. There are usually 3 or more hiking paths to the same mountaintop and it's fucking great. The only downside is that it's in slovene so you have to google translate it. But since there's also photo material attached, you shouldn't have problems.

http://www.hribi.net/

Even has some austrian mountaintops detailed.