Discovering Musical Vienna: The workings of a small-group, cultural tour with Limelight Arts Travel

Discovering Musical Vienna: The workings of a small-group, cultural tour with Limelight Arts Travel
Edited by Travel Weekly


    I’ve recently arrived in Vienna, the City of Music and The City of Dreams. I’m joining a cultural tour with Limelight Arts Travel that has the music of Vienna and Prague at its core.

    As a lover of classical music, I’m keen to see how travelling with a small-group cultural tour pans out.

    We gather for a get-to-know-you aperitivo in the panoramic restaurant of our accommodation, Hotel Royal, adjacent to the epicentre of Vienna and its Gothically-grand, mosaic-roofed cathedral. After a few drinks we’ve formed a team of twenty intrepid, enthusiastic travellers.

    1 – Beethoven’s house in Heiligenstadt, Vienna

    Donning headsets we embark on a walking tour to get our bearings with our expert tour leaders, Clive Paget and Robert Veel.

    Vienna is a city of delights with three main districts to explore: the Imperial Hapsburg area, the artistic area and the retail district with its golden triangle of stylish shops and sumptuous cafes.

    There are entertaining buskers, buzzing markets and the chance to tour the historical centre aboard a horse-drawn carriage of times past. That’s when we’re not visiting one of the museums honouring Vienna’s greats: Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, Brahms, Mozart, Mahler, Klimt and Freud.

    A bust of Beethoven in Heiligenstadt, Vienna

    After supping on schnitzel that overlaps our dinner plates and sipping some of Austria’s finest wines, it’s Vienna Opera by night at the glamorous State Opera House with its prestigious Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. With its lavishly frescoed ceilings and elegant intermission rooms to sip champagne, our hours are spent in awe watching Puccini’s, Tosca.

    Within the cloisters of the Holy Cross Abbey.

    The organisers of Limelight Arts Travel have secured excellent seats in this golden auditorium as they do with every concert we attend on our tour.

    After several days in Vienna, we head to Prague on a coach aptly named Mozart. We wind through the Vienna Woods that provided creative inspiration for composers of the Classical and Romantic eras and writers such as Franz Kafka and W.H. Auden. We stop in a secluded valley at the Holy Cross Monastery where we not only explore the world’s oldest continuously-active monastery, but we also witness the monks in their daily ritual of singing Gregorian chant, then it’s onwards to the spa town of Baden and the City of a Hundred Spires, Prague.

    Travelling on tour aboard Mozart.

    That’s the beauty of joining a themed, cultural tour. You can share the joy by going with friends or go solo where you’ll befriend others who share your interests. On this tour you get the cultural goods. You get the in-depth goss. You also get downtime to do your own exploring. It’s a gift of slow travel.

    The Sydney-based company offers focused and expertly-led Australian and international tours in the fields of art, architecture, history, archaeology, music and culture. Underpinning their itineraries are podcasts, blogs and short videos that explore destinations before you go.

    View the range of Limelight Arts Travel small group tours here.

    Article written by Marian McGuinness

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