🧸 Essentials
Vienna with children
Children ride public transport free more often than you would expect, federal museums are free under 19, and the world's oldest zoo is in the palace garden.
What is free
- Transport — under 6 always; under 15 also on Sundays, public holidays and Vienna school holidays. One child under 15 travels free with an adult's Vienna City Card.
- Federal museums — the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Albertina, Belvedere and the National Library's State Hall among them — are free for under-19s.
- Parks — the Schönbrunn park and the Prater are free to walk.
The obvious hits
- Schönbrunn Zoo — the world's oldest, inside the palace grounds. Under-6s go free. Opens daily at 09:00; closing varies by season, 18:30 from April to September.
- The Children's Museum at Schönbrunn and the maze in the same grounds.
- The Giant Ferris Wheel and the Wurstelprater amusement park.
- Haus der Musik — the interactive museum of sound and music, open daily until 22:00, a good answer to a rainy afternoon.
Practicalities
A reduced single ticket for children 6–14 costs half the adult fare. Palaces work on fixed time slots, which suits a family better than a queue. On hot days, the Danube Island and the Alte Donau are where Viennese families go. More on what things cost.
