An Austrian Duet

Our 24-hour tour director will meet us at the airport and remain with us until our final airport departure. We will have use of a private coach and driver while touring for the next six days. Our centrally-located Vienna hotel will be our home for the next three nights. We will have breakfast at the hotel daily.

Vienna was, for 600 years, the glittering capital of the Hapsburg Empire. Today it is the capital of Austria. Vienna has an incomparable musical heritage and is the city of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Haydn, Brahms, and Johann Strauss.

Visit the Hofburg Palace, a complex of imperial edifices which grew with the empire. Today the palace is virtually a city within a city. Our visit will include the Imperial Apartments and the Imperial Treasury, featuring the crown jewels and an assortment of imperial riches.

This evening, dinner will be provided in a local restaurant.

Although Franz Schubert died at the age of 31, his impact on the musical world outlives his years. Schubert's repertoire consists of over 600 secular vocal works, seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of chamber and piano music. Appreciation of his music while he was alive was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Explore Schubert’s Birth House and a take a walking tour of Nußdorf neighborhood.

Visit the home of Johann Strauss, Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as "The Waltz King", and was largely responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century.

Joseph Haydn, prolific Austrian composer of the Classical period, was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio and his contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet". Visit Haydn’s House and museum with the Brahms room, which contains memorabilia and artifacts owned by the composer.

Spend some meditative time at the Central Cemetery where we will find the Tombs of Beethoven, Brahms, Schoenberg, and Schubert, as well as Mozart's Monument. Other notable musicians buried here are Antonio Salieri, Hugo Wolf, Karl Goldmark, and the singer Lotte Lehmann.

Your first concert performance will be today in Vienna. Venue options include St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the United Methodist Church, the Residence of the Canadian Ambassador, and Haus Gustav Klimt. Other possible venues may include the Karlskirche, the U.S. Embassy, Perchtoldsdorf, a Medieval Fortress, Esterhazy Palace, or Schönbrunn Palace.

This evening, dinner will be provided in a local restaurant.

Visit St. Stephen's Cathedral, one of the greatest Gothic structures in Europe. St. Stephen’s is rich in woodcarvings, altars, sculptures, and paintings. One of the paintings shows the scene of the double marriage between the Hapsburg, Bohemian, and Hungarian dynasties in 1515 that laid the foundation of the Austrian Empire.

Continue your journey to Mozart's Figarohaus Apartment. Mozart and his family lived there from 1784 to 1787, during which time he wrote the world-famous opera “The Marriage of Figaro” and three of the six Haydn Quartets. It is the largest, most elegant, and most expensive apartment ever occupied by Mozart, and the only one that is still intact today.

Explore the life and work of Beethoven with a visit to the Heiligenstadt Testament House and follow some of Beethoven’s walks and explore Heiligenstadt Park.

Continue to get to know Beethoven a little better by visiting the Pasqualati House. Once Beethoven's apartment, this small museum offers documents, art, and personal items from his life.

Discuss your day's adventures with dinner in a local restaurant.

While traveling from VIenna to Salzburg, stop in the city of Melk. Melk has a population of approximately 5,200. It is best known as the site of the massive baroque Benedictine monastery, Melk Abbey. Our tour of the Abbey will include the Marble Hall, which features pilasters coated in red marble and a richly painted allegorical picture on the ceiling; a Library with some 80,000 original volumes; and the Kaisergang (Emperors' Gallery) decorated with portraits of Austrian rulers.

Our hotel in the Salzburg area will be our base for the next three nights. While here, we will enjoy breakfast at the hotel. With its elegant squares and quaint streets, Salzburg, the famous Baroque city, is a delightful introduction to the sophisticated world of arguably the greatest classical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Enjoy Austrian cuisine at a local restaurant in Salzburg.

Enjoy a walking tour through the Old City, a maze of meandering lanes, curious steeples, cobbled streets, and spacious squares. Here we will view Mozart's Birthplace, the Old Square, the Salzburg Cathedral, and the Residenz. A highlight of our walk will be the Glockenspiel, an early 18th century carillon with 35 bells. We can hear the bells from any one of the cafes lining the edges of the Mozartplatz, while sipping our favorite coffee or drink.

Visitors can learn about the details of Mozart's life and circumstances—how he grew up, when he began to make music, who his friends and patrons were, his relationship with his family, his passion for opera, and much more.

Visit the Residenz, Salzburg’s opulent palace, which was the seat of the Salzburg prince and archbishops. The child prodigy Mozart often played in the conference room for guests, and, in 1867, Emperor Franz Joseph received Napoléon III in the palace. Enjoy a tour of the richly decorated state rooms, and the Residenzgalerie Salzburg, an art gallery that contains European paintings from the 16th to the 19th century displayed in 15 historic rooms.

Explore Salzburger Dom (Salzburg Cathedral), which is world renowned for its 4,000-pipe organ. The cathedral has been hailed by some critics as the "most perfect" Renaissance building in the Germanic countries and features a marble facade and symmetrical twin towers.

Spend free time on Salzburg's most famous street, the Getreidegaße, which is lined with small shops, interesting houses, and wrought-iron signs.

Your third concert performance is today in Salzburg. Venue options include Mirabell Gardens of the Mirabell Palace or the Salzburg Cathedral (Domkirche). Additional venues are Herz-Jesu-Asyl Riedenburg, Stadtpfarramt Parsch, Altersheim Kreuzbrueckl, and the American International School of Salzburg. The Franziskanerkirche (Franciscan Church), located just a few steps from the Cathedral, is another option. Hohensalzburg is one of the largest fully preserved fortresses in central Europe. Another venue location is Mondsee Open Air Stage—a floating stage that is anchored at one end of Lake Mondsee and surrounded by the area’s natural beauty. The Wallfahrtskirche Maria Plain is a pilgrimage church famous for its relationship to Mozart; it was here and for this church that he composed the Mass in F Minor.

We will unwind and discuss the day while dining at a local restaurant.

Visit the Berchtesgaden Salt Mines, originally owned and operated by an Augustinian monastery in 1517. Don protective miner's clothing before enjoying a guided tour, including a ride into the mine on a small wagon-like train. After nearly a half-mile ride, we leave the train and explore the rest of the mine on foot, sliding down a miner's slide and riding on the salt lake in a ferry. The highlight of the tour is the Chapel, a grotto containing unusually shaped salt formations illuminated for an eerie effect.

We will dine this evening in a local restaurant.

Our enjoyable and rewarding tour will come to an end as our tour director accompanies us to the airport for the return flight home.