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Austria is little, but only on paper. Looking freshly minted for Hollywood with its whirl of castles, abbeys and chandelier-lit Habsburg palaces, this is where legends have been born and made for centuries from Mozart to Maria von Trapp. The romance of the Danube, the baroque clout of Salzburg, the snowy drama of the Alps — Austria has always hit the high notes. And nowhere more so than Vienna, with its galleries full of gold-kissed Klimts, coffee houses where Freud and Trotsky dreamed and schemed over fancy cream cakes, and concert halls where waltz king Strauss once waved a jaunty baton.

Austria delivers landscapes that make you want to burst into spontaneous song

Pick up a map, aim for Europe’s belly button and your finger will land on Austria. Right in the heart of Europe, it borders seven countries — Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary and Czech Republic — all of which make their influence felt keenly in cuisine and culture. As such, Austria is the most European of any country — the dividing line between north and south, east and west.

Beyond the major cities, Austria delivers landscapes that make you want to burst into spontaneous song. There are colossal mountains ripping across half of the country, where you can go hiking, mountain biking and skiing; looking-glass lakes of unfathomable beauty; vineyards and orchards spilling down to mighty rivers; and highland pastures with woodsy chalets straight out of a bedtime story. Austria is gorgeous and it aims to stay that way, with one of Europe’s most progressive environmental outlooks and its railway, ÖBB, powered completely by green energy. The past matters here, you see, but the future even more so.

See the latest rules and restrictions for visiting Austria

Main photo: the Alpine town of Hallstatt (Getty Images)

Austria’s dinky size means that you can pack in a fair bit when planning your trip. Thanks to an efficient and inexpensive public transport system, it’s possible to blaze across the country in just a few hours by train — and the scenery is riveting enough to keep you glued to the window for the entire journey. In terms of where to begin, it’s a stand-off between the Alps (for winter sports*) and Vienna (for culture*).

Often snagging first place in quality of living surveys, Vienna never misses a cultural beat. The capital seems crazily grand, with its romanesque and gothic cathedral, clip-clopping fiaker* (horse-drawn carriages) and riot of imperial palaces — among them the glittering Hofburg, the vast Schönbrunn Palace, and baroque Belvedere Palace*, with sensational Klimts and muse-sprinkled gardens. Linger more than a day or two and you’ll encounter a more edgy, down-to-earth city: in backstreet coffee houses, on tours channeling the obscure and the outlandish, in avant garde galleries, and in parks along the Danube, where the Viennese swim, surf, party, walk, skate, picnic and sunbathe naked.

Heading west drops you into the Wachau valley*, a Unesco world heritage region, poetically pretty, where apricot orchards and vineyards trip down to the Danube and castles straddle wooded hillsides. Rising above a kink in the river, Melk’s yellow-and-white, onion-domed Benedictine abbey is a true feast of baroque. Don’t overlook the fantasy ruins of Dürnstein’s medieval castle, either: Richard the Lionheart was banged up here in the 12th century for insulting Leopold V, Duke of Austria.

In Hallstatt, forested peaks fling up above a glassy green-blue Alpine lake

As the train glides further west towards Salzburg, proper mountains pucker up. Stop off in the Salzkammergut lake region, where scenes from The Sound of Music were filmed. Loveliest of the lot is Hallstatt, where forested peaks fling up above a glassy green-blue Alpine lake. Here, a funicular trundles up to Unesco-stamped Salzwelten, the world’s oldest salt mines, winding you through 7,000 years of salt-mining history.

The Alps unfurl west in all their snow-encrusted, glacier-capped wonder. Make straight for resorts such as ritzy Kitzbühel and wild child St Anton am Arlberg to carve the pistes in winter or clamber into the heights in summer — but what really distinguishes Austria from the rest of the Alpine crowd is how easy it is to zip from the major cities to the slopes.

Give Salzburg’s crowds the slip by visiting in spring or autumn and you’ll fall hard for the city’s storybook setting on the turquoise Salzach River, a mere whisper away from the Alps. Once the stomping ground of the prince-archbishops, Salzburg is a cultural knockout, with a whopping medieval fortress*, a Unesco world heritage baroque Old Town and a high-calibre musical heritage — this is where Mozart was born and Maria, that most famous of nuns, warbled on her way to mass.

Plump for Innsbruck instead and you’ll get a serious hit of culture, medieval history and spacey funiculars designed by Zaha Hadid that lift you up to the ragged peaks of the hikeable, bikeable, skiable Nordkette range in no time.

Vienna does posh like nowhere else in Austria: from palatial five-star hotels on the swanky Ringstrasse boulevard to art deco escapes with arresting views of the cathedral’s dome. Stray beyond the regal pomp of the 1st district, however, and you’ll find retro-cool hotels with urban gardens, rooftop beehives, Airstream trailers, street art — you name it. The 2nd and 7th districts (Leopoldstadt and Neubau) drop you into artsy, untouristy corners of the city. If you want to visit at peak times — August and during the Christmas markets, say — you’ll need to book months ahead when planning your trip.

The Austrian Alps* are very seasonal and hotels go with the snow, opening from December to early April (Easter), and from June to September. If you’re looking to save a few euros, avoid school holidays. You’ll find everything in the mix, from cutesy chalets on the slopes, where you’ll pray for the flakes to fall, to five-star spa hotels with pop-up mountain views, and sweet and simple B&Bs.

Go off the radar to Vorarlberg, or gently beautiful Styria and Carinthia, and both prices and crowds tumble

Cities such as Salzburg* and Innsbruck cleverly bridge the gap between the urban and the outdoors, letting you spend the morning touring palaces and galleries and the afternoon pounding powder. The resorts of Kitzbühel, Mayrhofen (in the Zillertal) and St Anton, meanwhile, place you right in the thick of the Alpine action.

Go off the radar to Vorarlberg*, or quiet, gently beautiful Styria and Carinthia when you travel to Austria, and both prices and crowds tumble. Family-friendly farmstays (Bauernhöfe) and eco hotels (Biohotels) are a wonderful way to explore Austria’s less visited corners, but their remoteness means you’ll often need your own wheels to reach them.

If you want to hit the heights in summer but don’t fancy lugging a tent, the Alpenverein (Austrian Alpine Association) manages around 400 huts in the Alps, where you can bed down in a bunkhouse, grab a bowl of goulash and share the starry night skies and dazzling sunrises with hardcore rock climbers. You can plan a multi-day hike around them or just spend the night (expect to pay as little as €20).

Austria really gets exciting when you dive into its outdoors. The Alps are at their most sky-grazing spectacular in the nature-gone-wild Hohe Tauern National Park, where the country’s highest peak, 3,798m Grossglockner, punches above a ripple of snow-dusted peaks and the five-mile swirl of the Pasterze Glacier. This is a wondrous region for hiking, climbing and mountain biking in summer, and ski touring and ice climbing in the white winter. From July to September, you can hook onto one of the park’s guided ranger tours, which swing from glacier hikes to wildlife spotting rambles.

Snuggled in among the Alps in a sublime lakeside spot, Zell am See is a cracking base for striking out into the park, as the kick-off point for high-Alpine day hikes like the Pinzgauer Spaziergang, skiing at the Kitzsteinhorn glacier, and a flurry of adventurous pursuits from canyoning to paragliding. It’s also near the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, poised for Unesco world heritage status. This 30-mile helter-skelter of a drive makes your heart race with both its hairpins and views of glaciers, crash-bang waterfalls, lakes and snow-iced peaks. Start early to dodge the crowds and check weather forecasts before hitting the road — you won’t see much in fog or a blizzard.

You’ll be astonished by the hot springs of belle époque spa town Bad Gastein, buried deep in an Alpine valley

Salzburg gets so much fuss that the surrounding region has fallen under the radar. Go one step beyond and you’ll be astonished by the healing hot springs of belle époque spa town Bad Gastein, buried deep in an Alpine valley, the 380m-high, rainbow-arced Krimml Falls, Europe’s highest waterfall, and Eisriesenwelt, the world’s largest ice caves*, hidden in the ragged limestone mountains of the Tennengebirge above Werfen.

Neighbouring Tyrol is adventure central, ramping up the action with white-water rafting on the rivers Inn and Sanna, and hiking, climbing, biking, paragliding* and skiing in the little valleys threading south and carving a deep path through the Alps: the Zillertal, Stubaital and Ötztal. There’s no place like it for winter sports: whether it’s the black runs, fabulous off-piste and après-ski of St Anton, the World Cup slopes and glitz of Kitzbühel, or the freestyle parks of Mayrhofen that appeal.

Look beyond the big-hitters and Austria will give you a backstage pass to its less-explored regions: Upper Austria, with its pretty sprinkling of baroque towns, mellow apple orchards and the limestone peaks of Kalkalpen National Park, the wine roads of southern Styria — Austria’s Tuscany in miniature — the quiet dairy country, chalet-lined villages and mountains of Bregenzerwald, and the bath-warm lakes in sunny, southern Carinthia.

Between June and September for high-Alpine hikes; December-April for Christmas markets and snow fun; city breaks year-round.

What is the best way to travel in Austria?
Train travel is the dream, with smooth, efficient, inexpensive and eco-friendly ÖBB connections linking the major cities, towns and resorts. Tickets are often cheaper if booked online a couple of weeks in advance, so factor this in when planning your trip; look out for money-saving travel passes like the Vorteilscard and Einfach-Raus-Ticket. If you want to reach the country’s remotest corners, get a car. In winter, avoid peak holiday times to score better deals on ski passes.

How many days do you need in Austria?
You can tick off the trophy sights in one of the major cities in a long weekend, but travel to Austria is more rewarding when you stay longer. Allow a good week or more if you want to venture deep into the Alps to hike or ski, or combine a trip to Vienna with a spin of the Wachau in the Danube Valley, for instance.

What is the best month to visit Austria?
Winter (December to April) is the best time of year for skiing and boarding in the Alps, and summer (June to September) for a raft of other Alpine pursuits — from hut-to-hut hiking to canyoning, mountain biking and white-water rafting. Spring and autumn colour the landscapes with flowers and foliage. Trails are quieter in the shoulder seasons, but you might find some places closed at higher reaches. In December, the major cities and towns sparkle with Christmas markets.

Take me there

Inspired to visit Austria but yet to book your trip? Here are the best packages from Tui* and British Airways*.

• Discover holidays to Vienna*
• Discover holidays to Salzburg*
• Discover tours in Austria*