Donauturm: Vienna’s Danube Tower, Views & Restaurant

Vienna keeps its skyline low, and the historic centre is dominated by the spire of St Stephen’s Cathedral. One concrete needle stuck in a park on the far side of the Danube stands far above it. The Donauturm Vienna is 252 metres tall, which makes it the tallest structure in Austria, and from the open terrace at 150 metres you can see the Wienerwald, the Danube and the city laid out beneath you. Online adult admission is €18 and the lift takes about thirty-five seconds.

This guide covers prices and what they get you, the two viewing levels and the three places to eat, how it compares with climbing Stephansdom instead, the park at the bottom that most visitors never notice, and the single most important piece of advice about this attraction — which concerns the weather, and which will save you €18 if you take it. Details were checked against the tower’s own site in September 2026; opening times vary by season and by area, so check the tower’s opening-hours page before you set out.

Prices and Practicalities

Ticket	Price
Adult	around €18
Senior 60+	around €14.40
Child 6–14	around €10.80
Child 3–5	around €5.40
Child under 3	Free
Zoo + Danube Tower combination	€39 adult / €23 child to 15

The tower’s online shop lists the current prices, so treat these figures as close rather than exact. The tower also sells a Fast Lane option and a separate ticket for the slide, both through its online shop, and prices for those change.

The zoo combination at €39 is the one genuinely interesting deal here. Tiergarten Schönbrunn alone is €29, which means the tower is effectively costing €10 in that bundle. The two are at opposite ends of the city and it is a full, tiring day, but if you were doing the zoo anyway with children, it is worth the arithmetic.

Opening hours

The tower normally opens daily, all year, with hours that vary by season and by which level you want, and a planned maintenance closure usually falls early in the year. Individual areas also shut in bad weather, the open-air terrace first. The tower’s opening-hours page has the current times.

That is unhelpful if you are planning a trip three weeks out, and there is no way round it: check the current times on the day or the day before. The restaurant levels generally run later than the observation deck.

The Levels

• 150 metres — the open-air viewing terrace. The reason to come. Open air, wind, and an uninterrupted horizon. Closed in high wind or ice.
• 155 metres — the glazed indoor terrace. Sheltered from rain and wind, and where you end up when the outdoor deck is shut, though the whole tower can close for maintenance or safety reasons. The glass costs you something photographically; bring a cloth and press the lens against it.
• 160 metres — the Turmcafé. Coffee and cake with the same view, and considerably cheaper than the restaurant above it.
• 170 metres — the revolving Turmrestaurant. Turns slowly enough that you do not notice until you look for your coat and it has moved. A full rotation takes well under an hour.
• Ground level — Donaubräu. A beer hall at the base, for people who came with someone who went up.

The express lifts take about thirty-five seconds to reach the viewing level, which is quick enough that children want to do it again and slow enough that you notice your ears.

What You Can Actually See

Orient yourself by the river, which runs across the view, and work outwards.

• South-west — the historic centre, with Stephansdom’s spire visible as a dark needle among the rooftops. It is about five kilometres away, so it reads as a skyline rather than a place. Bring or borrow binoculars if this is what you came for.
• West and north-west — the Wienerwald ridge: Kahlenberg, Leopoldsberg, the vineyards on the slopes, and the transmitter mast on top. This is the best direction.
• Immediately below — the Donaupark, the Vienna International Centre with its curved towers, and Donau City’s cluster of high-rises, including Austria’s tallest occupied building.
• East — the Danube running out towards Slovakia, the Lobau wetlands, and flat country that keeps going.
• South-east — the Prater, the Riesenrad if you know where to look, and the Danube Island stretching twenty-one kilometres in both directions.
• On an exceptionally clear day — the foothills of the Alps to the south-west. This happens perhaps a few dozen days a year, mostly after a cold front in winter.

The One Thing to Know Before You Buy

Check the visibility before you pay.

Vienna sits in a basin and gets genuine haze — a soft, grey, low-contrast murk that is not fog and does not look like much from street level but which flattens a long-distance view into nothing.

There is no partial refund for a bad view. Look up at the tower before you go in: if you cannot see the observation deck clearly from the base of the building, you will not see the Alps from the observation deck. On a hazy day, go somewhere else and come back.

Conversely, the day after a cold front clears in January — cold, dry, hard blue sky — is the single best time to be up there, and almost nobody is.

Donauturm or Stephansdom?

	Donauturm	Stephansdom towers
Height	Terrace at 150 m	South tower viewing room ~67 m, north tower lift
Getting up	Lift, 35 seconds	343 steps (south) or lift (north)
Cost	Around €18	Substantially less
Best for	The Danube, the hills, distance, sunset	The old city, the roof tiles, the streets below
Location	22nd district, across the Danube	Dead centre
Food	Café and revolving restaurant	None

These give you different cities and the choice is not close if you know what you want. From Stephansdom you look down into the first district: the patterned cathedral roof in the foreground, the courtyards, the traffic on Kärntner Straße, the domes at eye level. It is intimate and it is about the old city.

From the Donauturm you look at a region. The centre is a distant smudge and the Danube, the island, the suburbs and the hills are the subject. It is the better photograph at sunset and the worse one at any other time.

If you are in Vienna for two days, climb Stephansdom. If you are here for a week, or you are staying out in the 22nd, or the weather has just turned brilliantly clear, come out here.

The Donaupark, Which Is Free

The tower stands in the middle of a large park that most visitors walk through without registering, and which is considerably more interesting than an urban park has any right to be.

Both the park and the tower were built for the Vienna International Garden Show of 1964, on ground that had previously been a municipal rubbish tip. That is a very Viennese piece of civic ambition: take the dump, build a park and the tallest tower in the country on it, and hold a flower show.

What is in it now:

• The Papstkreuz — an enormous steel cross erected for the open-air mass John Paul II celebrated here in 1983, left in place afterwards, and startling if you come on it unprepared.
• The Irissee, a small lake with a path round it.
• A miniature railway that runs in the warmer months and is exactly as popular with small children as you would expect.
• Themed gardens left over from the garden show, including a Korean cultural garden and a rose garden.
• Space, grass and very few tourists. This is a local park in a residential district, not an attraction.

It is free, it is open, and giving it half an hour before or after the tower makes the trip out here feel worth the U-Bahn ride. More like it in our parks and gardens guide.

What Else Is Out Here

The 22nd district and the riverside around it are where Vienna goes to be outdoors, and the tower sits in the middle of it.

• The Alte Donau — the old, cut-off arm of the river, now a still lake with swimming areas, boat hire, sailing clubs and waterside restaurants. Ten minutes’ walk. It is where the city swims.
• The Donauinsel — twenty-one kilometres of artificial island between the Danube and the flood channel, with cycle paths, beaches, barbecue areas and, in June, one of Europe’s largest free open-air festivals.
• Copa Beach — the bar strip at the island’s southern end, loud in summer, deserted in February.
• The Vienna International Centre — the UN’s third headquarters, with guided tours available on weekdays for anyone who wants to see a piece of 1970s international architecture from the inside.

Our Danube activities guide covers the swimming, cycling and boating, and our Danube boat cruises guide covers getting on the water properly.

Getting There

Donauturmplatz 1, 1220 Wien.

• U1 to Alte Donau — then about ten minutes on foot through the Donaupark, which is the pleasant approach.
• U1 to Kaisermühlen-VIC — similar distance from the other side, past the UN complex.
• U6 to Neue Donau — a longer walk, useful if you are coming from the west.
• Bus 20A stops at “Donauturm”, directly outside, which is the option if walking is difficult.

It is roughly twenty minutes from Stephansplatz on the U1, which is less far than it feels when you look at the map. Ticketing is the standard city fare — see our transport tickets guide.

Parking on site is €4.50 for the first hour and €3.50 for each additional hour, capped at €35 a day. Restaurant and café guests spending €30 or more get three hours free, and holders of a disabled parking permit park free on proof of purchase. There is more public parking on Arbeiterstrandbadstraße.

Eating at the Top

Three options and a clear recommendation.

The revolving restaurant at 170 metres is the headline. It is a proper sit-down restaurant, the rotation is genuinely pleasant, and it is priced for the altitude rather than the cooking. The food is competent. If you are marking an occasion, book a window table at sunset and enjoy yourself; if you are judging it as a restaurant, Vienna has a hundred better ones at half the price.

The Turmcafé at 160 metres is the better-value choice: coffee, cake, the same view, a fraction of the bill. For most visitors this is the right call.

One thing worth asking when you book: whether a restaurant reservation covers or reduces the lift charge. Towers vary on this and it can change the total cost of an evening substantially, so ask rather than assume.

Why the Tower Exists

The Donauturm was built between 1962 and 1964 to a design by the Austrian architect Hannes Lintl, as the centrepiece of the Vienna International Garden Show. It went up in 18 months, which for a 252-metre reinforced-concrete shaft is quick, and it was the tallest structure in the country the day it opened. It still is.

The context matters. Post-war Vienna was a city that had been occupied by four powers until 1955 and spent the following decade working out what it wanted to be. The answer, on this bit of ground, was: a modern skyline landmark on the far bank, a park built on a tip, and an international event to show it off. The UN moved into the site next door in 1979, and Donau City’s glass towers arrived from the 1990s onwards, so the tower now stands in the middle of a district that grew up around it rather than the empty riverbank it was built on.

It has also been Vienna’s default “meanwhile, elsewhere” location for six decades: the place television crews film from, the place fireworks are watched from, the place the city looks at itself from. That is a slightly different thing from being a tourist attraction, and it is part of why the atmosphere up there is more local than you might expect.

A Half-Day Plan Out Here

Time	What	Cost
15:00	U1 to Alte Donau, walk the lake shore	Free
15:45	Donaupark — Irissee, Papstkreuz, the gardens	Free
16:30	Donauturm, terrace and café	~€18 plus coffee
18:00	Stay for sunset from the terrace	Included
19:00	Dinner at the Alte Donau waterside or Donaubräu at the base	Varies

Shift the whole thing earlier in winter, when the sun goes at four. In summer, when it is light until nine, you can add an hour on the Donauinsel between the park and the tower and still be up there for the light.

If you are cycling, this is one of the easiest destinations in Vienna to reach on two wheels — the Danube cycle path runs along the island and the bank the whole way from the centre, flat and traffic-free. Our cycling guide has the routes.

Our Honest Verdict

The Donauturm has the best long view in Vienna and it has it by default, because nothing else in the city comes close to its height. That is worth around €18 on the right day and worth nothing at all on the wrong one, which makes this the single most weather-dependent attraction in the city.

Go on a clear evening, forty minutes before sunset, and it is genuinely memorable: the Danube going gold, the hills turning blue, the lights coming on across a flat city, and a rotating restaurant behind you if you want to make a night of it. Go on a grey November afternoon and you have paid €18 to stand inside a cloud.

What it is not is a substitute for the centre. If this is your first visit to Vienna and you have two days, the money and the time are better spent climbing Stephansdom, which is cheaper and puts you above the city you actually came to see. The Donauturm is for a second visit, a longer stay, or a day when the sky is remarkable and you want to do something about it.

And do not skip the park. The tower is a forty-minute attraction; the Donaupark and the Alte Donau turn it into a good half-day out of the centre, which is a thing more visitors to Vienna should attempt.

Frequently Asked Questions

How tall is the Donauturm?

252 metres, which makes it the tallest structure in Austria. The open-air viewing terrace is at 150 metres and the glazed indoor terrace at 155 metres. Express lifts take about 35 seconds to reach them.

How much does the Danube Tower cost?

Adult admission is €18 online and €19.90 at the counter, and under-3s are free. The tower’s online shop lists the current prices for every age group, and online tickets are usually cheaper than buying at the counter, so check the shop before you buy. A combined ticket with Schönbrunn Zoo is €39 for adults.

What are the opening hours?

Normally open daily all year, with hours that vary by season and by level and a planned maintenance closure usually early in the year. Individual areas, especially the open-air terrace, close in bad weather. Check the tower’s opening-hours page on the day.

Is there a revolving restaurant?

Yes, at 170 metres, turning slowly enough that a full rotation takes well under an hour. There is also a café at 160 metres with panoramic views.

Can you see the city centre from the Donauturm?

Yes, but at about five kilometres’ distance, so the historic centre reads as a distant skyline rather than a place you can pick apart. Stephansdom’s spire is clearly visible. If you want to look down into the old city, climb Stephansdom instead.

Donauturm or Stephansdom — which is better?

Different views entirely. Stephansdom is lower, cheaper and centred on the old city. The Donauturm is far higher and better for the Danube, the Danube Island, the Vienna Woods and sunset. For a short first visit, Stephansdom. For a clear evening on a longer trip, the Donauturm.

How do you get to the Danube Tower?

U1 to Alte Donau or Kaisermühlen-VIC, then about ten minutes on foot through the Donaupark. U6 to Neue Donau also works, and bus 20A stops directly outside at “Donauturm”. It is roughly twenty minutes from Stephansplatz.

Is it worth it with children?

The lift, the height and the rotating floor all land well, and there is a slide as a separate attraction. The Donaupark below, with its miniature railway and open grass, is what turns it into a proper afternoon rather than a twenty-minute novelty.

Is the Donaupark free?

Yes, entirely. It was laid out for the 1964 garden show on the site of a former rubbish tip, and it has a lake and a miniature railway.

Related Vienna Guides

• Things to Do on the Danube in Vienna
• Danube Boat Cruises from Vienna
• Stephansdom: Vienna’s Cathedral
• Vienna’s Parks and Gardens
• The Best Photography Spots in Vienna
• Tiergarten Schönbrunn: The World’s Oldest Zoo
• Vienna with Kids: The Complete Guide
• Vienna’s Hidden Gems
• Vienna Transport Tickets and Passes
• Vienna Attractions: The Complete List

Photo Credits

The tower and Donau City from the river: Wien Donau 2014-12-03 007 Donau City DC Tower Donauturm Islamisches Zentrum by Manfred Werner – Tsui, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The view from the Donauturm: Blick auf Wien vom Donauturm 01 by Kstipek, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.