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The Geymüller-Schlössel is a little gem off the beaten track. The entire summer palace, both inside and out, reflects the Biedermeier style. The palace is owned by the Museum for Applied Arts and houses a collection of some 170 clocks, among them an early Viennese flute clock (c.1800) playing music by Haydn.

Vienna is the only capital in the world where wine grapes are grown within the city boundaries – some 1,670 acres of vineyards are found here. The most widely known wine-growing community in the capital is Grinzing. Once a small vintners’ village on the outskirts of the city, it is today the hub of Heurigen , with crowds of both locals and tourists flocking to the wine taverns (see pp74–5). The narrow streets still boast an old-fashioned rural charm.

The composer Ludwig van Beethoven often came to Heiligenstadt to spend his summers – Vienna’s bourgeoisie favoured the area as a holiday resort in the late 18th century. Beethoven lived in various houses in Heiligenstadt. In 1802 he stayed at Probusgasse 6 and visited the nearby spa to gain relief for his deafness; when nothing helped he wrote the Heiligenstädter Testament, a desperate letter to his brothers. Today the house is a museum.

Situated on the former imperial hunting grounds of the Lainzer Tiergarten, Emperor Franz Joseph had this little palace built for his wife Elisabeth. Between 1882 and 1886 architect Karl von Hasenauer constructed the splendid villa with its opulent interior, and the imperial couple used to spend May and June here every year. Elisabeth’s bedroom, with a large 18th-century bed once owned by Maria Theresa, is painted with frescoes following Hans Makart’s designs of Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream . The villa’s name derives from the Hermes statue in the park.

The 484-m (1,580-ft) high Kahlenberg mountain is on the fringe of the Vienna Woods and covered with trees and vineyards. The Höhenstrasse, a scenic route lined with trees that occasionally offers a glimpse of the city, winds its way up the Kahlenberg from Grinzing, and on top of the hill you can enjoy a breathtaking view of the city. During the Turkish siege of 1683, the Polish troops under King Jan III Sobieski descended from the top of this hill and defeated the Turkish army on 12 September that year. The little Baroque church on top of Kahlenberg commemorates this historic event.

This church, another Art Nouveau masterpiece by the Viennese architect Otto Wagner (see p118), was created between 1905 and 1907 as a place of worship for the patients at the Steinhof psychiatric hospital. The entire hospital complex at the edge of the Vienna Woods was designed to bring the patients closer to a healthy and natural environment and to help ensure their recovery. The square church, flanked by two bell towers, was also intended to bring aesthetic pleasure to the sick with its colourful windows and mosaics. Its glistening golden dome can be spotted from the Gloriette building in Schönbrunn Park (see p49).

Just next to Kahlenberg is its twin mountain, the Leopoldsberg, that dominates the Danube valley. From the top of the 425-m (1,400-ft) high mountain you get an excellent view of the entire region around Vienna. Leopoldsberg is named after the Babenberg ruler Leopold III (1073–1136) and the ruins of the 13th-century Babenberg castle destroyed by the Turkish troops in 1529 are still visible. An older church on top of the mountain was also destroyed by the Turks and was replaced by a Baroque church in the 18th century.

This imperial Baroque palace with its stunning landscaped gardens is one of Vienna’s most spectacular and most visited sights (see pp36–9).

More than three million people have been buried in this 6-acre cemetery since it opened in 1874, among them 500 Austrian politicians (there is a presidential crypt), composers and actors who were given honorary graves. Max Hegele, a student of Otto Wagner, designed the entrance portal (gate 2), the mortuary and the Dr-Karl-Lueger-Gedächtnis Kirche, named after a Vienna mayor (1897–1910). The church is among Vienna’s most important Art Nouveau buildings. Within the cemetery there are separate areas for followers of the Jewish, Islamic, Orthodox and Protestant faiths.