A Journey in Culture
Volume 1: Vienna at the Turn of the Year
A city of music, art and ideas at its most contemplative.
- 27 December 2026 - 7 January 2027
- 11 days and 10 nights in Vienna
- Limited to 10 guests
There are cities in which culture is something one goes to see, and there are cities in which it seems simply to be part of everyday life.
Vienna belongs firmly to the latter.
Opera houses and concert halls are woven into the fabric of the city. Palaces have become galleries. A centuries-old library remains a place of books and knowledge to this day. Music is heard not only in the great auditoriums but in churches, chapels and intimate rooms. Coffeehouses remain places in which an hour spent reading or talking requires no explanation.
And at New Year, Vienna seems particularly conscious of all these things.
This journey has been composed around eleven days of music, art, architecture and the cultural life of the city.
There will be Berlioz and Beethoven, Mozart and Vivaldi, Strauss and Tchaikovsky. We will hear music in the Vienna State Opera and the Great Hall of the Konzerthaus, but also in a Baroque church and in a room in which Mozart himself once performed. We will encounter Klimt and Schiele, the great collections of the Habsburgs, the extraordinary State Hall of the Austrian National Library, the Lipizzaners of the Spanish Riding School and the five-century tradition of the Vienna Boys Choir.
And between all of these, there will be time.
Time for coffee. For books. For another museum. For a walk without a destination. For returning somewhere discovered the day before.
Because this is not a journey designed to show you everything there is to see in Vienna.
It is an invitation to live there for a little while.
// At a Glance
- 27 December 2026 - 7 January 2027
- 11 days and 10 nights in Vienna
- Limited to 10 guests
// Performances
Opera
- Hector Berlioz’s “La Damnation de Faust” at the Vienna State Opera
- Johann Strauss II’s “Die Fledermaus” at the Vienna State Opera
Orchestral & Chamber Music
- Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the Wiener Konzerthaus, Great Hall
- New Year's Concert at the Vienna Volksoper
- Baroque Gala at the Minorite Church
- Mozart Ensemble at the Mozarthaus
- Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” at the Karlskirche
// Ballet
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” at the Vienna State Opera
// Viennese Traditions
- Vienna Boys Choir at the Hofburg Chapel
- The Lipizzaners at the Spanish Riding School
// Art, Architecture & Literature
- The Historic Centre Guided Walk
- Upper & Lower Belvedere Palace, Gallery and Gardens Guided Visit
- Austrian National Library State Hall Guided Visit
- Kunsthistorisches Museum & Leopold Museum Guided Visit
// Leisure
There are seven substantial periods of leisure. This is deliberate. It does not mean that we could not think of something to put there. It means we chose not to.
Harper & Reid journeys are composed around the belief that a city cannot become familiar when every hour has already been decided for you.
The performances, guided visits and shared experiences give this journey its structure.
The hours between them give it life.
// Where We Stay
For the duration of the journey, we stay at Hotel Austria in Vienna's historic first district.
It is not a grand international luxury hotel, and that is precisely the point.
Its central location – less than five minutes on foot from St Stephen's Cathedral – allows Vienna to exist immediately outside the door. The hotel offers traditionally styled rooms, a comfortable lobby and Viennese buffet breakfast, while many of the places we will come to know during the journey are within walking distance or an easy public-transport journey.
We choose accommodation for character, warmth and place.
Not for the name above the entrance.
// What the Journey Includes
- Return economy air travel from Cape Town or Johannesburg
- Ten nights at Hotel Austria
- Breakfast daily
- Welcome dinner at Griechenbeisl
- Farewell breakfast at Café Schwarzenberg
- All performances listed in the itinerary
- All guided visits listed in the itinerary
- Admissions associated with included visits
- Local transport where required for the programme
- Harper & Reid host throughout
- Pre-departure cultural notes and practical information
- Your Harper & Reid Journey Companion
Most lunches and dinners remain deliberately unarranged.
We would rather give you recommendations and allow you to discover your own favourites than decide where and when you must eat every day.
Interested? Then start the conversation.
// Cost
ZAR 86 850.00 per person sharing
reservation deposit of ZAR 26 000.00
ZAR 96 600.00 per single person
reservation deposit of ZAR 29 000.00
Price includes return flights from Johannesburg, South Africa. Alternative departure cities, or travel excluding flights, can be quoted on request. All other itinerary elements are fixed.
// Full Itinerary
Monday, 28 December 2026
// Towards Vienna
Midday • Depart Cape Town or Johannesburg • Our journey begins in South Africa, departing Cape Town or Johannesburg around midday for the overnight journey to Austria.
Evening • In transit • There is no programme to begin and no orientation to absorb. For now, there is simply somewhere to travel towards.
Vienna awaits.
Monday, 28 December 2026
// Arriving in Vienna
Morning • Arrival at Hotel Austria • We arrive in Vienna and make our way to Hotel Austria, our home for the journey.
Tucked into the Innere Stadt, Vienna's historic first district, the hotel lies less than five minutes' walk from St Stephen's Cathedral. Its location places us not on the edge of the city we have come to experience, but within it: the old streets, cafés, churches and cultural landmarks of central Vienna are immediately around us.
Midday • At leisure • The remainder of the day is deliberately unstructured.
Unpack. Sleep. Walk around the corner. Find your first Viennese coffee. Begin learning the route back to the hotel.
There will be plenty of time for Vienna. It need not all happen today.
Evening • Welcome Dinner at Griechenbeisl • We gather for the first time over dinner at Griechenbeisl. It is an appropriate place to begin.
The inn has been serving guests for some 550 years and has long been a meeting place for artists, scholars and politicians. Its walls carry signatures associated with figures ranging from Bismarck and Egon Schiele to Mark Twain, while its kitchen remains rooted in traditional Viennese cooking.
No formal opening ceremony. No lengthy briefing. Just dinner together in a place with stories in its walls.
Tuesday, 29 December 2026
// Become Acquainted
Morning • The Historic Centre • Our first proper encounter with Vienna is on foot, with a guided walk of Vienna’s historic city centre.
Over approximately two and a half hours, we begin putting the city together: its streets, landmarks, history and geography. This is less about "seeing the sights" than becoming acquainted with our temporary home and acquiring the confidence to navigate Vienna independently over the days ahead.
Midday • At leisure • The afternoon is yours.
Evening • Hector Berlioz’s “La Damnation de Faust” at the Vienna State Opera • Our first major performance takes us to the Vienna State Opera for Berlioz's extraordinary La Damnation de Faust.
Inspired by Goethe, Berlioz called the work a légende dramatique rather than an opera. It moves between the intimate and spectacular, following Faust through his encounter with Méphistophélès and his destructive relationship with Marguerite.
The production brings together John Osborn as Faust, Eve-Maud Hubeaux as Marguerite and Christian Van Horn as Méphistophélès, with Bertrand de Billy conducting.
A suitably ambitious first evening at the opera.
Wednesday, 30 December 2026
// Vienna in Art and Baroque Music
Morning • Upper & Lower Belvedere Palace, Gallery and Gardens • This morning is devoted to the Belvedere.
Rather than simply arriving in front of Klimt's The Kiss, our guided visit allows the palace, gardens, collection and history to be understood as a whole.
The Belvedere gives us our first sustained encounter with the visual Vienna that existed alongside its musical life. The city of Klimt, Schiele and the artistic ferment surrounding the turn of the twentieth century.
Midday • At leisure • An afternoon without instruction.
Evening • Baroque Gala at the Minorite Church • Tonight the scale changes.
After the grandeur of the State Opera, we enter the historic Minorite Church for a Baroque programme performed by Les Orpheistes Orchestra, with violinist and conductor Mario Hossen and trumpeter Don Elias Stolz.
The programme draws on Vivaldi, Albinoni and Locatelli.
Part of the pleasure lies in the contrast: another evening of music, but an entirely different room in which to experience it.
Thursday, 31 December 2026
// New Year's Eve
Morning • The Lipizzaners at the Spanish Riding School • The final morning of the year begins at the Baroque Winter Riding School at the Hofburg Palace.
Here we watch the Lipizzaners of the Spanish Riding School in performance – a tradition requiring years of training for horse and rider and encompassing the School Quadrille, work on the Long Rein and the celebrated movements of the Schools on and above the ground. Classical Viennese music accompanies the performance.
It is one of those distinctly Viennese experiences that sits somewhere between history, discipline, ceremony and art.
Midday • At leisure • The afternoon is left free. Rest. Wander. Dress for the evening. Watch Vienna prepare for midnight.
Evening • Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the Wiener Konzerthaus, Great Hall • For the final evening of 2026, we gather in the Great Hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus.
Manfred Honeck conducts the Wiener Symphoniker and Vienna Singing Academy in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, joined by soloists Christina Landshamer, Catriona Morison, Maximilian Schmitt and Andrè Schuen.
There are few works more appropriate for the crossing from one year into another. Beethoven's final completed symphony moves towards its famous choral finale and Schiller's vision of human fellowship.
Then we step outside.
It is New Year's Eve in Vienna.
Find a restaurant, happen upon a café, wander back to the hotel. It is your New Year’s Eve to enjoy.
Friday, 1 January 2027
// The First Morning of the Year
Morning • New Year's Concert at the Vienna Volksoper • There will be no easing quietly into 2027.
At 11:00 we take our seats at the Volksoper for its New Year's Concert.
Under conductor Asher Fisch, the Vienna Volksoper Orchestra performs music drawn from the heart of the institution's folk-opera repertoire.
This is precisely the sort of distinction Harper & Reid enjoys: the famously exclusive Vienna Philharmonic concert may be taking place elsewhere in the city, but we take our seats amongst the Viennese musikliebhaber rather than celebrities and VIP guests, participating in Vienna's New Year musical tradition without treating prestige as the only measure of value.
Midday • At leisure • The remainder of New Year's Day belongs entirely to you.
Evening • At leisure • We have reached the halfway point of our journey. The evening is yours: time to absorb what has already unfolded, and to look ahead to what Vienna still has in store.
Saturday, 2 January 2027
// A Library and a Room Full of Music
Morning • Austrian National Library State Hall • This morning we enter one of the world's great historic libraries.
Commissioned by Emperor Charles VI and completed in 1723, the State Hall is a remarkable expression of secular Baroque architecture. Beneath its great dome are some 200,000 works spanning five centuries of printing.
Our guided visit introduces the room not merely as something beautifully presented, but as the eighteenth-century idea of a universal library made physical.
For a Harper & Reid journey, this morning matters.
Midday • At leisure • The remainder of the afternoon belongs entirely to you.
Evening • Mozart Ensemble at the Mozarthaus • Tonight is deliberately intimate.
We hear the Mozart Ensemble in the Sala Terrena, widely considered to be Vienna's oldest concert hall and a room in which Mozart himself once performed.
The string quartet repertoire encompasses Mozart alongside Haydn, Schubert and Beethoven.
After the Konzerthaus and State Opera, we now experience music at close quarters.
Sunday, 3 January 2027
// Two Viennese Traditions
Morning • Vienna Boys Choir at the Hofburg Chapel • On this Sunday morning, we attend the service at the Hofburgkapelle. Whatever your own beliefs, this meeting of music and setting makes it an experience that speaks to the soul.
This is not simply a Vienna Boys Choir concert. It forms part of a musical liturgical tradition stretching back more than 500 years to the Habsburg court.
The ensemble combines the Vienna Boys Choir with members of the Vienna State Opera men's choir and Vienna Philharmonic, performing with the chapel organist.
It is music encountered in its living context rather than placed on a concert stage.
Midday • At leisure • Rest or explore. Dress for the evening.
Evening • Johann Strauss II’s “Die Fledermaus” at the Vienna State Opera • Tonight we return to the Staatsoper for perhaps the most Viennese work of the journey.
Champagne, disguises, flirtation, mistaken identities and social mischief propel Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus through three acts of operetta set in nineteenth-century Vienna.
After more than a week in the city, we may by now recognise something of Vienna in the joke.
Monday, 4 January 2027
// From the Old Masters to Vienna 1900
Morning • Kunsthistorisches Museum & Leopold Museum • Today we spend the morning with art.
Our guided visit encompasses two very different collections: the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Leopold Museum.
The combination allows us to move from the great collections associated with imperial Vienna towards the radical artistic world of Vienna around 1900 – the period of Klimt, Schiele and their contemporaries.
The aim is not to exhaust two museums in a single morning. The purpose of a guided visit is precisely the opposite: to select, interpret and make connections.
Midday • At leisure • We have had a great deal to absorb this morning. Rest. Reflect. Let it settle.
Evening • Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” at the Karlskirche • Tonight we hear one of classical music's most familiar works somewhere less familiar.
Ensemble 1756 performs Vivaldi's The Four Seasons in the Karlskirche, using original instruments and historically informed approaches to eighteenth-century style and instrumentation.
A great Baroque church. A small ensemble. Four concertos written three centuries ago.
Sometimes familiarity allows us to listen more closely.
Tuesday, 5 January 2027
// A Day of Your Own
Morning • At leisure • Today is intentionally almost empty.
Midday • At leisure • By now Vienna should no longer feel entirely unfamiliar.
Perhaps there is a museum you noticed earlier. A bookshop you want to revisit. A café that has begun to feel like yours. You may want to shop, walk, read, get a head start on packing, sleep in, or spend three hours over lunch.
There is no Harper & Reid programme until evening.
This is not a gap in the itinerary. It is part of it.
Evening • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” at the Vienna State Opera • For our final evening performance, we return once more to the Vienna State Opera.
Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, in Rudolf Nureyev's choreography and staging, brings the journey's sequence of major performances to a close. Paul Connelly conducts.
Opera, orchestral music, sacred music, chamber music and Baroque performance have accompanied us through Vienna.
We end with ballet.
Wednesday, 6 January 2027
// One Last Viennese Morning
Morning • Farewell Breakfast at Café Schwarzenberg • Our final morning together begins where many Viennese mornings have begun: in a coffeehouse.
We gather for breakfast at Café Schwarzenberg on the Kärntner Ring.
There is something fitting about ending here. The Viennese coffeehouse has been one of the quiet threads running through the journey – a place for conversation, reading, observation and simply spending time.
Café Schwarzenberg still describes itself simply as an authentic Viennese café.
Breakfast is our farewell.
Midday • At leisure • There is still time. For one last walk. One last book. One last coffee. Or perhaps to do absolutely nothing before leaving.
Evening • Depart Vienna • We make our way to the airport for our overnight journey home.
Thursday, 7 January 2027
// Home
Morning • In transit
Midday • Arrive Cape Town or Johannesburg • We return to South Africa. The journey ends here.
Or perhaps it doesn't.
There will be a piece of music heard months from now that suddenly recalls a particular room in Vienna. A painting encountered again in a book. A Strauss waltz. The sound of a choir from the back of a chapel. A café remembered unexpectedly.
The finest journeys have a habit of continuing.