A Vienna Shopping List – What Things Cost in Vienna If You’re Settling In

The duration of most of our stays on this yearlong global grand tour have been two weeks. Apart from our pre-departure preparations for Grantourismo and a pre-launch sunset soiree in Dubai and the days leading up to our launch party in London, only on two occasions on the trip have we stayed in places for only a week each, in Italy and in Austria.

In Italy, it was partly a case of availability, and partly a case of us being torn between choosing either Alberobello in Puglia or Sardinia – an impossible choice, so we did a week in each place against our better judgement. And ended up loving both experiences equally.

In Austria, it proved to be a challenge finding a property in a ski village with early season snow, so we decided to stay one week in Zell am See so Terence could assess the snowboarding and one week in Vienna, one of our favourite cities in Europe.

While one week isn’t really enough time to settle into a place for the kind of project we’re doing, we were pleased we did. Because Vienna really is a brilliant city to experience, especially if you’re staying in a lovely apartment rental with a good kitchen and a market nearby where you can buy beautiful produce to cook meals at home.

A Vienna Shopping List – What Things Cost in Vienna A Vienna If You’re Settling In

As Terence already wrote in an earlier post, the owner of our Vienna apartment had said to us that summer was really when Vienna bloomed (and oddly enough we’ve never experienced Vienna in summer; it was winter when we’d previously visited), but we really loved our winter stay in Vienna.

Sure, Vienna is cold in winter, and it was especially icy on a few occasions when the temperature plummeted. But what we most love about staying in an apartment in winter is if you really don’t feel like heading out again into the chilly weather, you can simply stay in for the evening – something you can’t do in all hotels, unless you’re willing to order over-priced room service. Yes, I’m talking to you, Club Sandwich.

We did end up eating out a lot more than we expected in Vienna, but we also had a few memorable dinners at the apartment, when Terence made hearty, warming winter meals, including dishes with truffles!

What we really loved about staying where we did in Vienna’s Fifth District was that our neighbourhood market was the Naschmarkt, just a couple of blocks away. It’s paradise for food lovers with its countless stalls and shops selling fresh fruit and vegetables, cheeses, cold cuts, meat, Mediterranean deli goodies, from Middle Eastern dips to stuffed vegetables, as well as freshly ground coffee, olive oils, wine, and tea. We also had several Billa supermarkets close by.

For our stays of less than two weeks this year we haven’t given you a Price Check shopping list, but we thought it might prove helpful for both Zell am See, when you’re making decisions about where to go for some winter skiing, and for Vienna, so you can see how the Austrian capital compares price-wise to other cities in the vicinity, such as Budapest, Krakow, and Berlin. So here you go…

A Vienna Shopping List

Price Check is a series of posts from every destination we visit where we settle in for a while, that could serve as a shopping list for you to stock the kitchen at the start of your stay, as well as a cost of living index, giving you an idea as to what things cost in that place. We include some basic items to get you started, plus a local specialty or two from the place.