Several inviting parks and green areas are set along the Ringstrasse, the most notable being the Burggarten, Volksgarten, Stadtpark with the Kursalon, and Rathauspark. Tourists shouldn’t miss visiting squares such as Schillerplatz, Maria-Theresien-Platz, Schwarzenbergplatz and Heldenplatz. Other attractions along the Ringstrasse include monuments to Empress Maria Theresia, Prince Eugene of Savoy, Archduke Charles of Austria, Goethe, Schiller, Count Radetzky, Athena, Johann Strauß, Andreas von Liebenberg, Georg Coch and many others.

Ringstrasse boasts grandiose buildings of great value and interesting history, few of which survived World War II. Among them is the Votivkirche, built after Emperor Franz Joseph’s salvation from an assassination attempt in 1853, along with the Opera, the Burgtheater and the Parliament building. Take a few hours to check out the museums, the most interesting of which are the Museum of Ethnology, Museum of Art History, Museum of Natural History, the Austrian National Library and the Museum of Applied Arts, built in the Neo-Renaissance style by Heinrich Freiherr von Ferstel. The famous Metropol Hotel was replaced with a monument commemorating the victims of Nazism.

There are newly-built public buildings along the Ringstrasse that emphasise characteristic features that hadn’t been highlighted before. Opposite from the churches and majestic buildings, the new edifices implemented secular culture and their architecture was quite different from the Baroque style. The concept of their construction is that passers-by should get a feeling of open space – an example of this is the Rathaus and the University and the Parliament, which don’t face each other, but focus on the Ringstrasse as a major point.