A Complete Guide to Visiting St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna

Vienna has a number of famous churches, but chief among them all is St. Stephen’s Cathedral — a medieval structure known for its Gothic design, imposing south tower, and intricate tile roof.

Lots of visitors to Vienna just step inside St. Stephen’s and peek at the interior from the back, but there’s plenty more to explore and discover for those with particular interest in the building. From viewpoints on top of towers to historic catacombs under the ground and more, there’s a lot to see at St. Stephen’s.

In this post, learn all about visiting St. Stephen’s Cathedral. You’ll find out where and how to get tickets, how to order your visit to the various sites associated with the cathedral, whether it’s worth visiting St. Stephen’s, and more.

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Visiting Hours at St. Stephen’s

St. Stephen’s Cathedral is open from 6 am to 10 pm on Monday through Saturday, and from 7 am to 10 pm on Sunday.

However, because of religious services, ticketed visiting times (when you can actually tour the church) are more limited:

• Monday through Saturday: 9 am to 11:30 am and 1 pm to 4:30 pm
• Sunday: 1 pm to 4:30 pm

Entering the Cathedral

You’ll find the entrance to the cathedral right about here, at the back of the cathedral.

Anyone can enter St. Stephen’s Cathedral for free. However, you cannot walk beyond a gate near the entrance to the cathedral (and around its side) unless you purchase a ticket (or you’re attending a religious service!).

In other words, without purchasing a ticket, you can see the nave, but cannot walk around freely in most of it.

When standing at the gate, be sure to turn around for a look at the huge organ over the entrance to St. Stephen’s.

People standing at the gate (left); the cathedral’s organ (right)

Purchasing Tickets for St. Stephen’s Cathedral

To enter St. Stephen’s beyond the gate, walk to the ticket desk to your left (when facing the gate).

At the ticket desk, you can purchase individual access to any of the sites associated with the cathedral (more on each of them below), or you can buy an all-inclusive ticket that includes access to every site (which is what I did).

Here’s how much each option costs:

	PRICE
ALL-INCLUSIVE TICKET	€25
CATHEDRAL	€7
CATACOMBS	€7
SOUTH TOWER	€6.50
NORTH TOWER	€7
TREASURY OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER	€5

Note that these (with the exception of the Treasury) are the prices listed on the cathedral’s website. The pricing was slightly different at the time of my visit (for example, the all-inclusive ticket was discounted to €20), so don’t be surprised if the pricing is a bit different from the table above. (And please feel free to leave a comment with updated pricing if you have it!)

Payment inside the cathedral is cash only — no cards accepted!

You can also purchase the all-inclusive ticket online in advance of your visit. To collect it, go to the same ticket desk inside the cathedral and show them your receipt.

Sites at St. Stephen’s

Let’s run through the six sites that are included in the all-inclusive ticket for St. Stephen’s.

First, here are the locations of the entrances to each site:

Below, you’ll find a brief description of what you can expect to experience at each site.

Cathedral Tour

A ticket to the cathedral includes a self-guided audio tour that will lead you around the inside of the cathedral, providing historical and other information about various elements of the cathedral. It takes about 40 minutes to complete the audio tour.

You will access the tour on your phone, so be sure to bring headphones or earbuds with you to St. Stephen’s if you’d like to listen to the tour. (They ask that people don’t play the audio out loud on their phones, which is appreciated.)

If you don’t care for audio tours, don’t bring headphones, or otherwise don’t want to take the time it requires to view the cathedral in this way, you can forego the audio tour and just walk around the inside of the cathedral, viewing it as you choose.

Alternatively, there is also a guided tour held at 10:30 am each day from Monday to Friday.

North Tower

The top of the North Tower can only be reached via an elevator that you’ll find along the northern wall of the cathedral.

On the North Tower — which is the shorter of St. Stephen’s two towers — you get excellent views of the remarkable tiled roof of the cathedral.

During my visit, it was incredibly cold and windy on top of the North Tower, but it was also the middle of December, so…that checks out. Visiting in December also meant that I could look down at the small Christmas market outside of the cathedral.

Catacombs

The catacombs — a crypt holding the remains of thousands of people below St. Stephen’s — can only be visited on guided tours held at specific times:

• Monday through Saturday: 10 am, 11 am, 11:30 am, 1:30 pm, 2 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm, 4 pm, 4:30 pm
• Sunday: 1:30 pm, 2 pm, 2:30 pm, 3:30 pm, 4 pm, 4:30 pm

The tour of the catacombs takes about 30 minutes. First, you visit the “old catacombs,” which hold the remains of members of the Hapsburg family, bishops, and other notable people. Then, you see the “new catacombs,” where regular people are buried. Contrary to the names of these spaces, the “old catacombs” look far newer because those areas have been recently renovated, while the “new catacombs” are clearly very old.

If you have mobility issues, be aware that there are a fair number of stairs in the catacombs. Additionally, no photos or videos are permitted within the catacombs.

You will exit the catacombs outside of the cathedral, near the entrance to the South Tower and the Treasury.

South Tower

Access to the South Tower is via a fairly nondescript door on the outside southern wall of the cathedral. Unlike the North Tower, there’s no elevator on the South — you’ll need to climb 343 steps to reach the top.

It’s kind of a rough climb, to be honest, with almost all of the stairs set into a spiral, narrow, stone space (not my favorite!). At the top, though, you get 360-degree views of the city, plus another look at the cathedral’s very cool rooftop.

Treasury

The Treasury of the Teutonic Order is a collection of art, jewels, swords, and other artifacts belonging to the Order of Teutonic Knights — a group that was formed to protect Christian pilgrims in the Middle Ages.

The Treasury is, to put it simply, usually closed. The good news is that it’s not (in my opinion) a must-see site, even if you do get the inclusive ticket. It’s fine!…but forgettable. If you can’t make the timing work with your schedule, don’t stress about it.

That said, if you do care about visiting the Treasury, here’s when it’s open:

• July through September: 1-3 pm, Mon-Fri
• October to June: 1-3 pm, Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat & 1-5 pm, Tue/Thur

Like I said…hardly ever open!

The entrance to the Treasury is a little tricky to find — head to the location marked on the map above, walk toward the back of the courtyard, enter the door in the righthand corner, and walk up the stairs until you find the door with the Treasury sign.

Cathedral Museum

The all-inclusive ticket to St. Stephen’s also includes access to the cathedral museum, which otherwise costs €1.50. (If you don’t buy the all-inclusive ticket but do want to visit the cathedral museum, head straight to the museum — rather than the cathedral — to buy your museum ticket.)

The cathedral museum, or Dom Museum, houses art and other treasures belonging to St. Stephen’s and the archdiocese of Vienna.

More Tips for Visiting St. Stephen’s

Is it worth buying an all-inclusive ticket for St. Stephen’s?

That depends on what you’re interested in.

For example, I wanted to see the inside of the cathedral, tour the catacombs, and visit both towers, so it was cost-effective for me to buy the all-inclusive ticket even without taking the museums into account.

If, in contrast, you only want to see the catacombs and one tower (for example), and don’t care about touring the main part of the cathedral or visiting the museums, then you should just buy the individual tickets for the catacombs and one of the towers.

How long does it take to visit St. Stephen’s Cathedral?

If you plan to visit all six sites, you should set aside around 4 hours. However, you can break up your visits over several days if you like.

Without the museums, a visit to the cathedral, the catacombs, and two towers takes around 2-2.5 hours (depending on the timing of catacombs tours, any lines at the towers, etc.).

Can you visit the sites in any order?

Yup, you get to choose when to visit each site — which is a good thing, since some of them have limited opening hours. Personally, I visited the sites in a sort of haphazard order in order to (1) catch the Treasury before it closed and (2) squeeze into the one catacombs tour with timing that worked for me.

But if you’re looking for the most efficient and logical order for visiting the St. Stephen’s sites, it’s this:

1. Cathedral
2. North Tower
3. Catacombs
4. South Tower
5. Treasury
6. Dom Museum

Guided Tour Options

If you’d like to experience the cathedral with a guided tour, there are several options.

First, as I mentioned above, a English-speaking guided tour of the cathedral’s interior is held at 10:30 am each day from Monday to Friday.

Or, for a unique cathedral experience, you can book a special tour that includes access to a hidden tunnel, the attic, and another part of the rooftop — all locations you aren’t able to visit with the normal visit! However, note that this tour is held only in German.

Check availability for the German-speaking rooftop tour here:

Final Thoughts on Visiting St. Stephen’s Cathedral

Don’t visit Vienna without experiencing St. Stephen’s Cathedral!

If you’re interested in all the cathedral has to offer, the all-inclusive ticket is well worth the cost. But if you’d like to get just a well-rounded sampler of the cathedral’s sites, I recommend buying tickets for the catacombs and the South Tower (or the North Tower, if you’re not able to climb the South Tower’s steps).

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