Austria

Vienna rewards slow wandering more than any itinerary. We stumbled onto the Albertina Museum by accident on our first night, looking for a good photo spot at dusk and only realizing afterward we’d found a major museum, not just a staircase. The Belvedere Palace turned out to be three palaces in one, home to the city’s collection of Gustav Klimt. And the Ritz-Carlton Vienna occupies one of the palatial 19th-century buildings along the Ring Boulevard, so the hotel itself reads as part of the historic city rather than separate from it.

Salzburg turns storybook around Christmas, and Hotel Sacher sits right on the Salzach River across from the old town, one of the city’s most prominent addresses. Hotel am Dom is smaller and older still — an 800-year-old building renovated inside but keeping its original wooden beams and stone archways. And Dinner With Mozart, held in the Baroque hall of the St. Peter Stiftskeller monastery cellar, is the kind of themed concert dinner we wouldn’t normally choose, but the setting alone made it worth it.