SeefeldA wonderful world of water - Austrian National Tourist Office

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sBrandstätte 10
1010 Wien
Tel. + 43 1 535 23 87
Öffnungszeiten:
Mo-Fr 10:00-18:30,
Sa 10:00-17:00
Shop-hours:
Mo-Fr 10 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.,
Sa 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
www.mercerline.at
© ANTO/Diejun/Peter Rigaud
G r a b b i n g g o o d i e s i n A u s t r i a
Shopping in palaces
Both Vienna and Salzburg have city centres that can offer a unique
shopping experience – the joy of a spree in a UNESCO world
heritage site. In Salzburg’s Old Town, Getreidegasse-Street is
renowned as the best place for picking up elegant and traditional
local products. The individual charm of this street comes from the
high, narrow houses – with their wrought iron guild signs on display
– which are nestled tightly together in romantic passageways
and courtyards.
Vienna’s most elegant and luxurious shops, meanwhile,
are also located in the very centre of the Old Town. Outside the
palaces where aristocrats once lived, today visitors shop for fashion
and jewellery but also everyday items. On the narrow cobblestone
streets that have surrounded these palaces for 100 years, stand
elegant shops that have hardly changed in centuries. And the
palaces are still there, too. Some now host luxury hotels, others
are government offices, while several house luxury brands from all
over the world. Old and new have become neighbours, but the
aristocratic flair is still felt all over this part of Vienna; especially
around the streets of Graben, Kohlmarkt and Kärntner Strasse –
also referred to as the “Golden U” – where you can still imagine
the princes shopping a century ago. www.vienna.info
Designer brands for low cost
Usually they‘re far off the beaten path but worth the trip: designer
outlet centres that offer international brands for little money.
In Austria, however, bargain hunters do not have to travel far as
the country‘s two big designer outlet centres are very close to the
cities of Vienna and Salzburg. The Designer Outlet in Salzburg
can be reached by car, taxi or public bus in less than 20 minutes
from the city centre. With architecture reminiscent of the traditional
department stores and shopping arcades of the 19th century,
such as the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, it offers more
than 200 designer brands in around 100 pleasant shops. Salzburg
Designer Outlet sells genuine products of international designer
labels – from sample collections, the previous year’s collections and
from overproduction – for bargain prices.
You can also expect to find big name designer brands discounted
by 30 to 70% at the Parndorf Designer Outlet near Vienna.
It hosts 170 stores offering genuine products from Armani,
Ralph Lauren, Boss and many more. Once again, it can be
easily reached by car but there is also a shuttle bus taking shoppers
right from the city centre to the outlet centre and back. It
starts at the Vienna State Opera and the trip takes about one hour.
www.mcarthurglen.at
Glitter made in Austria
The best place to buy a certain product is always its place of origin.
That‘s why serious “globeshoppers” travel to Milan for their Armani
outfits, to New York for a brand new iPhone, or to Japan for the
special, rare blends of green tea. Travellers to Austria like to take
home Mozart chocolates from Salzburg or handmade shoes from
Ludwig Reiter in Vienna, but the number one souvenir from an
Austrian adventure will always be something glittering and sparkling
– and made by Swarovski.
Founded more than 100 years ago in the small village of
Wattens, close to Innsbruck, Swarovski has become one of the
world‘s most popular and recognisable high-end brands. The two
best, and most spectacular, places to pick up crystals in Austria are:
Swarovski Crystal Worlds, right next to the company’s headquarters
and factory in Wattens, hosts a series of breathtaking “chambers
of wonders” and also the world’s biggest Swarovski store.
Swarovski Wien, in Vienna’s city centre, is sometimes labelled as
the brand‘s “flagship store”, sometimes it‘s described as an “art
gallery” and sometimes it‘s called “the inspirational centre of the
Swarovski brand”. In reality, it is all of these. Crystal connoisseurs
the world over know that no other place on Earth can offer the
spectrum of Swarovski jewellery, accessories, decorations and figurines
that these two venues possess. www.swarovski.com/kristallwelten
www.swarovski.com/vienna
Tourists like to shop for local
products in Austria
Many shops in Vienna – like
this watch shop – are more
than 100 years old and used
to supply the royals of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire
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