If you are very familiar with Vienna....

[secondhoneymoon]

... what would you recommend that isn't in the guidebooks?
Going there for a long weekend. We have guidebooks but know from experience local knowledge leads to restaurants/bars/activities/sights etc that only locals would know about. Any suggestions welcome. We'll be there for 3 days, happy to travel outside of the city if accessible by public transport and really well worth it.

Take a trip to my favourite restaurant at the end of a tram line (plus a short walk) on the edge of the Wienerwald (Vienna Woods). The Wirsthaus Steirstockl is great, take the 41 tram from Schottentor (start point for this line) to it's end stop at Pötzleinsdorf then a short (uphill) walk to the restaurant. .

Another trip is to take the U4 (U-Bhan) to the last stop at Heiligenstadt then the 38A bus (all on the same ticket) up in to the Vienna Woods. You can then walk to Am Himmel for a coffee and the view over the city followed by a walk down through the vineyards into Grinzing to visit a Heurigen. The 38 tram then takes you back to the city centre. Alternatively stay (or get back on) on the 38A bus to its end stop at Kahlenberg for another great view, then walk down through the vineyards to Nussdorf where you can catch the D tram back to the city centre.

Great tips, thank you both

It sounds silly, but going round the city on the tram is quite a good way to get the atmosphere.

We loved going to the cafe centrale where Herr Bronstein aka Trotsky planned the Russian Revolution, much to the amused disbelief of the secret police who didn't think he could organise a milk shake in a dairy..it's v atmospheric

I know it's v touristy but there's nothing quite like having sachertorte at the Hotel sacher... mind you, it triggered migraines resulting from chocolate in me for ever...( might just have eaten too much?..)

We found tickets to the opera, short notice.

If you are going round the cathedral, the Stephansdom, the following is a brilliant traditional sandwich bar: not cheap but yummy, v close.
www.trzesniewski.at/

Recommend the Jewish museum. Also the art museum and the albertina.

If you are going in Lent, there will be brilliant classical music comvined with meditation in the churches.

When are you going? I used to live in Grinzing - you should definitely go there and drink rough wine in the Heurige.

Cafe Centrale is a must.

Drink Almdudler (Austrian pop), the local wine, and eat Topfenstrudel, which is my favourite cake.

You could get the boat to Bratislava.

I know I've suggested touristy things in part, but glad to see the cafe centrale meets approval... we haunted it. And not huge numbers of tourists there, some, but more just ordinary people doing ordinary things, reading the paper, meeting friends, in this amazing ambience.

more great suggestions - and the suggestion re tram is a good one not silly - we sat on a vaparetto all the way round Venice and that was amazing (and cheap!).
We're going in June.

Medical museum is also interesting. When I went there many years ago, they had a permanent exhibition that took credit for loads of Austrians who won Nobel prizes, without mentioning that they'd been thrown out of the country in 1938 and had been living abroad for many years at the time the awards were received....

If you can get to the opera it is amazing. You can get last minute tickets and standing tickets for a reasonable price. There is also a fantastic wurst stand behind the opera house, Bitzinger’s Würstelstand, have the kasse (?) cheese sausage, if you liek that thing?

There are some excellent brew houses, it was a few years ago we went so check online for the current best rated.

The Naschmarkt was fantastic with lots of great food.

We also went to Prater Park which was great.

Loved Vienna, we went there for our honeymoon and woudl love to go back.

Oh and Kunst Haus Wien was a lovely gallery. Fantastic building and a really nice little courtyard cafe.

Very much agree with bus 38A up to Kahlenberg and walking back down through the vineyards to Nußdorf, that's a favourite family walk for us on sunny days.

Another pleasant spot that's easy to reach by public transport is Alte Donau, a former side-arm of the Danube; now a large, elongated lake with cafés and restaurants dotted around the shore. Also boat/pedalo hire if you fancy taking to the water. Best shore for strolling is the one furthest away from city centre: take U1 to Alte Donau, cross the bridge and then take it from there.

7th and 8th districts for small boutiques, shops, cafés with boho vibe close to city centre. Take U2 to Volkstheater and walk up Burggasse or U3 to Neubaugasse and walk up Neubaugasse itself, detouring along side streets as fancy takes you!

You can also do a Third Man tour. Someone I knew came out to Vienna for a flying visit, got in a taxi and asked the driver to spend the next couple of hours taking him to see the sights. He drove around the back streets for ages, then stopped and said "This is where you first see Harry Lime!"

And eat here

I would recommend operetta at the Volksoper instead of the Opera House. If you aren't into opera, standing for hours isn't that fun.

Operetta is funny, accessible and very Viennese. The Volksoper is probably the best place to see it.

Have cake at Demel - especially Esterhazytorte. Sachertorte at Hotel Sacher is nice but massively touristy - Demel is better.

Also check out other cafes and their specialties - Cafe Hawelka brings out Buchteln but only late at night.

Topfenstrudel is nicer than Apfelstrudel but the best Viennese dessert is Kaiserschmarrn.

Also depending when you go, they are obsessed with seasonal food - Spargel season (asparagus), Eierschwammerl season (chanterelle season) and so on.

Sunday mornings the Vienna Boys Choir sing mass at the Hofburgkapelle.

It's free to stand - get there early though! - but you can buy tickets. Very atmospheric going to the Emperor's chapel even if you aren't religious, which about 95% of the people there won't be.

Not very familiar but we were there a couple of weeks ago.

This was our favourite restaurant of our trip.

Totally agree with Cafe Central recommendations, tourist or resident. My other tip, regardless if you are travelling with children or not, is the zoo, the oldest in the world with lovely architecture.......I appreciate that not everyone supports the idea of zoos.

Burg.ring 1 restaurant is lovely. Nearby is a little cinema that shows films in English (the Apollo?)

Thank you all, great tips making me very excited!