Christmas in Austria - Trendstefan

Austria. Once a grand empire, still a place where history, magic, and design come together. With the Alps rising in the background like a painted backdrop. Are the hills really filled with the sound of music? I spent a few days exploring elegant Vienna before heading to Salzburg for a full Christmas-season bonanza. Here’s my report.

Swedes have long adored Austrian designer Josef Frank, and we have an equally devoted relationship with the country’s café culture. A few years back, I staged an exhibition on Austrian design in my gallery, which gave me time to sink into the world of bentwood fantasies and forward-thinkers. Austria thrives on that interplay of old-world craftsmanship and avant-garde curiosity. After all, this is the birthplace of Thonet and Swarovski, and home to heritage treasures like Lobmeyr. Yet it’s also a playground for experimental studios like Mischer’Traxler.

Our trip to Austria started in Vienna for a few days.

Our trip began in Vienna, a city that wears its beauty lightly but confidently. The streets are immaculate—almost suspiciously so.

When you’ve visited a few times, you return to your familiar haunts: American Bar by Adolf Loos, one of Austria’s architectural crown jewels. Still wonderful, still crowded. This time, I carved out pockets of “me time.”

In the city’s commercial heart, you’ll find Austrian institutions like Lobmeyr—think of it as Vienna’s answer to Orrefors. Their delicately hand-painted glasses are the sort of things that take up residence in carefully curated shops like Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm. Their new collection, a collaboration with Laila Gohar, bridges heritage with playful modernity.

These handpainted glasses can be found at fancy stores like Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm.

This is from their latest collection. A collaboration between Laila Gohar and Lobmeyr.

Vienna, being Vienna, serves a constant diet of culture. Marina Abramović exhibitions, the deep wells of art history at the Leopold Museum, the grandeur of the Belvedere—it’s all there, all the time. And yes, the Christmas markets are as charming as the postcards insist. Only in Austria, perhaps, do you stumble upon vending machines that dispense tiny artworks for two euros.

Art history at Leopold Museum

And Belvedere.

I was also invited to join a seminar exploring the relationship between Eastern and Western Europe—a reminder that Vienna, beneath its decorative veneer, is forever a crossroads. Between wienerschnitzel pit stops and design-store wanderings (Die Sellerie deserves the hype), the days filled themselves.

Me at the seminar.

Wienerschnitzel and friends.

These paper piece are gilded and actually from Dresden but I bought some anyway.

Design stores like Die Sellerie on my list of places to check out.

After two days in Vienna we moved over to Salzburg to meet up with my podcast partner Helena Lyth. We are here to explore this town and experience Christmas. All for our podcast about this lovely season.

It didn’t take long before we met one of the season’s more… striking characters: Krampus. A horned, red, unnervingly gleeful figure who accompanies Saint Nikolaus. Sometimes he’s pitch black, sometimes pale, but always alarming. And yet Salzburg’s children behave around him as if he were just another mall Santa with… sharper accessories.

Our first excursion took us to Hellbrunn, a manor about fifteen minutes outside the city center. If my memory serves me, parts of The Sound of Music were filmed here. The estate is beautiful, the Christmas market equally so—fairytale material with a slightly surreal edge.

Back in the city, we found a museum entirely dedicated to Christmas. Yes, an entire museum. Salzburg commits to the season with an admirable sense of purpose. In the Old Town, Christkindl—the big Christmas market—glows in the shadow of the surrounding baroque buildings.