Austria · Arlberg, Ötztal & Vorarlberg · Travel guide
What a festival evening on the lake stage really costs, why Bregenz is worth a trip even without the opera, and how you can be sitting over cheese in the Bregenzerwald 1.5 hours after leaving Zurich.
Photo: Wolfgang Weiser / Pexels
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Estimates for orientation, not booking prices. Getting there means train or car from Switzerland, return, per person. Hotels vary strongly by season: current prices are behind the links below.
Money & payment: You pay in euros (EUR). Cards work almost everywhere; mountain huts and sausage stands often want cash. Tipping is expected: 5 to 10 percent, by naming the rounded total when you pay. In ski resorts a visitor tax of EUR 2 to 4 per night is added to the hotel price. Getting there: By train (ÖBB Railjet), car or a flight to Vienna, 2 to 8 hours.
Nine options in three price ranges, each among the best-rated on Booking.com.
Budget
Family and youth hotel on the western edge of town, a few steps from the lakeshore and the lido, 15 minutes on foot to the lake stage. Simple, clean rooms, breakfast buffet, bikes for hire. For families and anyone on a small budget.
Three-star house on Kornmarktstrasse, five minutes to the station and the lake. Plain rooms, good breakfast, family-run, no restaurant. For festival guests who want to sleep centrally and need the money for the tickets.
Large inn with hotel operation in Mehrerau, about 1.5 kilometres west of the centre, on foot to the Festspielhaus and the lakeshore. Rooms without frills, Austrian cooking in house, free parking. For drivers and one or two nights around a festival evening.
Mid-range
Four-star house with a long history between the station and the Kornmarkt, with sauna, good breakfast and recently renovated rooms. Five minutes to the lake stage. For couples and festival guests who want to stay central and quiet.
Four-star hotel on the edge of town towards the Pfänder with a large garden, pool and well-known cooking, town bus at the door. Quieter than the centre, free parking. For those arriving by car and anyone exploring the Bregenzerwald from Bregenz.
Chain hotel right at the station and on the lakeshore, modern rooms, some with lake views, sauna in house. Five minutes to the lake stage, three to the boat. For train travellers who want to get to the opera and back without detours.
Luxury
Four-star superior house right on the lakeshore in Lochau, with its own beach, bathhouse on stilts in the lake, spa and restaurant with lake views. Ten minutes to the lake stage by bus or bike. For a weekend by the water with opera in the evening.
Traditional house in Bezau, turned by the Kaufmann family into a wellness hotel with Vorarlberg timber architecture, a large spa and award-winning cooking. 45 minutes from Bregenz. For guests who want Bregenz in the evening and the Wald by day.
Grand hotel from 1854 right on the harbour of Lindau with views of the lion, lighthouse and the Alps, with rooftop pool and classic service. Minutes from Bregenz by train or boat. For anyone combining the festival with a grand hotel night.
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Open-air opera in front of 7,000 spectators, mid-July to mid-August, start 9.15 pm. Tickets CHF 30 to 450, middle categories from CHF 100 are the best. Buy the autumn before; during the week tickets stay available longer.
Behind the scenes of the stage set by day, with technology, acoustics and history, around one hour, admission about CHF 10, free with the leisure card. Also outside the festival season, as long as the set is standing, so usually until the autumn of the second year.
Cable car from the town centre to 1,064 metres with views over the whole of Lake Constance and 240 peaks, return trip around CHF 16. At the top a free alpine wildlife park, birds of prey show in summer CHF 8, hiking trails. Walk down in 90 minutes, two to three hours in all.
Glass cube by Peter Zumthor on the lakeshore with four major changing exhibitions of international contemporary art a year. Admission around CHF 12, combined ticket with the Vorarlberg Museum CHF 14, guided tours at the weekend. An hour and a half; the building alone is worth the visit.
State museum at the Kornmarkt with Roman Brigantium, Angelika Kauffmann, everyday culture and architecture of Vorarlberg, in a building with a facade of concrete blossoms. Admission around CHF 10, free on the first Sunday of the month, two hours with café on the top floor.
By scheduled boat from Bregenz harbour in 30 minutes to the island of Lindau, single trip around CHF 12, free with the leisure card. Harbour with lion and lighthouse, old town with Maximilianstrasse, back by train in ten minutes. Half a day; in the evening the island is empty.
Maturing cellar with 30,000 wheels of Bregenzerwald mountain cheese, tour with tasting around CHF 10, farm shop next door. By Landbus one hour from Bregenz, by car 35 minutes. Combine with Schwarzenberg and Bezau for a day in the Bregenzerwald.
Gorge with walkways, waterfall and the Staufensee, 15 minutes by train from Bregenz, entrance at Gütle. Free, one hour to the lake, two to three with the way back. Next door the Rolls-Royce Museum (CHF 12) and in Dornbirn the inatura for children (CHF 13).
Architecture walks through the timber-built villages with explanatory steles, plus the Werkraum Bregenzerwald by Peter Zumthor in Andelsbuch (admission around CHF 8) and the Angelika Kauffmann Museum in Schwarzenberg (CHF 8). Free to walk, half a day per village.
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Vorarlberg eats differently from the rest of Austria: Alemannic, with cheese, maize semolina and fish from the lake, closer to eastern Switzerland and the Allgäu than to Vienna. Bregenz has the whitefish and the Kornmarkt, the Bregenzerwald has 150 dairies and inns where farmhouse cooking is done to award-winning standard. It is only expensive at the harbour with a lake view.
Vorarlberg cheese spätzle with Bergkäse, Rässkäse and Sura Kees, fried onions and potato salad, served in the pan. CHF 15 to 20 (about EUR 16 to 21), the national dish of the state.
Tip:In the Bregenzerwald they come with apple sauce, which is part of the dish and not a dessert.
Whitefish fillet from the lake, fried or "meunière", with potatoes and salad. At the harbour CHF 28 to 34, in the inns of the town centre CHF 22 to 26. Freshly caught from May to October.
Tip:Ask whether the fish is from Lake Constance; with whitefish that is no longer a given.
Hay-milk hard cheese from the village dairies of the Wald, from mild (six months) to sharp (more than two years). As a platter CHF 14 to 18, in the farm shop CHF 18 to 24 a kilo.
Tip:The weekly market on the Kornmarktplatz in Bregenz is on Tuesday and Friday mornings.
Maize semolina, roasted in butter and fried until crumbly, with apple sauce, sugar or milky coffee. The Vorarlberg farmer's breakfast, today CHF 9 to 13 as a sweet dish.
Tip:You will hardly find it outside Vorarlberg, so try it here or never.
Tangy low-fat cheese from the Montafon, marinated or as the base for Vorarlberg cheese soup with bread croutons. Soup CHF 8 to 11, cheese as a snack CHF 9 to 12.
Tip:The cheese soup is the right way in; the marinated cheese is for the advanced.
Small yeast cakes fried in fat, with sugar and cinnamon, traditionally on Funkensonntag in February, when bonfires burn across the state. CHF 3 to 5 a piece, in bakeries all year round.
Tip:On Funkensonntag after carnival they are free at the fire, with hot mulled cider.
Fine brandy from the Subirer pear, an old Vorarlberg cider pear, plus kirsch and Williams from the Rhine valley. A shot CHF 4 to 6, a bottle from the distillery CHF 30 to 50.
Tip:The Subirer is one of the most distinctive products of Vorarlberg, almost unknown in Switzerland.
The classic in Vorarlberg too, on the Pfänder fresh from the pan with views over the lake. CHF 12 to 15, a little more on the mountain.
Tip:On the Pfänder in the afternoon, when the lunch guests have gone and the lake lies in the backlight.
Through markets and eateries with a guide, tastings included.
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Bregenz is one of the oldest towns on Lake Constance. The Celts called the place Brigantion, the Romans turned it into Brigantium around 15 BC, a harbour with a naval base whose remains you can see in the Vorarlberg Museum. In the Middle Ages the Counts of Bregenz and later the Montforts sat on the Oberstadt, the fortified hill above the lake, which with its town wall, Martinsturm and half-timbered houses is still a village of its own within the town. In 1451 and 1523 the counts sold the town in two halves to the Habsburgs, and Bregenz remained Austrian until 1918, with a brief Bavarian period under Napoleon. In 1726 the Martinsturm received its onion dome, the largest baroque dome in Central Europe. The 19th century brought the textile industry, the railway from Lindau and Munich (1872), the harbour for the steamships and the Pfänderbahn (1927), one of the first cable cars in Austria. In 1946, in the first summer after the war, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra played Mozart's "Bastien und Bastienne" on two gravel barges in the Gondelhafen: the birth of the Bregenz Festival. In 1950 the first permanent lake stage was built, in 1980 the Festspielhaus, and since the 1990s the stage sets have been world famous, with the giant eye from "Tosca" (2007, which appeared in the James Bond film "Quantum of Solace") and the clown's head from "Rigoletto" (2019). In 1997 Peter Zumthor's Kunsthaus Bregenz opened, a glass cube by the lake that drew the architecture world and made Vorarlberg the place where timber construction and modern architecture came together. Today Bregenz has 30,000 inhabitants, is the smallest state capital in Austria and lies closer to Zurich than to Innsbruck.
From Zurich HB the ÖBB Railjet or the Eurocity runs via St. Margrethen to Bregenz, journey time 1 hour 30 to 1 hour 50 minutes, usually with a change in St. Margrethen or direct via Lindau towards Munich. With a Half Fare Card the single fare is around CHF 20 to 25 (about EUR 21 to 27), with a Supersaver ticket from CHF 12; the stretch to St. Margrethen is on the Swiss tariff, the rest on the Austrian one, and you buy the through ticket from SBB. From St. Gallen it is 40 minutes. Bregenz station lies right by the lake, five minutes on foot from the lake stage, harbour and town centre. By car you need 1 hour 30 minutes from Zurich on the A1 and over the St. Margrethen border crossing, Austrian vignette for 10 days CHF 12; in Bregenz parking costs CHF 2 to 3 an hour, day parking at the Festspielhaus CHF 10 to 15. In town you do not need a car, everything lies within walking distance along the lakeshore, and the town bus is free with the guest card. The car is worth having for the Bregenzerwald, where the Landbus runs well (Bregenz to Bezau 50 minutes, line 40 to Egg and beyond), but for cheese cellars, farm shops and the villages in between your own transport is more convenient. To Lindau you go by boat, train or along the lakeside cycle path.
The Bregenz Festival runs from mid-July to mid-August and stages a new opera on the lake stage in front of 7,000 spectators every two years, in 2025 and 2026 it is "Der Freischütz", plus a rarely performed opera and concerts in the Festspielhaus. Tickets cost CHF 30 to 50 (about EUR 32 to 54) in the back rows, CHF 100 to 160 in the middle and up to CHF 450 at the front; the middle categories are the best, because the stage is built for the back rows and at the front you crane your neck. Advance sales start in the autumn of the previous year, weekends sell out in spring, and during the week tickets are available until shortly before. The performance begins at nightfall at 9.15 pm and lasts around two hours without an interval; in rain it moves into the Festspielhaus, where only the top categories find a seat and the rest get their money back. Dress warmly: by the lake it cools to 15 degrees after 10 pm even in July, and blankets can be hired. Afterwards no train runs to Switzerland (last connection around 10 pm), so you stay overnight in Bregenz or Lindau, and hotel prices double on festival evenings; if you accept an hour's drive, you stay more cheaply in Dornbirn or in the Bregenzerwald. The daytime lake stage tour costs around CHF 10 and shows you the technology, also outside the season.
Bregenz has fewer hotels than you would think, and during the festival and the Dornbirn trade fair they are full. Outside those times a mid-range double room costs CHF 130 to 180 (about EUR 139 to 193), a simple hotel CHF 90 to 120, the lakeside hotel in Lochau from CHF 250. On festival evenings expect double that and minimum stays of two nights. Location: between the station, Kornmarkt and lakeshore you are in the thick of it and five minutes from the lake stage. The Oberstadt is quiet, pretty and a steep walk from the lake. Lochau, three kilometres towards Lindau, has the Kaiserstrand with the lakeside hotel and the bathhouse on stilts, a place for a long weekend. Lindau on the German side, ten minutes by train, has the prettier old town on the island and often still has rooms free during the festival; German prices are similar to Austrian ones. The best alternative, though, is the Bregenzerwald, 30 to 50 minutes away: inns in Schwarzenberg, Bezau, Mellau and Schoppernau in the famous timber architecture, from CHF 120 with breakfast to CHF 350 at a design hotel, with the Bregenzerwald Card in summer for free lifts and buses. Booking: for festival evenings the winter before, otherwise two to four weeks is enough; in the Bregenzerwald, two months ahead for the summer holidays.
Bregenz is cheap for the Swiss, and the few traps are obvious: hotel prices on festival evenings, parking in the centre and restaurants with lake views at the harbour, where the whitefish fillet costs CHF 32 (about EUR 34) instead of CHF 24. The money savers, by contrast, are simple. The Bodensee-Vorarlberg leisure card (3 days around CHF 65) makes the Pfänderbahn, boat trips on the whole of Lake Constance, the Kunsthaus, the Vorarlberg Museum, the inatura in Dornbirn, the lake stage tour and all buses and trains in Vorarlberg free, and from two cable cars and one boat it has paid for itself. The Vorarlberg Museum and the Kunsthaus have a combined ticket for around CHF 14, and on the first Sunday of the month the Vorarlberg Museum is free. The Pfänderbahn costs CHF 16 return; the walk up takes 90 minutes and is free. Food: lunch menus in the town centre and at the Kornmarkt cost CHF 12 to 16, in the evening you pay CHF 20 to 30 for a main course, well below Zurich. In the Bregenzerwald, guests staying three nights or more in summer get the Bregenzerwald Card with all lifts and buses, and the farm shops on the cheese road sell mountain cheese for CHF 18 to 24 a kilo, which costs twice as much in Switzerland; the duty-free allowance is CHF 150 per person, and cheese is free up to 1 kilo. Petrol in Vorarlberg costs CHF 1.55 to 1.65 a litre, around 15 rappen less than in Switzerland.
Bregenz has two faces. From mid-July to mid-August the festival dominates: the town is full, the hotels expensive, the harbour in the evening a promenade with a glass of sparkling wine, the weather mostly warm, the lake 22 to 24 degrees. If you want the opera, come then, preferably during the week. For everything else, May, June, September and October are better: the Pfänder with clear views, the lakeshore without crowds, hotels at normal prices, and in the Bregenzerwald the meadows bloom in June and in September the cattle come down from the alps, with processions in Schwarzenberg and Bezau. July without a festival ticket is the worst deal: high prices without the reason for them. Autumn often brings fog over the lake, and then the Pfänder above the fog blanket is the right address, with distant views of 240 peaks. Winter in Bregenz itself is quiet, with a small Christmas market at the Kornmarkt and ice skating; the Bregenzerwald then becomes a ski region with Damüls-Mellau (109 kilometres of pistes, day ticket around CHF 65, about EUR 70) and the family mountains of Bezau and Andelsbuch, and with Warth-Schröcken at its upper end even part of Ski Arlberg. The Lake Constance boats run from April to October, in winter only at weekends and on a reduced timetable. The Dornbirn trade fair in September and the autumn fair fill the hotels of the whole region at short notice.
The Bregenzerwald is the real treasure of this region: two dozen villages between 600 and 1,500 metres with a timber building culture that draws architects from around the world, dairies that still make cheese by hand, and inns where Vorarlberg cooking is done to award-winning standard. The cheese road is not a road but an association of 150 businesses; the compulsory stop is the cheese cellar in Lingenau, where 30,000 wheels of mountain cheese mature, tour around CHF 10 (about EUR 11) with tasting. Schwarzenberg with the Angelika Kauffmann Museum and the Gasthof Hirschen, Bezau with the Bezau lift up to the Baumgartenhöhe, Andelsbuch with the Werkraum Bregenzerwald (a crafts building by Peter Zumthor) and Schoppernau with the Diedamskopf are the four villages for a first day. The Bregenzerwald Umgang is a series of architecture walks through twelve villages, explained on steles, free. Lindau next door is an old town on an island with harbour, lion and lighthouse, 30 minutes by boat; in the evening after 6 pm the day trippers are gone. Dornbirn, 15 minutes by train, has the inatura (natural history museum for children, CHF 13), the Rappenloch gorge with walkway and waterfall (free, one hour) and the Rolls-Royce Museum with the largest collection of the marque. And in Bregenz itself: the Oberstadt with the Martinsturm (CHF 5), the Gebhardsberg with castle ruins above the town, and the Pipeline, the lakeside path towards Lochau where the people of Bregenz go swimming.
By train from Zurich HB in 1 hour 30 to 1 hour 50 minutes via St. Margrethen, with a Half Fare Card CHF 20 to 25 each way (about EUR 21 to 27), with a Supersaver ticket from CHF 12. The station is by the lake, five minutes from the lake stage and the centre. By car 1 hour 30 minutes on the A1, vignette CHF 12, parking CHF 10 to 15 a day. In town you do not need a car; for the Bregenzerwald it is convenient, but the Landbus runs well and is free with the guest card.
Tickets CHF 30 to 50 (about EUR 32 to 54) at the back, CHF 100 to 160 in the middle categories, which we recommend, up to CHF 450 at the front. Add a hotel in Bregenz on a festival evening at CHF 200 to 350 for a double room, dinner beforehand CHF 30 to 50 per person. For two people, reckon on CHF 500 to 800 for the evening including the overnight stay and train. Cheaper: come during the week, stay in Dornbirn or the Bregenzerwald, and buy the tickets the autumn before.
In light rain the performance goes ahead outside, rain jacket yes, umbrella no. In heavy rain or a thunderstorm the performance moves into the Festspielhaus, which has around 1,600 seats; only the most expensive categories fit in there, everyone else gets their money back. The decision is usually made shortly before the start, in rare cases in the middle of the performance with a cancellation. There is no insurance, so do not plan a flight to Vienna around the evening, but keep a second evening in reserve.
Yes, as a weekend from Zurich: the Pfänder, Kunsthaus, Vorarlberg Museum, Oberstadt, boat to Lindau and a day in the Bregenzerwald fill two to three days, at prices 20 to 30 per cent below eastern Switzerland. The town itself is small and seen in an afternoon; the appeal lies in the combination of lake, mountain and Wald. May, June, September and October are the best months; in July without a festival ticket you pay the festival surcharge without getting anything for it.
By Landbus from Bregenz or Dornbirn in 40 to 60 minutes to Egg, Schwarzenberg, Bezau and on to Schoppernau, by car in 30 to 50 minutes over the Bödele road or through the Achtal road. You should see the cheese cellar in Lingenau, Schwarzenberg with the Angelika Kauffmann Museum, the Werkraum in Andelsbuch and one cable car, say Bezau or the Diedamskopf. With two to three nights in an inn with timber architecture you get the Bregenzerwald Card with free lifts and buses.
Lindau yes, definitely: ten minutes by train or 30 minutes by boat, the island old town with its harbour is half a day, and there are hardly any customs checks. Konstanz is three to four hours away by boat, by train via St. Margrethen and Romanshorn around 1 hour 45 minutes; doable as a day trip, but long. Better: combine Bregenz with Lindau, Dornbirn and the Bregenzerwald, and visit Konstanz separately from the Swiss side.
The Seebühne on Lake Constance is the largest open-air stage in the world, and the opera on it is a spectacle: gigantic sets standing in the water, fire, divers, acrobats, all amplified through microphones, for 7,000 spectators on the shoreside grandstand. Each production runs for two summers, alongside operas in the Festspielhaus, orchestral concerts and drama. Tickets for the lake stage cost around CHF 35 to 400 (EUR 35 to 420); the cheap categories at the back are surprisingly good since the stage is visible from everywhere, and weekend dates are gone from spring onwards. In rain the performance moves into the Festspielhaus, where only part of the audience fits, so read the rules on that before you buy. Bregenz is sold out and expensive during the festival; Lindau, Dornbirn and the Swiss shore (St. Margrethen, Rorschach) are 10 to 30 minutes away by train.
For travellers: Travel from eastern Switzerland by train; Bregenz is an hour from St. Gallen and trains run back after the performance; a windproof jacket is part of the kit even on warm evenings, as it cools down noticeably by the lake.
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