A Beautiful End: Exploring the Vienna Central Cemetery

The Viennese have a notoriously unique relationship with death, often treating it with a mixture of reverence and dark humor known as Schmäh. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery). Far from being a spooky or depressing place, it is one of the city’s most beloved public parks and a massive open-air museum of Art Nouveau architecture.

Spanning nearly 2.5 square kilometers, it is one of the largest cemeteries in the world—hosting a population larger than the living city of Vienna itself. For the visitor, the main draw is the Ehrengräber (honorary graves). Here, you can walk a single path and pay respects to the titans of classical music: Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, and Johann Strauss II are all neighbors here.

However, locals use the space differently. It is common to see joggers, cyclists, and mothers with strollers moving along the tree-lined avenues. The area is so green and quiet that families of deer live among the headstones, often spotted grazing at dusk near the grand Art Nouveau church of St. Charles Borromeo.