Koenig Von Ungarn

Koenig Von Ungarn

Sign the guestbook at Hotel König von Ungarn and the names ahead of you include Mozart, Kafka, and Bruckner, guests who passed through this address on Schulerstraße, a few steps behind St. Stephen's Cathedral, since the house began taking travelers in 1764. The crown above the entrance is the Stephanskrone, the emblem the building adopted when it became a Vienna address for Hungarian nobility, and it gave the hotel the name it still carries. Forty-four rooms spread over six floors, each decorated individually, and the pace along this stretch of the old center runs slower than the crowds on Kärntner Straße, three hundred meters away, might suggest. What sets it apart from other hotels in the first district is the penthouse on the seventh floor, whose two private rooftop terraces face the cathedral's tiled roof and the copper-domed north tower, a vantage point few buildings this close to the Stephansdom can offer. Junior suites of around 50 square meters keep mosaic-tiled bathrooms with a corner bathtub, while 24-hour reception, concierge, and one conference hall cover the practical side, and a bar and restaurant handle the rest. It suits travelers who would rather fall asleep two minutes from the cathedral bells than in a tower block on the Ring, since no two of the individually decorated rooms are alike; it will frustrate anyone who wants an identical room on a return visit. Parking is not on site, and the nearest public garage runs 35 euros a day. Mozart wrote of the house in 1781 that he could assure his correspondent it was a wonderful place. Two and a half centuries on, the assessment has not needed revising. Behind St. Stephen's Cathedral since 1764, this is the hotel whose penthouse terraces look straight at the cathedral's copper dome, a view no neighboring address can match. Its 44 rooms are individually decorated, better suited to travelers who want history over uniformity than to anyone chasing a predictable chain room.