9 Days in Italy and Austria: Lake Como, Venice, Salzburg and,
Vienna.

Varenna is a small, pastel-painted village rising above the eastern shore of Lake Como. Steep stone alleys wind up from the water, and a waterfront promenade links a string of lakeside gardens.

Vecchia Varenna is a well-regarded restaurant set inside an old stone building at the edge of Varenna's tiny harbour, with tables that sit almost on the water.

Bellagio is an elegant lakeside town perched at the tip of the promontory where Lake Como splits into its two southern arms. It's known for its stepped lanes and hillside gardens, plus a run of grand old hotels along the shore.

Vaporetto Line 1 is the slow local waterbus that runs the entire length of the Grand Canal, stopping at nearly every landing along Venice's main waterway.

Cantine del Vino già Schiavi, known locally as Al Bottegon, is a historic bacaro and wine shop in Dorsoduro, loved for its inventive cicchetti and glasses of wine poured over a well-worn counter.

St Mark's Basilica is the great cathedral of Venice on Piazza San Marco, a dazzling Italo-Byzantine church with more than 700 square metres of golden mosaic covering its interior.

The Rialto Bridge is the oldest and best known of the four bridges spanning Venice's Grand Canal, a single graceful stone arch lined with shops.

The Zattere is a broad, sunlit promenade running along the southern edge of the Dorsoduro district, facing the wide Giudecca Canal in Venice's university neighbourhood.

Trattoria alla Madonna is a long-running, classic Venetian restaurant near the Rialto Bridge, known for traditional seafood and a busy, old-school dining room.

St Peter Stiftskulinarium is a historic restaurant tucked into the walls of St Peter's Abbey in Salzburg's old town, serving refined Austrian cooking in atmospheric, centuries-old rooms.

Hohensalzburg Fortress is a massive medieval castle crowning the hill above Salzburg's old town, one of the largest fully preserved fortresses in Europe.

Getreidegasse is Salzburg's best-known shopping street, a narrow old-town lane lined with tall townhouses and elaborate wrought-iron guild signs, home to the yellow house where Mozart was born.

The Mirabell Palace Gardens are formal baroque gardens in central Salzburg, laid out with geometric flowerbeds and fountains, dotted with statues, and framed by views up to the fortress on the hill.

Augustiner Bräustübl is a vast, cheerful monastery brewery and beer hall in Salzburg's Mülln district, where beer is poured straight from wooden barrels into heavy stone mugs.

St Gilgen is a picturesque village on the shore of the Wolfgangsee, set among the mountains of the Salzkammergut lake district east of Salzburg.

The Ringstrasse is Vienna's grand circular boulevard, a broad tree-lined avenue that loops around the historic centre past a run of monumental palaces, museums, and civic buildings.

Schönbrunn Palace is the former imperial summer residence of the Habsburgs on the edge of Vienna, a sprawling baroque palace of some 1,440 rooms surrounded by vast formal gardens.

The Belvedere is a pair of baroque palaces in Vienna set in tiered formal gardens, now a museum whose collection includes the largest holding of works by Gustav Klimt.

Café Central is one of Vienna's grandest historic coffee houses, set beneath soaring arched ceilings in a 19th-century palace on Herrengasse.

The Hofburg is Vienna's sprawling former imperial palace, right in the middle of the old town, a complex of wings, courtyards, and squares that served as the principal residence of the Habsburg rulers.

The Naschmarkt is Vienna's largest and best-known open-air market, a long run of food stalls, produce stands, and casual eateries stretching for nearly 1.5 kilometres near the city centre.

The Prater is a large public park in Vienna that is home to the Wurstelprater amusement park and its landmark Ferris wheel, the Wiener Riesenrad.

The Vienna State Opera is one of the world's leading opera houses, a grand Ringstrasse landmark that stages a different production nearly every night of its long season.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is Vienna's monumental art museum on the Ringstrasse, holding the imperial Habsburg collections across painting, antiquities, and decorative arts.

Figlmüller is a historic Vienna restaurant near St Stephen's Cathedral, known above all for an enormous Wiener schnitzel pounded thin and fried until it spills over the edge of the plate.