informational 6 min read
Visiting the Mauthausen Memorial from Vienna
Updated September 18, 2026
Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp in Upper Austria, in operation from 1938 until its liberation in 1945. The site is now a memorial run by the Austrian state, and it is open to the public.
This page is practical information for people who have decided to go. It is not a recommendation, and there is nothing to book through us.
What the memorial is
The camp site itself, preserved, with the surviving buildings, the quarry and the steps that lead down into it. There are permanent exhibitions and a Room of Names recording the people who were killed here. Memorials also stand at the sites of former subcamps, including Gusen, a few kilometres away.
The memorial’s purpose is documentary and commemorative. It is a place where people were murdered, and it is maintained by people whose work is to make sure that is understood rather than consumed.
Admission and hours
Access to the memorial site is free of charge and possible without registration. That is the memorial’s own wording.
Opening hours, read from the memorial’s own page on 18 September 2026:
| Period | Hours |
|---|---|
| 1 March to 26 October | Daily, 09:00 to 17:30, last entry 16:45 |
| 27 October to 28 February | Tuesday to Sunday, 09:00 to 15:45, last entry 15:30 |
Closed on Mondays in the winter season, and over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Guided tours run in German and English daily at 13:00 in July and August, with Spanish tours on selected dates and Italian in August. Dogs and other animals are not permitted.
Getting there
The route is via Linz rather than direct from Vienna.
Vienna to Linz. ÖBB runs at least two direct trains an hour from Vienna to Linz on the Western Line, with no change. The same line continues to Salzburg, which the fastest railjet reaches in 2 hours 25 minutes, so Linz is comfortably inside that.
Linz to the memorial. Bus line 362 runs from Linz Central Station (bus terminal) via the Gusen Memorial to the Mauthausen Memorial in about 33 minutes. It operates from 1 March to 26 October 2026. The memorial publishes the timetable:
| From Linz Hbf | Arrive Mauthausen |
|---|---|
| 08:15 | 08:48 |
| 09:15 | 09:48 |
| 12:15 | 12:48 |
| 14:45 | 15:18 |
| 16:45 | 17:18 |
| From Mauthausen | Arrive Linz Hbf |
|---|---|
| 10:00 | 10:33 |
| 13:00 | 13:33 |
| 15:30 | 16:03 |
| 17:30 | 18:03 |
Five buses out and four back, which means the whole day hinges on which pair you take. The 09:15 out and the 15:30 back gives you the longest useful visit.
Outside the bus season, 27 October to 28 February, that service does not run and you will need to arrange transport from Mauthausen station or Linz yourself.
By car, free parking is available for cars and buses, with two charging points offering four sockets for electric vehicles.
How long to allow
The memorial does not publish a suggested duration. Based on the bus timetable it publishes, the intended visit is several hours rather than one: the 09:15 out and 13:00 back gives roughly three and a half hours on site, and the 15:30 return gives six.
Three to four hours is a reasonable plan. From Vienna, the whole thing is a full day.
Visiting with children
The memorial’s own guidance is explicit: “We do not advise visiting the Mauthausen Memorial with children under the age of 14.”
We are quoting it rather than paraphrasing it, because it is the memorial’s judgement and not ours to soften.
What is expected of visitors
Nothing complicated, and all of it obvious once stated. This is a cemetery as well as a museum: people died here and many of them have no grave elsewhere.
Dress and behave as you would at any grave. Keep your voice down. Do not eat in the camp area — there is a bistro at the visitor centre. Think hard before photographing yourself, and think about what a photograph of you at this place is for.
Guided visits are available and, if you can take one, are the better way to do it: a guide gives the site a structure and a set of names, which is what stops it being an hour of walking past concrete.
Before you go
Read something first. Arriving with no context makes the site harder to understand, not more affecting. The memorial’s own website carries the historical background and a virtual guide, and an hour with either before you travel changes what the day is.