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Cities · Europe · 48°12′N 16°22′E

Vienna

The Habsburgs' collections, and the city where, around 1900, Klimt, Schiele and Loos tore it all up.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow, 1565. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna · Public domain
Best monthsSeptember–November and April–June
Art calendarVienna Art Week (November) · viennacontemporary (September)
This guide4 essentials · 6 places off-piste
EssentialsOff-Piste in ViennaOne dayNearby

Essentials

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow, 1565. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna · Public domain
Museum · Museumsplatz

Kunsthistorisches Museum

The Habsburg collections in a gilded palace, with the largest group of Bruegels anywhere. Klimt painted the spandrels above the staircase.

Look for: Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow, and the skaters in the valley.
Closed Mondays outside summer
Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907–08. Belvedere, Vienna · Public domain
Museum · Landstraße

Belvedere

Prince Eugene's Baroque palaces, holding Klimt's The Kiss and the great Austrian collection.

Look for: Messerschmidt's character heads, grimacing in a room of their own.
Daily
Leopold Museum, Vienna · CC0
Museum · MuseumsQuartier

Leopold Museum

The largest collection of Egon Schiele in the world, with Klimt, Kokoschka and the Wiener Werkstätte.

Look for: Schiele's self-portraits.
Daily
Secession, Vienna · CC BY-SA 4.0
Exhibition hall · Karlsplatz

Secession

The artists' exhibition house of 1898 with its dome of gilded laurel leaves. In the basement, Klimt's Beethoven Frieze.

Look for: The inscription: 'To every age its art, to art its freedom.'
Closed Mondays
Off the list

Off-Piste in Vienna

Rooms, ruins and curiosities: the city's other museum.

Josephinum, Vienna · CC BY-SA 4.0
Unusual museum · Alsergrund

Josephinum

Anatomical wax models commissioned by Joseph II in Florence in the 1780s, in their original rosewood and Venetian glass cases.

The flayed reclining Venus.
Zentralfriedhof, Vienna · CC BY-SA 4.0
Cemetery · Simmering

Zentralfriedhof

One of Europe's largest cemeteries: Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, and Adolf Loos's own cube of a gravestone.

The Art Nouveau church at the centre.
Café Sperl, Vienna · CC BY-SA 3.0
Café · Mariahilf

Café Sperl

An 1880 coffee house of billiard tables and worn banquettes, almost unchanged.

Order a Melange and stay an hour.
Wotruba Church, Vienna · CC BY-SA 4.0
Church · Mauer, 23rd district

Wotruba Church

The sculptor Fritz Wotruba's church of 1976 is a pile of 152 concrete blocks, apparently stacked at random, with light coming in through the gaps.

Go inside on a sunny afternoon.
Loos American Bar, Vienna · Public domain
Interior · Kärntner Durchgang

Loos American Bar

Adolf Loos's tiny bar of 1908, about 27 square metres, with mirrors that make it look like a grand hall.

Order something and count the reflections.
Haus des Meeres, Vienna · CC BY-SA 4.0
Architecture · Mariahilf

Haus des Meeres

One of Vienna's six Second World War flak towers, built so thick it could not be demolished. It now holds an aquarium, with a climbing wall on the outside.

The rooftop café.
Nearby

Klosterneuburg

The abbey and its 12th-century Verdun Altar, 20 minutes away.

If you have one day

Kunsthistorisches Museum at opening → lunch in the museum café under the dome → the Secession → walk to the Belvedere for the end of the afternoon.

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