Vienna Things to Do Tips by Paul2001

Visit the Kunsthistorisches Museum.
This is one of the world's great art gallery. What makes it special is not its size but the quality of the works. The paintings that you see here are by artists at their very best. Particularly notable are the works of Pieter Bruegel of which this is suppose to be the largest collection in the world. It's worth going to Vienna just to vist this gallery.
The museum also contains an interesting collection of Egyptian, Roman and Greek artifacts. Unfortunately I was not able to see much of these last sections as the museum was closing up for the night. This brings up the entrance times and fees for the Museum which are:Entrance fees

Tuesday - Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Thursday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. (Picture galleries)

Cost of Entry is:
Adults € 10,00
Reduced rate € 7,50
Vienna Card Holder € 9,00
Family Ticket € 20,00
Groups of 10 or more € 7,00
Guided tours € 2,00
Pupils in school group € 2,00
Guided tour for school group € 34,00
Audio guide € 2,00

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Phone: (+43 1) 525 24-0
Address: A1010 Vienna, Maria Theresien-Platz
Directions: On the Ringstrasse
Website: www.khm.at

The Hofburg is the Court Palace is of the Hapsburg Empire. Although the palace itself dates from the 12th century, there have been so many additions and renovations through out the centuries one cannot see much of its medieval past. This being the case it is hard to say where to begin when seeing the Hofburg. It is in fact made up of several different galleries and museum. You will have to decide which ones you want to see. I visited the Schatzkammer where you can view the crown jewels of the Hapburg Empire. I highly recommend that you do so, as they are stunning.
The Hofburg also has a Museum of Ethnology, a Museum of Early Musical Instruments and a collection of arms and hunting weapons which I also visited.

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Directions: Southwest corner of the Innere Stadt.

The Stephansdom is the city cathedral of Vienna. It is distinguished by it's magnificant multicoloured roof and by it's 137m high south tower. Since there are few actual skyscrapers in Vienna, the cathedral still dominates skyline as it has since it was begun in the 12th century. The construction of structure as a hole has been something of a piecemeal effort. Parts of the interior such as the choir were only completed in the 20th century. Hence the fact that the cathedral incorporates so many different styles of architecture and design, from Romanesque to Neo-Gothic.
Amazingly despite all the numerous sieges and battles that have been hosted in Vienna, the cathedral has suffered little war damage.

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Directions: Located in the Stephansplatz in central Vienna.

The Schonbrunn Palace is the Hapsburgs Empires response the France's Versailles. The palace was begun in 1700 by Emperor Leopold. Successive sections where added onto the palace throughtout the 18th century. By the time of its completion the Schonbrunn had become one of the finest examples of Baroque and Rococo architecuture and design in Europe.
The palace consists of over 1500 rooms. You can only see just a small portion of that number on a tour only. They start out from near the main entrance into the palace quite frequently and are conducted in all the major languages of Europe. Tours are conducted in Japanese too. My tour was excellent and I highly recommend it.
Outside of the Schonbrunn Palace itself is an extensive park that includes a zoo on the premises. The park is about 1.5 square kilometers with well maintained gardens and ponds decorated with fountains. It is lots of fun to wander around in.
I have included more pictures of mine of the Schonbrunn palace in a travelogue section.

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Directions: Take the U4 metro line to the Schonbrunn station from which it is only a short walk.
Website: www.schoenbrunn.at

The Karlskirck is Vienna's most famous baroque church. It is especially notable for the green copper dome that soars 236 feet high. The interior is typically decorated in the eloborate, almost over the top, baroque manner. Also quite famous are the two exterior columns that are at the entrance of the church. They are supposed to be variations of Roman columns of ancient times.
The church was begun in 1716 by Johann Bernard Fischer von Erlach and completed in 1737 by his son Joseph Emanuel.

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Phone: 01-504-6187
Address: Karlplatz
Directions: Ubahn Karlplatz. Southwest of the Ring.

The Belvedere Palace was completed in 1723 as sort of a gift for Prince Eugene of Savoy, the great military commander and close ally of the Duke of Marlborough. The grounds of consists of two mansions between which beautiful gardens. The gardens and ponds lead from the Unteres(Lower) Palace lead up a gentle slop of hill to the Oberes(Upper) Palace. Inside these two palaces are the Osterreichische Galerie Belevdre which is basically a collection of Austrian art. The Orangery which is in a seperate building holds a collection of medieval art. In the Lower Palace there is a collection of Baroque era art. Unfortunately this was closed for renovations during my visit. But the Upper Palace was thankfully open for this is where some of the most important and familiar pieces of Austrian art are exhibited. This Upper Palace is holds the collection of 19th and 20th century art and most notably Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss". This painting is so magnificent that you can easily forget that the rest of the collection in this palace is quite strong. There are several more pieces by Klimt and also by Egon Schiele. There are also works by non-Austrians in the collection with Van Gogh, Ensor and Freidrich being represented.

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Phone: (01) 79557
Address: Prinz Eugenstrasse 27
Directions: U-Bahn Sudbahnhof, tram D will take you to the Palace which is located Southeast of the city centre ring.
Website: www.belvedere.at

Although not a proper tourist attraction, everyone who visits Vienna seems to end up at the Hundertwasserhaus. This wild jumble of building blocks all brightly coloured in bright blues, amber, whites and pinks, is actually an apartment block. People live here and do not bother to make the effort to attempt to visit the interior of the apartments. You will not be allowed in. Instead you will have to make do with sitting in one of the cafes outside of the Hundertwasserhaus in a pedestrian mall and gazing up at it.
Besides the odd colours, you can see a hodgepodge other eccentric ideas like the growing of trees right outside of the appartment window. Another thing that I noticed was the noise in the neighborhood. Not a peaceful place to live.
You also might note the advertisement for a exhibition by Annie Liebovitz in the foreground. This was going on in another Hunderwasser designed building a couple of blocks away. I visited that two.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser was sort of a spaced out architect who besides designing buildings that were against the norm in design also wanted incorporate environmently friendly concepts to his buildings.

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Address: great and unique architecture
Directions: On the corner of Lowengrass and Kegelgrasse.

The Kunsthaus is one of the more interesting 20th century buildings in Vienna. Designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the Kunsthaus was transformed from a chair factory into an art gallery. Like all of Friedensreich Hundertwasser's works, the design of the building is highly unconventional. The floors are uneven and do not have straight corners. There are plants growing out of the bare floor. The windows were built in all kinds of shapes and sizes with no two the same and the facade has been painted in somekind of checkerboard manner. I thought that this was all alot a fun but the real reason I visited the building was to see an exhibition feature the works of photographer, Annie Leibowiz. This was quite a good and very popular show. It was actually held over one week or I would have missed. Although the Kunsthaus has a small pernement collection, it is primarialy and exhibition hall for touring collections. It is open from 10am to 7pm daily and cost 3 Euros to enter.

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Phone: 01/712-04-91
Address: Untere Weissgerberstrasse 13
Website: http://www.hundertwasser.at/

The Naturhistorisches Museum or Natural History Museum is housed in a grand neo-Renaissance. It is probably most notable for it collection of pre-historic artifacts. Beyond that there are the usual displays of stuffed animals and minerals. When I visited there was an exhibit of animated dinosaurs but I believe that this was only temporary. On a whole the museum seemed rather tired and required some restoration.
The museum is open from 9am to 6pm except on Tuesday when it is closed. It cost 2.15 Euros to visit.

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Phone: 01/521770
Address: Maria-Theresien Platz, Burgring 5
Directions: The museum is located on the outer perimeter of Ringstrasse
Website: http://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/

While wandering around the Hoher Market section of central Vienna one has to take in the Anker Clock. The wonderful clock was designed in 1914 by Franz Matsch. Each hour a cutout figure, significant people in the history of Vienna such as Mozart and Marcus Aurelius, march out around the face of the clock. At noon all twelve figure proceed around the clock. This draws lots of tourists. Take note when photographing this clock. I stood virtually in city traffic to take this shot so be careful if you want to take a photo.
The clock sits on a bridge between two buildings that are owned by the Anker Insurance Company.

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Directions: The Hoher Markt