This visit is an absolute must for everyone visiting the city of Vienna!

The Imperial Apartments and the Imperial Silver Collection at the Vienna Hofburg are among the most important cultural attractions in Vienna. Formerly the winter residence of the Habsburg dynasty, the Hofburg is still today hosting the office rooms of the Austrian president. We cannot disturb our president in his rooms, but what we can look at is anyway much more interesting. During a visit to the state and residential apartments of Emperor Frances Joseph and Empress Elisabeth we will talk about the every day life of the imperial couple as well as about their most private wishes, dreams and desires. Of course, we will also visit the recently opened Sisi Museum that seeks to give the visitor an understanding of the myths and reality surrounding the figure of Empress Elisabeth. Our last station is the Imperial Silver Collection - a fascinating museum containing the porcelain, glass and silverware once used at the imperial banquet table.

This museum visit can be combined with the walking tour "The imperial palace Hofburg"!

Belvedere palace was built from the plan of Prince Eugene of Savoy, and consists of two complexes: Lower Belvedere (1716) and Upper Belvedere (1722). It is widely considered one of the greatest masterworks of Austrian Baroque architecture. Since 1903 the entire building has been used for museum purposes. The museums in the upper and lower palaces offer an excellent and comprehensive survey of Austrian art from the Middle Ages to the present day. The 19th und 20th century collections also include a wealth of international art. In the Upper Belvedere you can see famous works by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet or Vincent van Gogh and appreciate a splendid view of Vienna's inner city. Medieval and baroque works of art are presented in the Lower Palace, where most rooms have been preserved in their original state. During our visit of the Belvedere complex, we will not only look at some of the highlights of these splendid collections of art, but we will also get to talk about some of the most important periods of Austrian history: Archduke Franz Ferdinand who was later to be assassinated by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo used to live here with his family and the signing of the Austrian State Treaty, one of the most important Austrian historical events of the 20th century, took place in the Marble Room of the Upper Belvedere. Signed by ministers from the USSR, US, France, England and the Austrian minister of foreign affairs Leopold Figl, it signaled the beginning of Austrian independence and neutrality as well as the withdrawal of the occupying powers.

This visit can be done in many different ways: We can do a complete overview tour of the Upper and Lower Palaces and the gardens in-between, but if you wish we can also focalize on just the Upper Belvedere and its collection of art. The visit can even be combined with a panoramic sightseeing tour, such as "Vienna by tramway"! 

If you should visit only one museum in Vienna, the treasury is the place to go!

The building of the museum of fine arts (Kunsthistorisches Museum) in Vienna is one of the most important museum buildings in Europe. It was commissioned by the Emperor Francis Joseph I in 1858 as part of his project for enlarging the capital and realized by the architect duo Semper and Hasenauer in the style of the Italian Renaissance. The monumental building was designed not only to house the magnificent art treasures assembled by the Habsburgs over the centuries but also as a suitably impressive setting for them. Today, the objects on display in the museum are divided in eight different collections, ranging from Ancient Egyptian and Greek and Roman Antiquities to the Collections of Medieval Art to the splendid Renaissance and Baroque Collections, some of which are housed in the Hofburg and in Schönbrunn palace due to space limitations in the main building. During our overview tour we shall see the highlights of the picture gallery (masterworks by Arcimboldo, Bellini, Correggio, Giorgione, Mantegna, Parmigianino, Raphael, Tintoretto, Titian, Veronese, Canaletto, Caravaggio, Tiepolo, Hieronymus Bosch, Jan van Eyck, Sir Anthony van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Altdorfer, Cranach, Albrecht Dürer, Pereda, Velázquez and of course the worlds most comprehensive collection of Pieter Bruegel the Elder) as well as some of the most important objects in the other collections. You could spend days in the museum of fine arts without having seen and appreciated all of its exhibits, and it is merely impossible to show everything in the course of one single tour, but that is not at all the intention of this overview tour. The tour is conceived as an introduction to the art collections which you can use as a base for your own further explorations.

This tour is the ideal introduction to the riches of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, but is also suitable for all those who want to see only the highlights in very few time!

The Imperial Crypt (Kaisergruft) lies underneath the Capucine Church and has been the final resting place for the vast majority of Habsburgs for centuries. In all, 146 people are interred here including 31 Emperors, Empresses and Kings. The first was Emperor Mathias, the last being Empress Zita in 1989 (although the Austro-Hungarian Empire ended in November 1918, she retained the title and privileges of an Austrian Empress and was buried with all the imperial pomp and circumstance). The coffins are housed in nine interconnecting vaults, with each sarcophagi fashioned from metal (either pewter or copper) with many being extremely ornate, as are the vaults themselves. The various crypts have different looks depending on when they were built. The founder's crypt is simple in decoration, the Maria Theresia crypt is designed full of baroque splendor and looks more like a mausoleum than a crypt. The new crypt was only built in the 1960s, when the coffins were re-arranged. Certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but an interesting place to visit nonetheless! Wandering around the dark vaults here, you will not only learn a lot about the genealogy of one of Europe most important noble families, but also about the changing culture of the dead through the centuries.

Please note that the imperial crypt is mainly a burial place and therefore not always accessible. We shall have to respect this fact when establishing our visitation program!

St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stepansdom) on the central Stephansplatz is Vienna’s main place of worship, its 136,7 meter high south tower is the city's main landmark. Since there are few actual skyscrapers in Vienna, the cathedral still dominates Vienna's skyline as it has since it was begun in the 12th century. Saint Stephen's has many features that make it quite distinctive. For one, while the south tower was finished in 1433, the north tower remains uncompleted still today and it measures 68,3 meters, only half the height of the south tower. This gives the whole building a unique asymmetric appearance. The north tower houses the "Pummerin", Austria's largest bell, weighing more than 21 tons, made from cannons left by the Turks at the second siege of Vienna in 1683. Extremely characteristic is also the Stephansdom's enormous roof covered by colorful glazed tiles laid in geometric patterns. The interior of the church houses a wealth of art treasures, some of which can only be seen during a guided tour: the red-marble sepulcher of Emperor Frederick III (sculpted from 1467 to 1513 by Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden), the pulpit (a work from 1514-1515 by Anton Pilgram who put his own relief portrait underneath it as his signature), the Altarpiece of Wiener Neustadt (Wiener Neustädter Altar) - a Gothic winged altar from 1447 - and the tomb of Prince Eugene of Savoy, dating from 1754. The catacombs under the Stephansdom are a rather large labyrinth of tunnels and rooms that served as a burial place when the former graveyard at St. Stephen’s square became too small. In World War II the dome was severely damaged, but has been carefully restored.

This visit can be completed climbing the 343 steps up the south tower and enjoying a marvelous view over the city and the tiled roof or taking a lift up the north tower and seeing the great "Pummerin", Austria's largest bell!

Salvador Dalí was born on May 10, 1904 in Figueras, Spain. As an art student in Madrid and Barcelona, Dalí assimilated a vast number of artistic styles and displayed unusual technical facility as a painter. After having read Sigmund Freud's writings on the erotic significance of subconscious imagery and having established contact with the Paris Surrealists, a group of artists and writers who sought to establish the "greater reality" of man's subconscious over his reason, he became one of the worlds most important artists of all times and especially the worlds best-known Surrealist artist. He depicted a dream world in which commonplace objects are juxtaposed, deformed, or otherwise metamorphosed in a bizarre and irrational fashion. In Vienna's Salvador Dalí - Exhibition we will intensely discuss the life and the works of this outstanding genius and find out more about his relations to André Breton, Paul Eluard, Pablo Picasso, Sigmund Freud, Adolf Hitler, Alice in Wonderland and many others.

Attention: Due to special agreements, this visit is subject to different conditions than those published for all other visits on the "prices"-webpage - the maximum number of participants on this tour is 30, the duration is 1 hour approximately and the price is € 50,- excl. entrance fee!