Explorer Vienne

St. Stephen's Cathedral on Stephansplatz is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Vienna. Its Romanesque and Gothic form was largely begun under Duke Rudolf IV in the 14th century on the site of a church consecrated in 1147, and it is known for its patterned tiled roof and 136-metre south tower.

The Dom Museum Wien is the museum of the Archdiocese of Vienna, housed in the Zwettlhof on Stephansplatz beside St. Stephen's Cathedral. Founded in 1933 and reopened in 2017 after a redesign by Boris Podrecca, it shows the cathedral treasury and medieval sacred art alongside modern and contemporary works from the Otto Mauer Collection.

St. Peter's Church is a Baroque Catholic church on Petersplatz, just off the Graben, built from 1701 to 1733; Gabriele Montani began it and Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt continued the work from 1703. Its green oval dome rises 56 metres, and inside Johann Michael Rottmayr painted the dome fresco. Since 1970 the church has been entrusted to Opus Dei.

The Jewish Museum Vienna presents the history, religion and culture of Vienna's Jews at two sites a short walk apart. The main house in the Palais Eskeles on Dorotheergasse covers Jewish Vienna from the Middle Ages to today, while the Museum Judenplatz shows the excavated remains of the medieval synagogue destroyed in 1421.

The Imperial Crypt lies beneath the Capuchin Church on Neuer Markt and has been the main burial place of the Habsburgs since 1633. Its vaults hold the remains of 145 family members, including 12 emperors and 18 empresses, in metal sarcophagi ranging from plain to richly decorated Rococo work.

The Haus der Musik is a museum of sound and music in the Palace of Archduke Charles on Seilerstätte, opened in 2000. Its interactive rooms explain how sound is made and heard, cover the Vienna Philharmonic, whose founder Otto Nicolai lived in the building, and composers who worked in Vienna, and include a virtual conductor that lets visitors lead an orchestra on screen.

The Spanish Riding School in Vienna's Hofburg preserves classical dressage and trains Lipizzaner horses; it was first named in 1565. Performances take place in the white Winter Riding School, built between 1729 and 1735, and visitors can also watch morning training or join a guided tour of the hall and stables.

The State Hall is the Baroque hall of the former court library in the Hofburg, built from 1723 to 1726 for Emperor Charles VI to plans by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and completed by his son. Under Daniel Gran's dome fresco stand about 200,000 books printed between 1501 and 1850, among them Prince Eugene of Savoy's library.

The Albertina is an art museum in the former Palais Tarouca on the Augustinian Bastion in central Vienna. It holds about 65,000 drawings and around a million prints, alongside photographs and architectural drawings, shows Impressionist and early 20th-century paintings on permanent loan, and opens the palace's Habsburg state rooms.

The Sisi Museum is devoted to Empress Elisabeth of Austria and has been housed since 2004 in the Stephan apartments of the Hofburg, entered from the Michaelerkuppel. Personal belongings of the empress illustrate her life, and the visit continues through the Imperial Apartments, the Habsburgs' winter residence.

The Imperial Treasury in the Hofburg is entered from the Schweizerhof, the oldest courtyard of the palace. In 21 rooms of secular and ecclesiastical collections it shows treasures gathered by the Habsburgs over centuries, including the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire and the crown, orb and sceptre of the Austrian Empire. It belongs to the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

The Hofburg is the former main palace of the Habsburgs in the centre of Vienna, begun in the 13th century and extended over 700 years into a complex of wings and courtyards. It houses the office of the Austrian president, the Imperial Apartments, the Treasury, the Spanish Riding School and the National Library.

The Vienna State Opera on the Ringstrasse was built from 1861 to 1869 to designs by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll and opened as the Court Opera. Rebuilt after bomb damage in 1945, the 1,709-seat house stages opera and ballet nearly every evening of the season and offers guided tours by day.

Heldenplatz is a public square in front of the Hofburg, laid out in the 19th century as part of the never-completed Kaiserforum. It is framed by the curved Neue Hofburg wing and holds equestrian statues of Archduke Charles and Prince Eugene of Savoy by Anton Dominik Fernkorn; in 1938 Hitler announced the Anschluss from the Neue Hofburg's balcony here.

The Weltmuseum Wien is Austria's largest anthropological museum, established in 1876 and housed in the Neue Hofburg wing on Heldenplatz. Known until 2013 as the Museum für Völkerkunde, it holds more than 400,000 ethnographic and archaeological objects from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas, and reopened in 2017 after renovation.

Albertina Modern is the Albertina's museum of modern and contemporary art, opened in May 2020 in the Künstlerhaus on Karlsplatz, a Neo-Renaissance exhibition hall of 1868. It shows changing exhibitions drawn from a collection of art from the early 20th century to the present, including works from the former Essl Collection.

The Burgtheater is Austria's national theatre and stages German-language drama on the Ringstrasse, opposite the City Hall. Its Neo-Renaissance building was designed by Gottfried Semper and Carl von Hasenauer and opened in 1888; Gustav and Ernst Klimt and Franz Matsch painted the ceilings of its two grand staircases.

The Musikverein is a concert hall built for the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna to designs by the Danish-born architect Theophil Hansen and opened in 1870. Its gilded Great Hall, known as the Golden Hall, is the home of the Vienna Philharmonic and the venue of its New Year's Concert; guided tours show the halls on weekdays.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum on Maria-Theresien-Platz was built from 1871 to 1891 to plans by Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer to house the Habsburg art collections. Beneath its 60-metre dome it shows paintings by Bruegel, Dürer, Titian, Rubens and Vermeer, as well as the Kunstkammer, Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities and a coin cabinet.

The Natural History Museum Vienna opened in 1889 in a Neo-Renaissance building by Gottfried Semper and Carl von Hasenauer, facing its twin, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, on Maria-Theresien-Platz. Its halls hold the imperial natural history collections: minerals and meteorites, dinosaur skeletons, mounted animals and the Venus of Willendorf, a figurine about 29,500 years old.