Vienna

With its magnificent gardens, this former residence of Prince Eugen von Savoyen is one of the most beautiful Baroque ensembles in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Upper Belvedere houses the world’s largest collection of paintings by Klimt, including the Art Nouveau icons “The Kiss” and “Judith.” It also contains masterpieces by Schiele, Kokoschka, Waldmüller, Renoir, Monet and Van Gogh as well as important collections of works from the 19th and 20th centuries, the Baroque and the Middle Ages. Top-quality special exhibitions are put on in the Lower Belvedere and Orangery. The exquisite Baroque garden between the two palaces offers an extraordinary view of Vienna.

The Imperial Palace was the residence of the Habsburg emperor until 1918. From the 13th century until just before the end of the monarchy, the area was fitted out in imperial splendour with its present-day size. The original Gothic building around today’s Schweizerhof was extended on a continuous basis, resulting in an extensive building complex formed of different sections, which contributes an essential character to the appearance of Vienna's Old City. Europe’s largest imperial cultural complex today houses more than two dozen collections of international standing, including the Austrian National Library, the Imperial Treasury, the Imperial Apartments and the Sisi Museum, as well as the Spanish Riding School.

Vienna’s Museums Quartier (MQ) is one of the ten largest cultural districts in the world. At the edge of the Old City, in the former imperial stables, it unites facilities highlighting different fields of art with restaurants, coffeehouses and shops in an area of 60,000 square meters with a combination of Baroque buildings and modern architecture. This has created a colorful and diverse local scene against the backdrop of significant museums and collections.

Albertina, Habsburg’s enormous collection of graphic arts, houses works by Dürer and Rubens along with masterpieces by Schiele, Cézanne, Klimt, Kokoschka, Picasso and Rauschenberg. The show “Masterworks of Modernism: The Batliner Collection” illustrates the progression from Monet and Picasso to Gerhard Richter and Georg Baselitz and presents highlights from the last 130 years of art history. Albertina also has a collection of architectural works and photos (including Helmut Newton and Lisette Model among others), which are on display in special exhibitions.

A visit to Vienna’s most famous palace is a must for art lovers. The Baroque building structures have been preserved with “Viennese Charm" and host the 1,441 rooms that were once inhabited by the imperial family – 40 of which you can still admire during the guided tours today. Explore the architectural treasures of the Palace Gardens, such as the Palm House and the the oldest zoo in the world, built in 1752 by Emperor Franz I.