Sisi Museum

The museum in the Hofburg devoted to Empress Elisabeth — Sisi — and the most visited part of the imperial palace.

Elisabeth, a Bavarian duchess, married Franz Joseph in 1854 at the age of sixteen. She spent much of her life travelling away from the Vienna court, obsessed with riding, fitness and her floor-length hair, and was stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist on the Geneva lakefront in 1898. The museum, opened in 2004, sets out to separate the woman from the myth that films and souvenir shops built afterwards: personal objects, her travelling pharmacy, fans and gloves, reconstructions of her dresses and the death mask sit alongside a frank account of her unhappiness at court.

The visit is one route with the Imperial Apartments — the rooms where Franz Joseph worked and Sisi lived, including her dressing and exercise room — and normally the Silver Collection. Checked on sisimuseum-hofburg.at in September 2026, the day ticket is €20 (ages 6–18 €12), about an hour, entry by fixed time slot; the Sisi Pass at €60 adds Schönbrunn and the Furniture Museum. The Silver Collection is being refurbished in autumn 2026.

The rooms are narrow and fill quickly by late morning — book the first slot or come after 15:00, and buy only through the official shop. Plan the wider palace day with Vienna's palaces.