Vienna Museums Guide: The Best Collections by Interest

The short version

Vienna has more great museums than any visitor can see, and the mistake almost everyone makes is trying. Choose by interest, give one collection a full morning, and leave space for coffee afterwards. The honest shortlist:

• Old Masters and imperial treasures: the Kunsthistorisches Museum — Bruegel, Vermeer, Velázquez, Titian and the Kunstkammer.
• Klimt: the Upper Belvedere, home of *The Kiss*.
• Schiele and Vienna 1900: the Leopold Museum in the MuseumsQuartier.
• Blockbuster exhibitions, central and easy: the Albertina.
• The city's own story, for free: the Wien Museum on Karlsplatz.
• Music: the House of Music and Mozarthaus Vienna.

Know this before you go (checked September 2026 on each museum's official site):

• The Kunsthistorisches Museum requires a pre-booked time slot for every visit from 8 September 2026. Tickets cost €22 online or €24 on site; it is closed on Mondays.
• Federal museums are free for everyone under 19 — the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Albertina and the Belvedere among them.
• Mondays and Tuesdays catch people out. The Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Secession are closed on Mondays; the Leopold Museum closes on Tuesdays instead.
• The ORF Long Night of Museums falls on Saturday 3 October 2026, 18:00–24:00, with one €19 ticket for dozens of venues (langenacht.orf.at, checked September 2026).

If you love Old Masters: Kunsthistorisches Museum

Built as the Habsburgs' picture gallery and opened on the Ringstrasse in 1891, the Kunsthistorisches Museum is not merely a great collection — the building itself, with its marble staircase and Klimt's spandrel paintings above it, is part of the visit. The painting gallery holds the world's largest group of works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, including *The Hunters in the Snow* and *The Tower of Babel*, alongside Vermeer's *The Art of Painting*, Raphael, Titian, Rubens and Velázquez's portraits of the Spanish infantas. On the ground floor, the Kunstkammer is the imperial cabinet of curiosities: Cellini's gold salt cellar, automatons, carved rock crystal.

Practical: €22 online, €24 at the door; Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00, Thursday until 21:00 (khm.at, checked September 2026). Book the slot, arrive when it opens, start upstairs with the paintings while you are fresh, and have lunch under the dome of the café on the first floor — one of the most beautiful rooms in the city to eat a slice of cake. Allow three hours at least.

Directly opposite, its twin building houses the Natural History Museum — the Venus of Willendorf, meteorites, dinosaurs — which is the better choice if you are travelling with children.

If you came for Klimt: the Belvedere

The Upper Belvedere holds *The Kiss*, *Judith* and the largest Klimt collection anywhere, together with Schiele, Kokoschka and a fine run of French Impressionists, all inside Prince Eugene's Baroque summer palace. Tickets: Upper Belvedere €23, Lower Belvedere €17, 2-in-1 day ticket €32; the Upper palace opens daily 09:00–18:00 (belvedere.at, checked September 2026). Go at opening or in the last ninety minutes — the room with *The Kiss* is crowded from late morning. Our Belvedere and Klimt tickets guide explains which combination is worth it; the Vienna 1900 story gives you the context before you stand in front of the gold.

If Schiele and Vienna 1900 are your thing

The Leopold Museum in the MuseumsQuartier holds the world's most important Egon Schiele collection, plus Klimt, Kolo Moser, Wiener Werkstätte furniture and a permanent display on Vienna around 1900. It costs €19 (under 19s €2.50), opens 10:00–18:00 and closes on Tuesdays (leopoldmuseum.org, checked September 2026). The courtyards of the MuseumsQuartier are free and a pleasant place to sit afterwards; next door, mumok covers modern and contemporary art for those who want to keep going past 1918.

Five minutes' walk away, the golden-domed Secession shows Klimt's *Beethoven Frieze* in its basement: €13, Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00, and free on the first Wednesday of the month (secession.at, checked September 2026). It takes forty minutes and is one of the most concentrated art experiences in Vienna. The Jugendstil walk links it with Otto Wagner's buildings nearby.

If you want one central, easy museum: the Albertina

The Albertina sits on a bastion behind the State Opera and combines Habsburg state rooms with one of the world's great graphic collections — Dürer's *Young Hare* is in the holdings, though works on paper are only shown occasionally — and a permanent display of modern art from Monet to Picasso, plus major temporary exhibitions. €20.90; daily 10:00–18:00, Wednesday and Friday until 21:00; a combined ticket with Albertina Modern costs €29.90 (albertina.at, checked September 2026). The late openings make it the best museum for an evening when you have a concert afterwards.

If you want the imperial Habsburgs up close

• Imperial Treasury (Schatzkammer) in the Hofburg: the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg crown jewels, and objects that sit halfway between relics and legends. Small, dark, dazzling — an hour is enough.
• Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments: €20, fixed time slots (sisimuseum-hofburg.at, checked September 2026). Details and alternatives in our Hofburg tickets guide.
• Austrian National Library State Hall: a Baroque library hall rather than a museum, and possibly the most beautiful room in Vienna. €12 (onb.ac.at, checked September 2026).
• Weltmuseum Wien in the Neue Burg: world cultures, including the famous feather headdress associated with Moctezuma.

If you love music

The House of Music is interactive and fun — conduct the Vienna Philharmonic on screen, walk through rooms devoted to Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss and Mahler. €19, daily 10:00–22:00 (hdm.at, checked September 2026), which makes it a rare rainy-evening option. Mozarthaus Vienna, the only one of Mozart's Vienna apartments to survive, is quieter and more intimate: €16, daily 10:00–19:00 (mozarthausvienna.at, checked September 2026). Pair either with a real performance from our classical concerts guide.

If you are curious about the mind, the city and the odd

• Sigmund Freud Museum, Berggasse 19: the apartment and practice where Freud worked until he fled in 1938. Check hours and prices on the museum's site before you go.
• Wien Museum on Karlsplatz: the history of the city from the Romans to today, in a building that reopened after a major renovation. The permanent exhibition is free all year (wien.gv.at, checked September 2026) — the best free museum in town.
• Museum of Military History: the car in which Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo in 1914. Free on the first Sunday of the month.
• Narrenturm: an eighteenth-century round asylum tower housing an anatomical-pathological collection. Not for everyone, unforgettable for some.
• Third Man Museum: a private collection devoted to the 1949 film noir shot in postwar Vienna.

If you want design, modern art or Hundertwasser

The MAK — Museum of Applied Arts on the Stubenring is superb for Wiener Werkstätte design and Thonet chairs; afterwards, cross to Café Prückel, opposite. KunstHausWien, the Hundertwasser museum, costs €16 (kunsthauswien.com, checked September 2026) and is a colourful, easy hour; the nearby Hundertwasser House can only be seen from outside.

What we would skip

Wax museums and "experience" attractions around Stephansplatz are pleasant enough on a wet afternoon with children, but they are not why anyone travels to Vienna. If your time is short, one great collection beats three minor ones.

How to plan your museum days

1. One major museum per day. Three hours in the Kunsthistorisches Museum is tiring enough; add a small one (the Secession, the Treasury) at most.
2. Mornings for the famous rooms, late openings (Albertina on Wednesdays and Fridays, KHM on Thursdays) for the rest.
3. Use the city's cafés as intervals. Café Museum, designed by Adolf Loos, is two minutes from the Secession and the Albertina.
4. Do the arithmetic before buying a pass. Our City Card vs Vienna Pass guide shows when either one pays off; for most museum lovers, single tickets win.
5. Free options — the Wien Museum, first Wednesdays at the Secession, first Sundays at several city museums — are collected in free things to do in Vienna. With children, see Vienna with kids.

Most of the great collections cluster in the Innere Stadt and Neubau, so a hotel in either keeps you walking distance from everything — see where to stay in Vienna. For more to see, browse all attractions.