Visit guides
This is the index of visit guides on Hofburg Palace Tickets. Each page below answers one question fully, and every one of them links back here so you can move between them without searching.
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Albertina Exhibitions: What Is On and How It Works
The Albertina runs large temporary shows alongside its permanent collection, and one EUR 20.90 ticket covers both. How to check before you book.
Albertina Tickets, Prices and Opening Hours
Adult admission is EUR 20.90 with every exhibition included, under-19s go free, and the combo covers three houses. Every category, and which pass pays.
Can You Reach the Alps on a Day Trip from Vienna?
Yes, but the eastern Alps rather than the postcard ones. Slovenia is a stretch, hiking is an hour away, and the Vienna Woods are the easy answer.
Concerts and Balls at the Hofburg
The palace runs an evening life most visitors never see: an orchestra in the ballrooms, a ball season from January, and a congress centre behind both.
Day Trips from Vienna by Train
Which trips work on rails, how often trains run and where the advance fares are. Vienna's rail network makes a car pointless for almost every day out.
Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria
Sixty-eight years on the throne, a desk in the Hofburg he was at before dawn, and four deaths that emptied his family. Who he was, and what survives.
Empress Elisabeth of Austria: Who Sisi Really Was
Empress from 1854 until her assassination in 1898, and the reason a museum in the Hofburg exists to correct the films made about her.
Empress Sisi's Dresses and the Star Diamonds
Her clothes measured 47 to 49.5 cm at the waist, she was often sewn into them, and few originals survive. What happened to the dresses, and what is on show.
Empress Sisi's Family and Descendants
A Bavarian duchess who married her first cousin at sixteen, had four children and lost two. Who they were, what happened to them, and where they are buried.
Inside the Hofburg: Every Wing and Museum
The Hofburg is four operators and a dozen museums sharing one address. Which wing holds what, which parts are closed, and the order that works.
Photographs and Portraits of Empress Sisi
She stopped allowing photographs in later life, so almost every famous image shows a woman under thirty-five. What survives, and what the museum displays.
Sisi on Screen: The Films Against the Record
The 1950s Romy Schneider films invented the Sisi most people know, including the spelling. What they changed, and why the museum was built to argue with them.
Sisi's Waist, Hair and Beauty Regime
A 40 cm waist at its narrowest, 1.73 m tall, around 50 kg, and hair that took hours a day to dress. What the sources actually record about Empress Elisabeth.
State Hall Tickets and How to Visit
The baroque library hall at Josefsplatz is the National Library's own ticket: EUR 12 adult, under-19s free, included in the Vienna PASS and FLEXI Pass.
The Albertina in Vienna: What the Museum Holds
One of the world's great print rooms: 65,000 drawings and a million old master prints in a Habsburg palace at the Hofburg's southern tip.
The Assassination of Empress Elisabeth
Geneva, 10 September 1898: a sharpened file, a 100-yard walk to the boat, and a wound so narrow her corset kept her alive. What happened, and why.
The Augustinian Church Inside the Hofburg
Where Maria Theresa, Marie Louise and Franz Joseph married, and where 54 Habsburg hearts are kept in silver urns. Free to enter; crypt tours EUR 5.
The Butterfly House in the Burggarten
Around 500 free-flying butterflies in an art nouveau palm house behind the Hofburg. Adult admission EUR 10, open daily, and it is not on the Vienna PASS.
The Ephesos Museum in the Neue Burg
Austrian excavations at Ephesus brought the Parthian Monument and a bronze athlete to the Hofburg. What is in the room, and when it is open.
The Habsburg Dynasty: A Short History
From a Swiss castle built in the 1020s to the abdication proclamation of 1918. How the Habsburgs got Vienna, kept it for 640 years, and what they left behind.
The Hofburg's History and Architecture
A 13th-century castle under the Swiss Court, seven centuries of additions, and an imperial forum that was never finished. How the palace got this shape.
The Holy Lance in the Imperial Treasury
The spearhead bought by Henry the Fowler in 926, carried into battle in 933, and dated by three tests to the 8th century. Where to find it in the Treasury.
The Imperial Apartments at the Hofburg
The rooms Franz Joseph and Elisabeth actually lived in: where they are, what survives, and what the apartments tell you that the Sisi Museum does not.
The Imperial Chapel and the Vienna Boys' Choir
Sunday mass at 9:15 in the Hofburg's own chapel, sung by the Vienna Boys' Choir and State Opera musicians. Seats from EUR 14; standing room is free from 8:30.
The Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire
An octagonal hoop crown of 22-carat gold set with 144 stones, used until 1806 and now in the Hofburg. Its age is disputed, and one of its stones is missing.
The Imperial Crypt (Kaisergruft) in Vienna
Twelve emperors, Maria Theresa's 1,700 kg sarcophagus and the grave Sisi actually lies in, five minutes from the Hofburg. Tickets EUR 15, daily 10:00 to 18:00.
The Imperial Silver Collection at the Hofburg
Around 135,000 objects from the imperial table, first on the palace route and last in most visitors' attention. What is in it, and why it is not the Treasury.
The Imperial Treasury in the Hofburg
The crown of the Holy Roman Empire, the Holy Lance and the Burgundian treasure, in the oldest part of the palace. What is there and how to see it.
The Lipizzaner Horses of the Spanish Riding School
A breed developed in the Habsburg Empire from 1580, born dark and grey by ten, bred at Piber and stabled in the Hofburg. What they are and how to see them.
The Lipizzaner Museum in Vienna Has Closed
The museum in the Stallburg is gone, and the Spanish Riding School's only museum is now at Piber in Styria. What to do instead if you came for it.
The National Library's Other Museums in Vienna
Four small museums beyond the State Hall: globes, papyrus, Esperanto and literature. Two cost EUR 6, one EUR 9, and children go free at all of them.
The Neue Burg Collections at the Hofburg
Arms and armour, early musical instruments, Ephesus and the Weltmuseum, all in one wing on Heldenplatz. One ticket covers more than most visitors realise.
The Redoutensäle and the Festsaal at the Hofburg
The ballrooms behind the palace's concerts and balls. The Great Redoutensaal burned in 1992 and was rebuilt with paintings by Josef Mikl rather than restored.
The Sisi Museum: What It Actually Shows
A museum in Elisabeth's own apartments, designed around her poetry and built to argue with the 1950s films. What is on show, and what the ticket covers.
The Sisi Pass: What It Covers and Whether It Pays
EUR 60 for three imperial sites across Vienna, valid for a year with one visit to each. The arithmetic works only if you do all three.
The Spanish Riding School in Vienna
Founded in 1565 and the oldest of its kind in the world. Why it is called Spanish, how a stallion and a rider are trained, and how to see it.
The State Hall of the Austrian National Library
A baroque library hall begun in 1721 by Fischer von Erlach, organised into a war side and a peace side, with 200,000 books and four Coronelli globes.
The Wachau Valley and Melk Abbey from Vienna
A UNESCO stretch of the Danube, a baroque abbey on a cliff and wine villages between them. Train out, boat down, train home — and when the boats run.
The Winter Riding School at the Hofburg
Fischer von Erlach's white hall, finished in 1735, is 55 m by 18 and 17 m high. Why the riders salute the portrait, and how to see it without a performance.
Vienna to Bratislava: The Easiest Day Trip
Another country's capital, an hour away, twice an hour by train — or 75 minutes down the Danube by catamaran. What a day there actually buys you.
Vienna to Budapest as a Day Trip
A railjet or EuroCity every hour, and a city that needs two nights. What one day realistically buys, and why an overnight is the better answer.
Vienna to Hallstatt: Is the Day Trip Worth It?
A village of 780 people that receives up to 30,000 visitors a day, four hours from Vienna. The honest case for going, and the case for going somewhere else.
Vienna to Prague: Why a Day Trip Does Not Work
The railjet runs every two hours and Prague is the far end of the line. The honest arithmetic, the bus option, and the halfway alternatives that do work.
Vienna to Salzburg as a Day Trip
The railjet does it in 2 hours 25 minutes, twice an hour. That is five hours of travelling for a city that deserves two days — here is the honest case.
Visiting the Mauthausen Memorial from Vienna
Entry is free and needs no registration. How to get there, how long to allow, and the memorial's own guidance on visiting with children.
Weltmuseum Wien in the Neue Burg
Austria's largest anthropological museum, over 400,000 objects, and the feathered headdress Mexico wants back. Adult EUR 16, under 19 free, closed Mondays.