Vienna Art History Museum Tickets and Tours

The Vienna Museum of Art History, opened in 1891, is one of the most important museums of its kind in Europe. The building itself is worth a visit for its beautiful and ornate interior. But the best are the works of art it houses, many of them masterpieces of geniuses such as Rubens, Titian, Dürer or Velázquez.

In fact, as far as Spanish painting is concerned, this museum is one of the most complete, except for the Prado Museum and other art galleries located in Spain. I think you don't need any more reasons to convince you that it is a must on any list of what to see and do in Vienna. If it was already among your plans, in this article I show you the different tours that will bring you closer to its artistic treasure.

The Vienna Museum of Art History is huge, so visiting it in its entirety is an experience only suitable for true fans of great art. In fact, if you like art, even if it is not your greatest passion, it is not recommended that you cram in a visit of several hours. You could leave in a daze and your experience would suffer. Also, it would not be a good option if you are traveling with children.

With this type of tour you will have a specialized guide, admission included and access without queues. You will only have to worry about enjoying the canvases and sculptures. If you opt for a relaxed and soft immersion in the Museum, this is what these tours can offer you:

• Duration of the visit: between 2 and 3 hours approximately.
• Typical visits: The essential works. Usually the most significant canvases by Rubens, Velázquez or Titian.
• Tickets: Included in the price
• Prices: From 80 €.
• Recommended if: Especially if you are looking for a quiet visit, with the sole aim of enjoying the best instead of wanting to see everything. Also if you are traveling with children and do not want to tire them with a long cultural visit.

We have all noticed this at one time or another when visiting a museum. Some guides are good at explaining or conveying information, although they are not always specialists in what they are showing.

A fact that may not have more importance, but in the case of art museums can be noticed and affect the quality of the visit. Especially if you are interested in very specific periods of art or in sections, such as the coin collection that require a great historical and artistic knowledge. A word of advice: make sure that there are guides in Spanish.

This is what you have to take into account before hiring it:

• Duration of the visit: Approximately 3 hours.
• Usual visits: The essential works. Normally the most significant canvases of authors such as Rubens, Velázquez or Tiziano.
• Tickets: Included in the price
• Prices: From 150 €.
• Recommended if: If you want to know in a rigorous, solvent and specialized way the artistic treasures of the museum.

Have you already been to the museum before, or maybe a conventional guide won't tell you anything you don't already know? Maybe what you are most interested in, for example, is the collection of Greek and Roman art that not all tours include.

In that case, the best thing to do is to hire a private guide. In this way, you will be able to define the itinerary as you wish, without having to go through the beaten paths that you have probably already traveled before. In addition, this private guide option will ensure that your experience is a meaningful one. He will be able to answer your questions and the tour will not be generic at all.

In addition, there are many tours with private guides that already include the entrance fee, so you don't have to worry about purchasing it separately.

Are you ready to opt for it? Then pay close attention to their most common features:

• Duration of the visit: Between 2 or 3 hours.
• Usual visits: The basics or, failing that, the works you are most interested in seeing. You decide!
• Tickets: Included in the price
• Prices: From 90 €.
• Recommended if: You want to enter the museum in your own way and without itineraries pre-established by others.

If you like leisurely visits, where you can interact with the guide and ask questions, small tours are the best option. Especially because the guide will be more available to answer questions and the explanations can be more personalized than if the group were larger.

The size of the groups in these tours usually do not exceed 15 participants; undoubtedly a good way to opt for a rigorous tour without the need to hire tours with private or specialized guides much more expensive.

In short, a good balance if you don't want the typical standard and generic guide but you don't need something as specialized as a guide for the Greek pottery collection.

Are you motivated by this type of tour? Then pay close attention to its usual features:

• Duration of the visit: Approximately 2 hours.
• Usual visits: The essential works. Normally the most significant canvases of authors such as Rubens, Velázquez or Tiziano.
• Tickets: Included in the price
• Prices: From 90 €.
• Recommended if: If you fancy a visit with a certain rigor without resorting to private or very specialized guides.

How to make your way through the hundreds of works housed in the Museum? You have two options: the most emblematic works of the Vienna Museum of Art History, which any tour will offer you, or a more specific, thematic and selected visit. For example, the museum's collection of Flemish paintings, or the works of the Spanish school. Or go further, how about a tour on the role of women in art? There are several tours with this approach, it all depends on the theme that interests you.

If you feel like a more specific approach to the Vienna Museum of Art History, this is what you should consider:

• Duration of the visit: 2 to 3 hours.
• Typical visits: The most significant works of the thematic area to which the tour is devoted.
• Tickets: Included in the price
• Prices: From 125 €.
• Recommended if: You want to immerse yourself in the artistic treasure of the museum in a contextualized and thematic way.

Because the Vienna Museum of Art History is huge and houses many treasures, the usual choice of tours is to enter it through highlights or thematic tours that try to show the most beautiful and beautiful.

However, there are some tours that depart from this approach and opt for something more original: to show more than the beautiful, the curious and even the ugly. To do this, the museum has a space rarely visited in this type of tours: the Cabinet of Curiosities.

The cabinets of curiosities were a form of collecting practiced by many European royal houses. It consisted of the acquisition and accumulation of all kinds of objects whose only common thread was that they were curious, strange or, directly, bizarre. And being the Habsburgs, one of the longest-lived and most powerful royal dynasties in Europe, I assure you that there is a lot to see.

Each specific tour can put more or less emphasis on this space; in fact there are many that will also introduce you to the masterpieces of the art manuals. It is up to you and your interest in curiosities to choose the tour.

If you would like to access the Museum through its most unusual and unconventional part, these are the characteristics of the tours that will make your wish come true:

• Duration of the visit: 2 to 3 hours.
• Usual visits: The Cabinet of Curiosities and, depending on the tour, also the emblematic masterpieces of the museum.
• Tickets: Included in the price
• Prices: From 125 €.
• Recommended if: Above all you want to get to know the museum from an unusual perspective.

Although the Vienna Museum of Art History is especially famous for its collection of paintings, it also houses truly exceptional Egyptian and Middle Eastern works.

If you want to delve into it there are specific tours that will emphasize this specific collection of the museum. They usually do this as a complement to the visit of the basics (i.e. the great paintings).

If you are interested in this type of tour this is what you should consider:

• Duration of the visit: Between 3 and 4 hours.
• Typical visits: The most important works of the gallery and the area of Egyptian and Middle Eastern art.
• Tickets: Included in the price
• Prices: From 250 €.
• Recommended if: If you are passionate about Egyptian and Middle Eastern art and don't want to miss the museum's stupendous collection.

An interesting format of guided tour that, in addition to showing you the masterpieces of the museum, will also offer you an Austrian lunch included in the price. This way, you can regain your strength after an intense visit to the museum while tasting Austrian specialties. And you can also socialize with your fellow group members.

These tours usually last a few hours, so it is always an option to consider if you feel like dedicating more or less a morning to this tour, and it will be for Austrian gastronomic specialties!

If you like the idea, here is the information you should take into account:

• Duration of the tour: approximately 4 hours.
• Usual visits: The essential works. Normally the most significant canvases of authors such as Rubens, Velázquez or Titian.
• Tickets: Included in the price
• Prices: From 100 €.
• Recommended if: If you fancy a complementary activity of a gastronomic nature.

And finally, you have the most independent option: to go on your own. If you have already seen the museum on another occasion or, directly, you do not want to go into it by beaten paths, there is nothing better than going on your own. It may also happen that you want to see something very specific that is not usually available on guided tours. For example, a monographic visit to the works of Peter Brueghel at the Vienna Museum of Art History.

In addition, it is possible to book your ticket in advance to save queues. And, if once there, you decide you want to take a self-guided tour, you can always purchase an audio guide from 6 €.

This is what awaits you if you choose to go on your own:

• Duration of the visit: As long as you wish.
• Regular visits: You can choose to see the highlights or explore what interests you most about the museum. Or, simply let yourself go.
• Prices: From 20 €.
• Recommended if: If you want to decide for yourself what the itinerary is and which works you are going to see. Also very suitable if you have been to the museum before and already know the essentials.

If you want to go further in terms of artistic heritage that houses Vienna, there are combined tickets that will allow you a visit to the Imperial Treasury. It is considered the largest royal treasure chamber in the world.

What you will see inside is of exceptional historical importance: the crown of the Holy Roman Emperors, the Austrian crown, the treasure of the Burgundians and the treasure of the Order of the Golden Fleece, one of the most important aristocratic orders in Europe. It is located in the Hofburg Palace, one of the most important palaces of the city along with Schonbrunn Palace.

If you have decided to include the Imperial Treasury in the list, here is what the combined tours can offer you:

• Duration of tour: Approximately 2 hours.
• Typical visits: The Museum of Art History and the Imperial Treasury
• Tickets: Included in the price
• Prices: from 25 €.
• Recommended if: You want two spectacular visits on the same tour.

If you are interested in visiting more than one museum, I advise you to take a look at this article about the best museums in Vienna.

It depends on the type of tour you want. In general, the most basic tours (i.e., those that aim to show you the best known of the museum), usually last about 2 hours. They can usually be purchased from 80 €.

However, the more specialized the tour is, the longer it is usually longer. For example, if you opt for a thematic guide or complements to the essentials of the museum (such as, for example, to see its collection of Egyptian art or the Cabinet of Curiosities), the visit time can exceed 3 hours. And prices easily cross the barrier of 125 € and, in some cases, of 200 €.

Normally, these tours already include the entrance fee, which is an added convenience. Although, for example, if you have the Vienna Pass, which already includes entry to several museums, you can always use the services of a private guide.

Undoubtedly it is worth it. As usual in the best museums in Vienna, this museum houses a wealth of formats and artistic periods. If you are not an art fanatic who knows well what you want to see, it is best to opt for a guided tour that takes you into the artistic heritage of this museum.

Generally guided tours make a selection of the most important, so if you want to know the highlights of the museum without greater depth, it is the option that I advise you. Even if you want something more advanced, you can also take more specialized tours.

The advantage of seeing it on your own is that you determine the itinerary. But in order to define it, you must first know specifically what you want to see. This is possible if you have been there before or if you like the art enough to want to explore a section of the collection.

There are many different types of tours. Here are up to 10 ways to visit. You choose the one that best suits your needs.

Yes, there are, and they are usually offered by the museum itself, which has extensive experience in this type of guided tours for children or school groups. Some of them even have workshops in which children can access art in a more immersive and participatory way.

Another option, outside the tours offered by the museum itself, are guided tours that bring them closer to parts of the collection that may be more interesting for children. For example, the Egyptian art collection. Or also the Cabinet of Curiosities, characterized by treasuring some of the rarities and most unusual objects you can imagine. Undoubtedly something that will attract the attention of children more than the canvases of the great masters.

Another option I recommend is, for example, to opt for a private tour. The guide will adapt better to your needs and you can ask him to introduce you to the museum in a more didactic way or by the works that most interest the kids.

By the way, if you want to know more options for family plans, here is an article about Vienna traveling with children.

Normally, guided tours put a lot of emphasis on the museum's pictorial collection. This is not surprising given that it houses some of the most important masterpieces in history. But there are also archaeological and sculptural pieces from various periods. Some of them are the following.

• The Infanta Margarita, by Velázquez.
• The Virgin of the Prado, by Raphael
• The Art of Painting, by Vermeer
• Self-Portrait, by Rembrandt
• The Hunters, by Brueghel
• The Saltcellar by Benvenuto Cellini
• Bust of Thutmosis III
• Roman copy of Polyclitus' Doriphorus

If I can give you any advice, my recommendation is to keep an eye on the Spanish painting collection, one of the best you can see outside of Spain. Velázquez is very well represented, so it would be a shame to leave without seeing his paintings.

At any time. The treasures housed in the Vienna Museum of Art History can be visited regardless of the season.

What I do recommend is that you take a look at the temporary exhibitions at the Vienna Museum of Art History. In this case, there is a time limit to which you have to adapt.

If you are interested in a visit to a temporary exhibition that particularly interests you, the private guide option is the best. Especially if you are an art historian. Conventional guides go into the best known, so with an art historian you can be sure that you know the works in the exhibition in depth.

The first thing to consider is what you want to see. If you don't know anything about the museum, I advise you to opt for a guided tour of the essential works. It is the best way to experience a first contact with the museum. However, if you have already been or you have a type of art that interests you more (for example, Egyptian) you should opt for more specific tours.

In case you are passionate about art, it is very likely that a conventional guide is not going to discover anything you do not know. Therefore, my recommendation is to hire a specialized tour with art historians. Or a private guide who can personally answer all your questions.

Another important issue is to decide how much time you want to dedicate to the visit. Visiting a museum can be exhausting, so if you just want a first contact, I do not recommend guides longer than 2 hours. If, on the other hand, seeing this museum is one of the reasons for your visit to Vienna, a 3 to 4 hour tour may suit your needs.

For more recommendations, don't miss this article on tips for visiting Vienna.