A loop through the old town from St. Stephen's past the Graben to Michaelerplatz and the Hofburg, the court library and church, and the Habsburg crypt.
Best time: Morning, when the churches are quiet and before the Hofburg gets busy.
Walk round the tiled roof, then go inside; the catacombs are by tour. 30 min
Vienna's cathedral, largely begun under Duke Rudolf IV in the 14th century; its 136 m south tower took 65 years to build (1368–1433) and the roof carries 230,000 glazed tiles…
Baroque Trinity column in the middle of the Graben. 5 min
Baroque Holy Trinity column on the Graben put up after the 1679 plague; the scholar Christine Boeckl calls it one of the most ambitious sculptural ensembles in post-Bernini Europe.
Baroque church begun around 1701 by Gabriele Montani and continued by Lukas von Hildebrandt, consecrated in 1733; Johann Michael Rottmayr's dome fresco shows the Coronation of…
Loos's plain façade facing the Hofburg's Michaelertor. 5 min
Adolf Loos's 1912 building of Viennese Modernism; its plain upper storeys caused a scandal, and Franz Joseph reportedly kept the Hofburg curtains facing it closed.
Walk through the Michaelertor into the palace courtyards and out to Heldenplatz. 45 min
The Habsburgs' principal palace and winter residence, begun in the 13th century and expanded for centuries; today it holds the imperial treasury with the insignia of the Holy…
The Baroque Prunksaal of the former court library, begun in 1721 by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and finished by his son; Daniel Gran's dome fresco shows an apotheosis of…
The Habsburg wedding church next door on Josefsplatz. 15 min
The Habsburg court parish church, where Maria Theresa married in 1736 and Franz Joseph married Elisabeth in 1854; its Herzgruft holds the hearts of 54 Habsburgs, and Canova…
Terrace view over Albertinaplatz; go in if you have time. 10 min
One of the world's largest print rooms (about 65,000 drawings and 1 million old master prints), plus Impressionist and early 20th-century collections on permanent loan; it had…
The Habsburg sarcophagi under the Capuchin Church. 40 min
Since 1633 the main Habsburg burial place, under the Capuchin Church: 145 royals, including 12 emperors and 18 empresses, in 107 visible metal sarcophagi from plain to rococo.
