Vienna Walking Tour: Museums, the Naschmarkt and the Belvedere

Most walks in Vienna stay inside the old city, but some of its finest sights lie just outside, in the wide ring of land where the medieval walls once stood. This route follows that outer edge in a long arc around the south side of the center. It starts between the two great imperial museums, passes through the MuseumsQuartier and along the Naschmarkt, takes in the baroque glory of Karlskirche and the palace gardens of the Belvedere, and finishes in the Stadtpark, where a golden Johann Strauss plays his violin. Along the way you meet Vienna in three moods, imperial, baroque and the bold art of around 1900. It is about four kilometers, an unhurried half day among Vienna's self-guided walking tours, with a market lunch in the middle.

Before you set off

Allow two to two and a half hours at a stroll, without going inside the museums, and add a long lunch at the Naschmarkt if you can. The route is mostly flat, with one gentle climb up to the Upper Belvedere, and it is paved or graveled all the way. The Belvedere gardens are free to walk through, while the palaces, the museums and the interior of Karlskirche charge entry, and their hours vary, so check before you go. The Naschmarkt is busiest and best in the late morning and closed on Sundays, so plan the day around it if food matters to you. There is plenty of shade in the MuseumsQuartier courtyards and the Stadtpark, but very little in the Belvedere gardens or on the big squares, so bring a hat and water in summer. Vienna winters are cold and gray, and in that season this walk is best done briskly, with coffee stops. Trams and the U-Bahn run near every stop if you want to shorten it.

Maria-Theresien-Platz

You are standing in Maria-Theresien-Platz, between two vast palaces that look like mirror images of each other. On one side is the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the art history museum, and on the other the Naturhistorisches Museum, the natural history museum, both opened around 1890 to hold the treasures collected by the Habsburgs over centuries. They are part of the Ringstrasse, the grand boulevard that Emperor Franz Joseph ordered built after the old city walls came down in the late 1850s, lined with museums, theaters, parliament and palaces. In the middle sits Empress Maria Theresa herself, high on her throne, surrounded by the generals and advisers of her reign. She ruled the Habsburg lands for forty years in the eighteenth century, reformed the state and schools, and had sixteen children, among them Marie Antoinette. The art museum holds the largest collection of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder anywhere, including his famous winter hunters returning to a snowy village, while the natural history museum is home to the Venus of Willendorf, a tiny limestone figure around thirty thousand years old. Behind you, across the Ring, the great gate leads into the Hofburg. To continue, walk to the side of the square away from the Ring and cross the street to the long, pale building with a gateway in its middle, about two minutes.

MuseumsQuartier

Through the gateway you step into the MuseumsQuartier, and the mood changes at once. The long baroque buildings around you were once the imperial stables, built in the eighteenth century to house the court's horses and carriages, and since 2001 they have been home to one of the largest cultural districts in the world. Old and new sit side by side here. On one side of the main courtyard rises a white limestone cube, the Leopold Museum, which holds the largest collection of works by Egon Schiele, the brilliant and unsettling painter who died in 1918 at just twenty-eight. Facing it is a dark gray stone block, mumok, the museum of modern art, and between them stands the Kunsthalle for changing exhibitions. But the real life of the place is in the courtyards, which are free to all. Scattered around are giant, brightly colored lounge benches where students, families and office workers sprawl with coffees in the sun, and in summer there are bars, events and music in the evenings. Wander around, find a bench and see how Vienna relaxes. When you are ready, go back out through the main gateway, turn right and follow the road southeast for about eight minutes to the white building with a dome of golden leaves at its end; the market begins just beyond it.

Naschmarkt

That building you just passed, with its dome of gilded laurel leaves, is the Secession, built in 1898 for a group of rebellious young artists led by Gustav Klimt, who broke away from the conservative art establishment. Above its door they wrote their motto: To every age its art, to art its freedom. Now you are in the Naschmarkt, Vienna's most famous market, a long strip of stalls and small restaurants running between two roads. The name sounds like the German word for nibbling, which is fitting, though historians link it to an older name, and markets have been held around here since the eighteenth century. The river Wien flows underground beneath your feet; it was covered over around 1900 to make room for the market. Walk down the central lanes and taste your way along: olives, spices, cheeses, pickles, falafel, fresh fish, Austrian wine and pastries from across the old empire and far beyond. On Saturdays a flea market sets up at the far southern end. Look across the road to the right as you walk, too, and you will see two apartment buildings by the architect Otto Wagner, one covered in painted tiles of red flowers and the other decorated with golden medallions. When you have eaten, walk back the way you came, past the Secession, and continue east across the park toward the great green dome, about ten minutes.