10 Vienna Art Museum Guided 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 thing about it are the works of art it houses, many of them masterpieces by such geniuses as Rubens, Titian, Dürer and Velázquez.

In fact, as far as Spanish painting is concerned, this museum is one of the most complete, with the exception of the Prado Museum and other art galleries located in Spain. I don't think you need any more reasons to be convinced that this is a must on any list of things to see and do in Vienna. If it was already in 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 a visit to the entire museum is an experience only for true fans of great art. In fact, if you like art, even if it's not your greatest passion, it' s not recommended that you cram several hours into a visit. You could leave in a daze and your experience would suffer. It's also not a good option if you're travelling with children.

With this type of tour, you'll have a specialised guide, admission included and queue-free access. All you have to worry about is 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. Normally the most significant canvases by artists such as Rubens, Velázquez and 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 rather than wanting to see everything. Also if you are travelling with children and don't want to tire them out with a long cultural visit.

We have all noticed this on occasion 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 be of great importance, but in the case of art museums it can be noticed and have an impact on the quality of the visit. Especially if you are interested in very specific periods of art or in sections, such as the coin collection, which require a great deal of historical and artistic knowledge. However, a word of advice: make sure that there are guides in Spanish.

This is what you should bear in mind before hiring one:

• Duration of the visit: Approximately 3 hours.
• Usual visits: The essential works. Normally the most significant canvases by artists such as Rubens, Velázquez and Titian.
• Tickets: Included in the price
• Prices: From 150 €.
• Recommended if: If you want to learn about the museum's artistic treasures in a rigorous, solvent and specialised way.

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

In that case, the best thing to do is to hire a private guide. This way, you will be able to define the itinerary to your liking, without having to go down the beaten paths that you have probably already travelled before. What's more, this private guide option will ensure that your experience is a meaningful one. He or she will be able to answer your questions and the tour will be anything but generic.

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

Are you ready to go for it? Then pay close attention to the most common features:

• Duration of the visit: Between 2 and 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 personalised than if the group were larger.

Group sizes on these tours are usually no larger than 15 participants; a good way to opt for a rigorous tour without the need to hire more expensive private or specialised guides.

All in all, a good balance if you don't want the standard, generic guide but don't need something as specialised as a guide through the Greek pottery collection.

Are you interested in this type of tour? Then pay close attention to the usual features:

• Duration of tour: Approximately 2 hours.
• Usual visits: The essential works. Normally the most significant canvases by artists such as Rubens, Velázquez and Titian.
• Tickets: Included in the price
• Prices: From 90 €.
• Recommended if: If you fancy a visit with a certain degree of rigour without resorting to private or highly specialised guides.

How do you make your way through the hundreds of works 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 most.

If you fancy a more specific approach to the Vienna Museum of Art History, here's 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 museum's artistic treasure in a contextualised and thematic way.

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

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 this end, the museum has a space that is rarely visited on this type of tour: the Cabinet of Curiosities.

Cabinets of curiosities were a form of collecting practised 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 downright 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 may place greater or lesser emphasis on this space; in fact there are many that will also introduce you to the masterpieces in the art manuals. It's up to you and your interest in curiosities to choose the tour.

If you'd like to access the Museum at its most unusual and unconventional, these are the tour features that will make your wish come true:

• Duration of the visit: Between 2 and 3 hours.
• Usual visits: The Cabinet of Curiosities and, depending on the tour, also the Museum's emblematic masterpieces.
• 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 particularly famous for its collection of paintings, it also houses some truly exceptional Egyptian and Middle Eastern works.

If you want to delve deeper, there are specific tours that emphasise this specific collection of the museum. They usually do this as a complement to a visit to the basics (i.e. the major paintings).

If you're interested in this type of tour, here's what to 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 out on the museum's stupendous collection.

An interesting guided tour format which, in addition to showing you the museum's masterpieces, 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 specialities. And you can also socialise with your fellow group members.

These tours are usually a few hours long, so it's always an option to consider if you feel like spending more or less a morning on this tour - and it will be for Austrian gastronomic specialities!

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

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

And finally, the most independent option is to go on your own. If you have already seen the museum on another occasion, or if you don't want to go off the beaten track, there is nothing better than going at your own pace. 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.

It is also possible to book your ticket in advance to save queues. And if you decide you want to take a self-guided tour, you can always buy an audio guide for €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 in the museum. Or simply let yourself be carried away.
• 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 recommended if you've been to the museum before and already know the essentials.

If you want to go further in terms of Vienna's artistic heritage, there are combined tickets that allow you to visit the Imperial Treasury. It is considered to be 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 in the city along with Schonbrunn Palace.

If you've decided to include the Imperial Treasury on the list, here's 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 parts of the museum) usually last about 2 hours. They can usually be purchased from €80.

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

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

It is definitely worth a visit. As is 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 what you want to see, it is best to opt for a guided tour that takes you into the artistic heritage of this museum.

Guided tours generally include a selection of the most important works, so if you want to get to know the highlights of the museum without going into too much depth, this is the option I recommend. Even if you want something more advanced, you can also take more specialised tours.

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

There are many different types of sightseeing. 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 take children to parts of the collection that may be more interesting for them. For example, the Egyptian art collection. Or the Cabinet of Curiosities, characterised by its treasure trove of some of the rarest and most unusual objects you can imagine. No doubt something that will attract children's attention even more than the canvases of the great masters.

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

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

Normally, guided tours place great emphasis on the museum's pictorial collection. This is hardly 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 these include 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 Thutmose III
• Roman copy of Polyclitus' Doriphorus

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

At any time of year. 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 will have to adapt.

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

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. This is the best way to experience a first contact with the museum. However, if you have already been or if you have a type of art that interests you more (for example, Egyptian art), opt for more specific tours.

If you are an art enthusiast, it is very likely that a conventional guide is not going to discover anything you don't already know. Therefore, my recommendation is to hire a specialised tour with art historians. Or a private guide who will be able to answer all your questions personally.

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 don't recommend guides lasting more 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.