Castles in Austria to Visit
Thirty seven ticketed products and 15,299 reviews, all of them in Vienna: 30 or 42 EUR at the official door, 84 EUR median once a guide is attached.
Austria sells its palaces through two different kinds of institution, and the difference shows up at the door. Schönbrunn belongs to a state operating company, and it sells entry in fifteen minute slots that stop being valid if you arrive late. The Belvedere is a federal museum, so the slot there is an admission time and nothing else: once you are inside you can stay until closing. Thirty seven Austrian products are tracked in this catalogue, and every one of them hangs off one of those two palaces. The thing most people do not know before they book is narrower than the choice of palace, and it costs more. The two Schönbrunn ticket names still printed all over the web, Imperial Tour and Grand Tour, were withdrawn by the palace itself.
The perimeter is worth stating plainly, because the search results for castles in Austria never state it. This catalogue is imperial Vienna. There is no listing here for Hohensalzburg, the long white fortress on the ridge above the old town of Salzburg, and none for Hohenwerfen on its green knoll in the Salzach valley, which are the two buildings most people have in mind when they picture an Austrian castle. What there is instead is 37 ticketed products. Twenty nine of them declare a location at all, and all 29 of those are in Vienna. Not one listing is attached to the country or to the city as such: every single one belongs to a palace. If the trip is a drive through Salzburg and Carinthia, this is the wrong catalogue. If it is two days in Vienna, it is the whole question.
Once the palace is chosen, what remains to choose is an audioguide or a person. Schönbrunn's own products are self guided: the State Apartments and the Palace Ticket both include a free audioguide, and one ticket in the whole line-up, the 44 EUR Maria Theresia visit, comes with a human guide instead. The Belvedere requires no guide either, and what it offers a self guided visitor is an audio tour that runs on your own phone. Every other guide in Austrian palace listings comes from a reseller. That is the whole reason the median product in this catalogue costs 84 EUR while the most expensive official door in the country costs 42. Ten of the 37 listings are private tours, and a quarter of them cost more than 218.93 EUR.
Three sellers cover Austria in this catalogue: 26 listings from Viator, 8 from Tiqets and 3 from Civitatis, split 20 to Schönbrunn and 17 to the Belvedere. Every price here starts where the official ticket stops, and the distance between the two is what this page is about.
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Castles Experiences in Austria
Eight Hundred Years of Art in Two Hours, Under the Belvedere Sign
Two hours with a licensed private guide and a timed entry, across 800 years of collection: Klimt, Schiele, Monet, van Gogh and Rodin. Gardens included.
Judith, The Embrace and The Girl and Death, Read as Austrian Identity
A themed private tour reading the collection as national identity, from medieval gilding to Waldmüller. The meeting point is 100 metres in from the street.
Laid Out by a Pupil of Le Nôtre; Meet at the Model of the Palace
Two private hours inside on the partner-only Highlights ticket, then the Great Parterre walked on your own, in gardens by a pupil of Le Nôtre.
Moholy-Nagy, Motesiczky and Kupka Beside the Klimt Everyone Knows
Four lengths from two to four and a half hours, and the longer ones add the Lower Belvedere: the Grotesque Hall, the Orangery and the medieval armour.
The Beethoven Frieze Is the One Work of His That Surrounds You
Three buildings in one tour: The Kiss and Judith, then the Beethoven Frieze, then Death and Life and the university ceilings at the Leopold.
Three Private Hours That End at the Christmas Market, Not the Exit
Tickets included, the park and the Klimt rooms first, then a guided turn through the Belvedere Christmas market, where the tour leaves you free.
No Guide, No App, No Palace Ticket: Ten Stops on Your Own Phone
Thirty minutes of audio across two hours of walking, ten stops outdoors, nine languages. The link is inside the voucher and no app needs installing.
Private, Morning or Afternoon, and the Gardens Come Before the Palace
A private half day at Schönbrunn, booked morning or afternoon, that starts with the Gloriette and the park of 1779 and finishes inside the state rooms.
Six People at Most, and the Millions Room Named for What It Cost
A historian guide and no more than six in the group, through the Porcelain Room and the Millions Room. The palace can refuse entry if you are late.
Four Hundred and Thirty Works, and the Marble Hall Around Them
A group tour through 430 works, van Gogh, Monet and Schiele among them, in rooms the Austrian state has been filling since 1948. Cancel by the time slot.
One Hour Outside, Ninety Minutes Inside, and the Ticket Is Yours to Buy
Admission is not included and the guide helps you buy it. Meet at the ticket office 15 minutes early, then the gardens, and Klimt's golden period.
Sixty State Coaches, the Sledges, and Two Centuries of Livery
The vehicles the court actually travelled in: over 60 coaches, sledges and sedan chairs, with the harness and livery. The ticket cannot be cancelled.
Start at the Lower Gate on Rennweg and Walk Up Through the Park
Two and a half hours beginning at the Lower Belvedere on Rennweg, up through the French garden and the lake, and into the Klimt rooms at the top.
The Bride Was Left Unfinished in the Studio When the Ambulance Came
A private tour on Klimt alone, from the early Portrait of an Unknown Lady to the unfinished Bride, with his rivals and collaborators hung around him.
The Café Staff Know Nothing About the Tour, So Wait Out Front
A reserved time slot, the Grand Staircase, and Klimt, Schiele and van Gogh with an art historian. The tour ends at the Orangery in the gardens.
The Only Synagogue in Vienna That Survived the War, and Schnitzel at Noon
A private day that opens at the Morzinplatz war memorial, not a palace: twenty stops, lunch at the Naschmarkt, and an hour inside Schönbrunn at the end.
A Scholar Guide to Yourselves, from the Terraces to the Attersee
Two and a half hours in a private group: an hour on the grounds and the two palaces, ninety minutes in the galleries. Admission is bought on site.
Headsets for the Crowded Rooms, and It Can Still Be Cancelled
Headsets carry the guide through 22 rooms including the Great Gallery, and the ticket line is skipped. Free cancellation up to the date of the visit.
Twenty-Four Rooms or Forty, With or Without the Hour of Transfer
A private licensed guide and four lengths to pick from: 24 rooms in two hours or 40 in two and a half, each with an hour of transfer added if wanted.
Twenty-Two Rooms, Lantern to Hunting, Not the Standard Imperial Tour
Two and a half hours on the 22-room Highlights route, open only through official partners, meeting at Café Gerstner and not the Schlosscafé by the gate.
Do Not Go Into the Palace: the Group Center Is on the Other Side
U4 to Schönbrunn, three minutes on foot, and the guide waits with a sign at the Group Center. Twenty-two state rooms, then the gardens at your own pace.
Entry and Guide Together, and the Booking Cannot Be Cancelled
Entry and a guide in one booking, palace rooms and gardens both. Fix the date before you buy: this ticket cannot be cancelled and is not refunded.
Look for the Green Umbrella at the Ehrenhofbrunnen, First Fountain Right
Two hours with headsets and a live guide, the highlights route that cannot be booked without one. Latecomers are not refunded, so arrive 10-15 minutes early.
The Fifteenth-Century Znaim Altarpiece Shares This Ticket with Klimt
One ticket for the Upper Belvedere alone: Klimt's The Kiss, the medieval rooms with the 15th-century Znaim Altarpiece, and 19th and 20th-century art.
Ratings collected by Viator, Tripadvisor and Tiqets
Who runs an Austrian palace
Schönbrunn is not a museum in the way the Belvedere is a museum. It is run by Schloss Schönbrunn Kultur- u. Betriebsges.m.b.H., an operating company, and its real online shop is imperialtickets.com. The distinction is not bookkeeping: an operating company sells tickets the way a company does, with timed products, upgrades and seasonal passes, and the palace names one domain as its own shop and treats every other seller as resale.
The Belvedere sells from belvedere.at and has never had a separate shop address: the name shop.belvedere.at does not resolve in DNS. It prices like a federal museum as well. It takes the Bundesmuseen Card, 99 EUR a year for 25 Austrian federal museum sites and the National Library, and it sells its own annual Gold Pass at 49 EUR covering all three of its buildings with no time slot at all. Schönbrunn's line-up is built from its own passes instead: Classic Pass at 49 EUR, Classic Pass Plus at 81, Sisi Pass at 60.
One consequence lands on the visitor rather than the accountant. Schönbrunn publishes a duration for every ticket it sells, down to the quarter hour. The Belvedere publishes none. Any figure you have read for how long the Belvedere takes came from somewhere other than the museum.
The cards, and what each one opens
Vienna sells two things with almost the same name, and buying the wrong one is the most common expensive mistake in the city. The Vienna PASS is an admission product: 109 EUR for one day, 149 for two, 175 for three and 199 for six, with free entry to up to 90 sights and the hop on hop off bus thrown in. The FLEXI version counts visits rather than days, starting at 59 EUR for two. The Vienna City Card is a different product from a different publisher. It costs 19 EUR for 24 hours and 39 for seven days, it covers public transport, and it never includes admission to anything. At the Belvedere it takes the 23 EUR ticket down to 21.50.
Before buying either, do the subtraction. The doors this catalogue is about cost 30 EUR at Schönbrunn, 23 at the Upper Belvedere and 17 at the Lower Belvedere. That is 70 EUR of admission in total. A one day Vienna PASS at 109 EUR starts paying for itself only when the day holds considerably more than palaces, and the two day version at 149 EUR is the first one that has room to.
| Vienna PASS | Vienna City Card | Sisi Pass | Bundesmuseen Card | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult price | 109 EUR one day, 199 six days | 19 EUR 24 hours, 39 seven days | 60 EUR | 99 EUR a year |
| Schönbrunn palace | State Apartments only, about 10 EUR to upgrade | No admission, discount not stated | Palace Ticket, with a time slot | Not stated by the palace |
| Schönbrunn paid gardens | Included, and the fast track here is real | No admission | Not included | Not stated |
| Belvedere | Upper, Lower and 21, fast track, no slot | Discount only, 23 EUR becomes 21.50 | Not included | Included, 25 federal sites |
| Priority at Schönbrunn | None. There is no priority admission | None | None, the slot still applies | Not stated |
| Public transport | Hop on hop off bus | All Wiener Linien lines | No | No |
What to do when a listing names a ticket that no longer exists
Schönbrunn retired the names Imperial Tour and Grand Tour and replaced them with the State Apartments at 30 EUR and the Palace Ticket at 42. The card for that palace on this site said the older thing until it was rewritten, so this is not a complaint aimed at anybody in particular. It is a question of what to do about it. A listing that still says Grand Tour is almost always reselling the current 42 EUR ticket under an old label, rather than selling something that has ceased to exist. The label is stale; the product underneath is usually the full route through the piano nobile. The line that settles it is the duration: about 75 minutes is the whole floor, about 40 minutes is the shorter walk.
The lag starts at the operator rather than at the reseller, which is worth knowing before blaming the wrong party. Schönbrunn's own Classic Pass description still says the pass combines the Grand Tour of Schönbrunn Palace, on a site where every other mention of that ticket now calls it the Palace Ticket. When the seller has not finished renaming its own product, the twenty sites that resell it have no chance of being current.
Austria also teaches a more general habit better than any other country here. A number that no source will confirm today is not a small problem, however often it is repeated. The count of rooms behind each Schönbrunn ticket used to be the figure that decided which one to buy, and no current official page carries it. We do not print it either, and neither does the palace.
One family, four addresses
The Habsburg holdings in Vienna are not one estate with one ticket. Schönbrunn sits out west at the end of the U4. The Hofburg is in the middle of town and holds two separate visits, a Sisi Museum of six rooms and the Imperial Apartments of nineteen. The furniture museum is a third address, and the Wagenburg, the imperial carriage collection, is a fourth.
Only one official product ties any of them together: the Sisi Pass at 60 EUR, which covers the Schönbrunn Palace Ticket with a time slot, the Hofburg pair and the furniture museum. The Wagenburg at 12 EUR is in none of them, not even that one, and it is the single most common thing people assume is included. The Belvedere is not part of the imperial circuit at all, which is why no Schönbrunn pass will get you through its door.
The season is in the garden, not in the palace
Austria is an unusually flat country to plan. Schönbrunn is open every day including public holidays, and the calendar moves only the closing time: 17:00 from 3 November to 26 March, 17:30 from 27 March to 30 June, 18:00 through July and August, 17:30 again until 2 November. Last admission is 45 minutes before closing, which in December means the last useful moment to be at the ticket desk is 16:15.
The Belvedere has the same shape. The Upper Belvedere runs 9:00 to 18:00 every day, stretched to 19:00 from 15 July to 31 August 2026, the Lower 10:00 to 18:00, last admission 30 minutes before, and the museum closes precisely on the hour rather than drifting. The only weekly closure in the whole Austrian catalogue is Belvedere 21, shut on Mondays unless the Monday is a public holiday.
What does have a season is the paid part of Schönbrunn's park, and it is a short one: the four garden attractions go on sale in late March and come off it in early November. Walking in the park costs nothing at any time of year, from 6:30 in the morning. So the Austrian season does not decide whether you can get in. It decides whether Schönbrunn is a ninety minute stop or half a day.
The Austrian year, by what is actually on sale
Nothing here closes for winter. What changes is the closing hour and whether the paid garden attractions exist at all, and those two facts decide how much of a day Schönbrunn deserves.
| Month | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vienna palace interiorsOpen daily all year, public holidays included. Only the closing hour moves, from 17:00 in winter to 18:00 in July and August, with last admission 45 minutes earlier at Schönbrunn and 30 at the Belvedere. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| Schönbrunn paid gardensGloriette, maze, Privy Garden and Orangery Garden are sold only from 27 March to 2 November 2026, so March and November are part months. The free park stays open 6:30 to 20:00 regardless. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| Belvedere galleriesNo closed season and no weekly closure at the Upper and Lower Belvedere. The Upper stays open to 19:00 from 15 July to 31 August 2026; only Belvedere 21 shuts on Mondays. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
Hours and season dates as published by the two operators and read on 5 September 2026. The paid garden season is stated as 27 March to 2 November 2026.
What the extra money buys
The official doors are cheap by European standards. Schönbrunn asks 30 EUR for the shorter route and 42 for the longer one. The Belvedere asks 23 for the Upper, 17 for the Lower and 12 for Belvedere 21, or 32 for two of them together and 34 for all three. Against that, the median product in this catalogue is 84 EUR, or 93 if you set aside the single tip-based walking tour whose 5.99 EUR booking fee drags the bottom of the range down. A quarter of the listings sit above 218.93 EUR, five are over 250, and the most expensive is 470.
The gap is not a markup on the same thing. What sits between 42 EUR and 84 is a person, a slot somebody else booked, and sometimes an evening: the Orangery concerts run 58 EUR for 105 minutes and are a different product from a palace visit, whatever the palace name in the title suggests.
Set against the rest of the network, Austria is priced normally and rushed. The site-wide median across 560 listings is 86.26 EUR, so 84 is unremarkable. The median declared duration here is 120 minutes against 240 across the network, 20 of the 37 products finish inside two hours, and not one runs eight hours or longer. Austrian palace listings are short because the palaces are inside one city. The 15,299 reviews average 4.526 by weight, a little under the 4.653 the whole catalogue averages.
How many palaces fit into an Austrian day
In most of this catalogue the ceiling on a day is the road. In Austria it is the ticket. None of the 37 listings runs eight hours or more, none includes a hotel pickup, the longest is six hours and 20 of them are done inside two. Distance is not the constraint when both buildings are in the same city.
The constraint is that both palaces put a fixed time on the ticket and only one of them forgives you for missing it. Two palace interiors in a day is comfortable if the two times are three hours apart. What does not fit is a palace plus its garden plus the other palace. The operator's own estimate for the Classic Pass, which is the Palace Ticket plus the four garden attractions, is three to four hours, and the Classic Pass Plus with the zoo is described as roughly a day. One palace with its garden, or two palace interiors. Not both.
Which leads to a strange thing to be able to write about a country this size: two days in Vienna cover the entire Austrian catalogue. There is no second city to add, no drive to plan, no shuttle waiting at the end of a branch line. Whatever else the trip holds, the palace part of it is done in two mornings, and the only real decision left is whether the second morning goes on gardens or on paintings.
Austria, the questions worth asking first
Which Austrian castles does this catalogue actually cover?
Two palaces in Vienna, and nothing else. Twenty listings belong to Schönbrunn and 17 to the Belvedere, which is all 37. There is no Salzburg, no Hohenwerfen, no Burgenland. Twenty nine of the 37 declare a location and every one of those is Vienna.
How much does it cost to get into an Austrian palace?
At the ticket desk, 30 or 42 EUR at Schönbrunn depending on how many rooms you want, and 23, 17 or 12 EUR at the Belvedere's three buildings, with 32 EUR for two of them and 34 for all three. Through a reseller the median is 84 EUR, because a guide, a booked slot or a concert has been added.
Is the Vienna PASS worth it for the palaces alone?
No. The three doors add up to 70 EUR and the one day pass is 109. It becomes arguable at two days for 149 EUR, and only if the days are full. The pass covers the 30 EUR Schönbrunn ticket, not the 42 EUR one: the upgrade is about 10 EUR when you book the slot.
Is the Vienna City Card the same thing?
No, and this is the single most expensive name confusion in Vienna. The City Card costs 19 EUR for 24 hours up to 39 for seven days, it covers Wiener Linien transport and gives discounts, and it opens nothing. At the Belvedere it turns 23 EUR into 21.50 and 17 into 15.50.
Which day of the week is best?
Any of them, which is rarer than it sounds. Neither Schönbrunn nor the Upper and Lower Belvedere has a weekly closing day, and Schönbrunn opens on public holidays too. The only date to check is Monday, when Belvedere 21 is shut unless the Monday is a holiday, and Thursday, when it stays open to 21:00.
Do I have to book a time in advance?
At both, in different ways. Schönbrunn sells 15 minute slots and states that admission times are binding and a late ticket is no longer valid. The Belvedere sets an admission time and no limit on the stay, and it takes no bookings by telephone at all. Neither palace asks for a document with a standard ticket; the student rate at Schönbrunn wants an ISIC card and nothing else does.
Data verified on. Prices and hours read on 5 September 2026 from schoenbrunn.at, imperialtickets.com, belvedere.at, viennapass.de and wien.info. Catalogue figures from the 37 Austrian listings we track.