Castles · Tour

The Café Staff Know Nothing About the Tour, So Wait Out Front

A guided tour of the Upper Belvedere with an art history specialist, on skip-the-line tickets with a reserved entry slot. Start with the meeting point, because it trips people up. The group forms in front of the Art Corner Restaurant, on Prinz-Eugen-Straße, just outside the gilded gates. Wait outside: the café staff are not told about the tour and cannot help you. From there through the gates and into the courtyard, where the guide sets out what the building was before it was a museum, the summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy. Then in, past the queue, and up the Grand Staircase with its frescoes and sculpture. The collection runs from the Middle Ages to the modern rooms: medieval religious painting at one end, Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and van Gogh at the other. Commentary is live, in one language chosen at booking, and the question the guide opens with, which old story stands behind The Kiss, takes most of the visit to answer properly. The tour finishes at the Orangery, the old greenhouse now used for exhibitions, with the Baroque gardens around it.