https://hofburg.org Hofburg en https://hofburg.org/augustinerkirche-vienna-habsburg-weddings-heart-crypt/ Most visitors walk past it. The Augustinian Church is built into the Hofburg on Josefsplatz, next to the State Hall of the library, and from the outside it's a plain Gothic front squeezed between palace wings. It was the Habsburg court's parish church from 1634 to 1918, and it's where the family got married. Habsburgs Maria Theresa Sisi Franz Joseph Josefsplatz music Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/augustinerkirche-vienna-habsburg-weddings-heart-crypt/ https://hofburg.org/austrian-national-library-state-hall-prunksaal-vienna/ Plenty of palaces have a library. The Hofburg has a library hall nearly 80 metres long, all shelving, galleries and painted ceiling, built so an emperor could show Europe that Vienna was a capital of learning as well as of armies. Josefsplatz museums architecture Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/austrian-national-library-state-hall-prunksaal-vienna/ https://hofburg.org/emerald-vessel-imperial-treasury-vienna-dionysio-miseroni-1641/ It's the size of a large fist, 10.9 centimetres tall. In the Treasury's jewels room it sits alone in a dark case, lit from above, and it glows. It is one emerald, hollowed out into a small pot with a lid, and the Imperial Treasury counts it among the largest emeralds in the world. objects Habsburgs Schweizerhof Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/emerald-vessel-imperial-treasury-vienna-dionysio-miseroni-1641/ https://hofburg.org/golden-fleece-herald-potence-chain-of-arms-imperial-treasury/ Most of the Order of the Golden Fleece's treasure is about the knights. This piece belonged to the man who kept track of them. It's the potence, the chain of arms worn by the Order's chief herald, and it was built so that he carried the coat of arms of every living knight around his shoulders. objects Habsburgs Schweizerhof Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/golden-fleece-herald-potence-chain-of-arms-imperial-treasury/ https://hofburg.org/heldenplatz-vienna-history-1938-kaiserforum/ Heldenplatz is the big open square on the Ring side of the Hofburg: lawns, two bronze horsemen, the curved front of the Neue Burg, and a long view across to the Burgtheater and City Hall. It looks finished. It isn't. It's half of a plan the empire never completed, on ground Napoleon cleared. Heldenplatz Neue Burg history Habsburgs Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/heldenplatz-vienna-history-1938-kaiserforum/ https://hofburg.org/historic-cafes-near-hofburg-demel-sacher-mozart-palmenhaus/ The court is gone, but the places that fed it are still open. Within ten minutes' walk of the Hofburg are a confectioner that held the imperial warrant, a hotel café built on the site of a court theatre, and a palm house the emperor used for his own leisure. You can sit in most of them for the price of a coffee and a slice of cake. cafés Michaelerplatz history Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/historic-cafes-near-hofburg-demel-sacher-mozart-palmenhaus/ https://hofburg.org/hofburg-chapel-vienna-boys-choir-sunday-mass/ Every Sunday from late September to late June, at 9:15, the Vienna Boys' Choir sings Mass in the Hofburg's own chapel. It's not a concert. It's a Catholic liturgy that happens to have one of the world's best-known choirs in the gallery, together with members of the Vienna State Opera orchestra and chorus. That's the point, and it's also why so many visitors leave disappointed: in most seats you hear the boys and never see them. music Schweizerhof visiting Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/hofburg-chapel-vienna-boys-choir-sunday-mass/ https://hofburg.org/hofburg-vienna-getting-there-entrances/ The Hofburg has no single front door. It's a block of 19 courtyards with gates on every side, and the museums inside each have their own entrance, ticket desk and opening days. The most common mistake is to queue at the wrong one. visiting Michaelerplatz Heldenplatz Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/hofburg-vienna-getting-there-entrances/ https://hofburg.org/hofburg-vienna-history-wings-guide/ The Hofburg isn't a palace in the way Schönbrunn or Versailles is. Nobody designed it. It grew, wing by wing, for more than six hundred years, each ruler adding what he or she needed in the style of the day, and nobody ever went back to make it match. Walk from Michaelerplatz to Heldenplatz and you pass through Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and the last pomp of the 1900s in about ten minutes. Habsburgs architecture history Michaelerplatz Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/hofburg-vienna-history-wings-guide/ https://hofburg.org/imperial-armoury-vienna-hofjagd-und-ruestkammer-neue-burg/ Most visitors to the Neue Burg come for the Weltmuseum and walk past the stairs to the Imperial Armoury. That's a mistake. Upstairs is one of the leading collections of arms and armour in the world, and the museum calls it the best-documented dynastic armoury in the Western world. It is also, on most days, almost empty. Neue Burg museums Habsburgs Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/imperial-armoury-vienna-hofjagd-und-ruestkammer-neue-burg/ https://hofburg.org/imperial-crown-of-austria-rudolf-ii-1602/ Most crowns are made for a coronation. This one never saw one. Rudolf II had it made in Prague in 1602 to wear when the real imperial crown was out of reach, and two centuries later it became the crown of an empire that didn't exist when it was made. objects Habsburgs Schweizerhof Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/imperial-crown-of-austria-rudolf-ii-1602/ https://hofburg.org/imperial-treasury-vienna-crowns-holy-lance-tickets/ If you see one thing in the Hofburg, make it the Treasury. It's small, about twenty rooms, and it holds the objects that made a Habsburg an emperor: two imperial crowns, the orb and sceptre, the coronation robes, and relics the dynasty treated as proof that God was on its side. Schweizerhof Habsburgs museums Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/imperial-treasury-vienna-crowns-holy-lance-tickets/ https://hofburg.org/innsbruck-hofburg-giant-hall-maria-theresa-hofkirche/ Vienna's Hofburg gets the crowds, but the Habsburgs had a second Hofburg in Innsbruck, and it holds one of the saddest stories in the family. It's smaller, easier to see in a morning, and it comes with the best tomb in Austria next door. Innsbruck Maria Theresa Habsburgs Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/innsbruck-hofburg-giant-hall-maria-theresa-hofkirche/ https://hofburg.org/leopoldine-wing-hofburg-maria-theresa-federal-president/ When Austria swears in a new government, the ceremony takes place in a Rococo room in the Hofburg called the Maria Theresa Room. It was once the state bedroom of Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis Stephen. Since 1946 it has been where the Federal President receives prime ministers, ambassadors and visiting heads of state. Maria Theresa history architecture Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/leopoldine-wing-hofburg-maria-theresa-federal-president/ https://hofburg.org/neue-burg-vienna-museums-weltmuseum-armoury-ephesos/ The Neue Burg was meant to be the grandest wing of the Hofburg, half of an imperial forum on Heldenplatz. The empire ended before it was used as a palace. Instead it filled up with museums and library rooms, and the museums behind its curved façade are quiet enough that you'll often have whole rooms to yourself. Neue Burg Heldenplatz museums Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/neue-burg-vienna-museums-weltmuseum-armoury-ephesos/ https://hofburg.org/sisi-museum-imperial-apartments-reopening-november-2026/ The most visited part of the Hofburg is in the middle of a makeover. On 19 November 2026 the Imperial Apartments, the Sisi Museum and the Imperial Silver Collection reopen as one continuous route, with about 700 square metres of extra space, twelve new rooms along Schauflergasse and five Rococo rooms that have never been open to the public. Sisi Franz Joseph museums Michaelerplatz visiting Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/sisi-museum-imperial-apartments-reopening-november-2026/ https://hofburg.org/spanish-riding-school-vienna-performance-morning-exercise-tours/ The Spanish Riding School is the oldest working part of the Hofburg. It's been training horses here since at least 20 September 1565, the date of the first document that mentions a riding place in the palace garden, where Josefsplatz is now. The same year work began on turning the Stallburg, a Renaissance palace finished in 1560 and never lived in, into the court stables. The Lipizzaner stallions still sleep there. Michaelerplatz visiting history Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://hofburg.org/spanish-riding-school-vienna-performance-morning-exercise-tours/