Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
way gazing grandly over Prince Eugene's private garden. Attached to the Orangery is the
Prunkstall
( 10am-noon)
, the former royal stables, where you can now trot through a
150-piece collection of Austrian medieval art, including religious scenes, altarpieces,
sculpture and Gothic triptychs.
Belvedere Gardens
(03, Rennweg/Prinz-Eugen-Strasse; D)
The long garden between the two Belvederes was laid
out in classical French style and has sphinxes and other mythical beasts along its borders.
South of the Oberes Belvedere is the small
alpine garden
(
www.bundesgaerten.at
; 03, Prinz-Eugen-
Strasse 27; adult/child €3.50/2.50; 10am-6pm late Mar-early Aug; Südtiroler Platz, D, O, 18)
, which
has 3500 plant species and a bonsai section. North of here is the much larger
Botanischer
Gärten
(
www.botanik.univie.ac.at
; 03, Rennweg 14;
GARDEN
belonging
10am-1hr before dusk;
71, O)
to Vienna University.
Heeresgeschichtliches Museum
(Museum of Military History;
www.hgm.or.at
;
03, Arsenal; adult/under 19yr €5.10/free, 1st Sun of month free;
9am-5pm; Südtiroler Platz)
The superb Heeresgeschichtliches Museum is housed in the
Arsenal, a large neo-Byzantine barracks and munitions depot.
Spread over two floors, the museum works its way from the Thirty Years' War
(1618-48) to WWII, taking in the Hungarian Uprising and the Austro-Prussian War (end-
ing in 1866), the Napoleonic and Turkish Wars, and WWI. Highlights on the 1st floor in-
clude the Great Seal of Mustafa Pasha, which fell to Prince Eugene of Savoy in the Battle
of Zenta in 1697.
On the ground floor, the room on the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in
Sarajevo in 1914 - which set off a chain of events culminating in the start of WWI -
steals the show. The car he was shot in (complete with bullet holes), the sofa he bled to
death on and his rather grisly blood-stained coat are on show. The eastern wing covers
the republic years after WWI up until the
Anschluss
(annexation into Germany) in 1938;
the excellent displays include propaganda posters and Nazi paraphernalia, plus video
footage of Hitler hypnotising the masses.
MUSEUM
Karlskirche
CHURCH
