Townhall & museum quarter

The Kunsthistoriches Museum, or Museum of the History of Art, holds works collected by the Habsburgs for centuries. As you can imagine, the place is huge and extensive; it receives more than one and a half million people a year. We enjoyed Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel and Summer by Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Rauthaus Park and the Rauthaus Platz frame the Neues Rauthaus, or New Town Hall. The Parliament building sits to the south of the park and square and the Burgtheater is across Dr-Karl-Lueger-Ring to the east.

We enjoyed a relaxing lunch at Witwe Bolte, in a small garden on Gutenberggasse west of the museums. Two old Viennese women were enjoying a pair of huge beers and chatting about the day's events. We chuckled all through lunch - the beers were bigger than they were. The restaurant seems to attract business folks and locals, which we appreciated after mixing with tourists most of the time.

The streets on either side of Gutenberggasse are worth exploring to enjoy building facades, houses and portals. The series of lanes - Spittelberggasse, Guttenberggasse and Schrankgasse - are known as the Spittelberg Pedestrian Area. We enjoyed the bohemian stores along Spittelberggasse too. Apparently, the street hosts an arts and crafts festival every Saturday in the summertime.

Farther north is the Sankt-Ulrichs-Platz. Narrow and steeply sloped, the square is an odd landmark in the streets south of the small district known as Josefstadt.

Josefstadt is not technically part of the inner city, but don't let that deter you. The neighborhood is quaint, cozy and quotidian. It is also home to the Josefstadt Theater, the Maria Treu Kirche with the Plague Column, Schönborn Park, the Museum für Volkskunde (Austrian folklore) and a picturesque street, Lange Gasse. On Lange Gasse, be sure to check out Alte Backstube, a bakery for over 250 years turned museum and restaurant.

Whereizzit