Strange Things To Visit In Vienna
An Overview of Vienna
Resting on the banks of the Danube River, Austria’s capital of Vienna is a musical legacy city where many famous musicians such as Beethoven and Mozart plied their craft. The center of the city is a cultural capital of Europe, with majestic buildings, outstanding museums, stunning green spaces and inspirational heritage venues. There are many interesting and strange things to visit in Vienna.
Strange Things To Visit In Vienna
Clockwork Museum
One of the most intricate and strange museums in Vienna is this elegant Viennese house. The house has a signification collection of timepieces from around the world. The buildings three stories exhibit scientific timekeeping advancements, technologically precise devices and social shifts that evolved with ever-more accurate uses of time.
Schmetterlinghaus The Imperial Butterfly Park
Located in the center of Vienna, this is a beautiful Art Nouveau Palm House with hundreds of delicate butterflies circulating thorughout the interior greenhouse. The building is directly near other famous buildings, including the Hofburg (residence of the Habsburg family).
Schonbrunn Imperial Palace
This is one of the most impressive imperial buildings in Vienna. The imperial summer residence served as a decadent center for court intrigue during the reign of Maria Theresa. The site was justifiably declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site for it’s beauty, centuries of Austrian history and iconic cultural components.
St. Stephen’s Cathedral and Catacombs of Vienna
While this cathedral is one of the most important religious and spiritual structures in Vienna, having witnessed centuries of history, the Cathedral is also an unusual access point. Below the cathedral are the famed catacombs of St. Stephen’s. The graves of Vienna’s cardinals and archbishops can be found in this catacomb system. The site is notorious and remains one of the strange things to visit in Vienna.
The Danube Observation Tower
This tower, also known as “The Donauturm” is a impressive technical masterpiece with commanding 360 degrees overlooking vast sections of beautiful Vienna.
Republic of Kugelmugel
The Republic of Kugelmugel was a tiny micronation which originally declared independence in 1975 after an artist named Edwin Lipburger became involved in a dispute regarding the establishment of a ball-shaped house. Lipburger was eventually arrested and the ball-shaped home was moved to Prater Park near the Hauptallee. The ball was still technically a “independent Republic” but is now administered by the government of Austria with a population of several hundred non-resident citizens. The Republic of Kugelmugel primarily operates as a strange tourist attraction with gallery spaces.
The Wiener Riesenrad Ferris Wheel
This is the most famous Ferris Wheel in Vienna, found in Prater Park. The Ferris Wheel gained a slight bump in international fame after being part of the 1948 cinematic film “The Third Man.” The film has a lasting cult following which allows visitors to retrace the footsteps of Harry Lime during a sewer tour, the Ferris Wheel and the Third Man Museum.
Haus der Musik
Opened in 2000, the House of Music is a massive hi-tech interactive multimedia museum showcasing some of the earliest human instruments alongside modern, cutting-edge sound synthesizers and electronic audio devices.
The Rathaus
The Rathaus serves as Vienna City Hall, the local seat of the Vienna Government. The stunning historical building hosts over 1,500 rooms, many which can be toured. Entry into the main hall is free on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 1 PM.
Summer Rodelbahn Toboggan Run
Summer Toboggans use impressive metal slides and rails on downhills slopes to allow individuals in toboggan to lurch downhill at exhilarating speeds.
Kriminalmuseum
This “Criminal Museum” is an in-depth museum looking into the criminal psyche, the nature of law and the insidiously interesting aspects of murder, lock picking and detective work. The museum, with exhibits spanning from the Middle Ages to the modern era, showcases death masks, skulls, mummified heads and torture implements.
Habsburg Imperial Crypt
Filled with ornate metal coffins, artistic skulls and impressive bone patterns, this crypt houses the remains of embalmed royalty, emperors and imperial sarcophaguses.
Globe Museum
This is a massive museum dedicated to globes, maps and old cartographic orbs. The museum also showcases instruments used to better understand the Earth, such as tellurions which track how the earth and moon move in relation to on another.
Sigmund Freud Museum
This museum is dedicated to the influential psychologist and trailblazer, Sigmund Freud. The rooms contain the spaces where Freud developed his most profound theories.
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library)
The astonishing baroque masterpiece was formally the court library to the Hapsburgs. Now, it serves as one of the world’s most profound libraries with an extraordinary collection dating back to the 14th century.
Museum of Art Fakes
Located across the street from the Hunderwasserhaus, the Museum of Art Fakes is an amusing but profoundly well-designed musuem showcasing the art of forgery, graft and decoys. The little gallery doesn’t have a single original work within. Instead, the collection is filled with convincing fakes, a strange homage to a strange subculture.
Kunstkammer Wien
This strange venue contains over 2,000 curiosities, artworks, natural oddities and strange artifacts collected by the Royal family. Within, there are carved rhino horns, class containers shaped like a hero with feathers, odd automations, preserved scientific instruments, musical clocks and more.
Wiener Pestsäule (Vienna Plague Column)
Found in the middle of Vienna, this sculpture depicts the Great Plague of Vienna, which brought the city to its knees by killing somewhere between 12,000 and 75,000 people. While the exact origin of the plague is unknown, there are theories that the illness was the return of the Bubonic Plague from the 14th century making a return in the 17th. As a nexus of trades, Vienna was hit especially hard.
Hofjagd und Rüstkammer
This museum is filled with ceremonial coats of armor, elegant weaponry, political military attire, imperial family artifacts and other beautiful items of war.
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