traveldk.com

Designed by Heinrich Ferstel in the Italian Renaissance style, the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts opened in 1871 and is today among Vienna’s most exciting exhibitions. The permanent collection, presented according to periods from the Gothic to the present, includes world-famous works by the Wiener Werkstätte, an arts and crafts studio from 1870 to 1956, as well as exquisite glassware and lace works.

Lovers of the Big Top will find plenty to smile about here. The small collection is not only devoted to circus life but also to the art of entertainment and has props, fancy costumes, historic programmes and colourful circus posters on display. Exhibits also tell the history of famous clowns.

The Scots’ Abbey, founded in 1155 by Scottish and Irish Benedictine monks, is a massive complex with a church, a school and a monastery. The abbey’s treasures include tapestries, furniture and liturgical objects, but most important is its religious landscape and portrait paintings from all periods.

Opened in 2001, this complex is home to various museums and galleries, including the Leopold Museum featuring Austrian art, and the Museum of Modern Art, whose basalt lava building is as impressive as its collections (see pp28–9).

The round “Narrenturm” building, the 18th-century psychiatric ward of the former General Hospital, houses a morbid collection of medical horrors. Begun in 1796 to document pathological changes and malformations of humans, the exhibits include human and animal bones as well as body parts preserved in formaldehyde. You will definitely need strong nerves here.

This private collection revolves around dolls and toys from the last two centuries, and is as interesting for adults as it is for children. The museum exhibits 600 dolls made of wood, wax and porcelain, as well as various teddy bears, string puppets, dolls’ houses and toy trains.

A museum devoted to the distilled Austrian drink, Schnaps. The historic distillery dates back to the 1870s but is still used today to produce drinks such as the “Schönbrunn Gold” liquor, made of herb and orange distillates. You can look around the old cauldrons and the office with original furniture – but don’t miss the tasting after the tour.

Opened in 1918, the Vienna Museum of Technology houses more than 80,000 exhibits from the world of technology, energy and heavy industry. The collections include many rarities by Austrian inventors, among them the world’s first turbine by Viktor Kaplan (1919) and the first functioning sewing machine by Josef Madersberger (1814).

Located in one of Vienna’s oldest houses, this museum is dedicated to timepieces of all ages and shapes. Items include an astronomical clock from 1769 whose hands take 20,904 years to do a full turn.