The Kunsthistorisches Museum — built between 1872 and 1891 as the twin of the Naturhistorisches across the Maria-Theresien-Platz — is one of the great encyclopaedic museums of Europe. The Ringstraße classicism of the exterior gives way to an interior that is itself a work: marble staircases, ceiling frescoes by Gustav Klimt in the intercolumniations, and the central cupola space above the café that Klimt decorated as a young man. The collection's depth in Dutch Golden Age painting (including the world's largest Bruegel collection), Egyptian antiquities, and Greek and Roman sculpture rewards time considerably beyond the single-visit approach.
Innere Stadt, Vienna, Austria