For one low price (13 Euro) you can enter any of the museums from 6PM - 1AM. There are special busses and trams that can take you to the outlying museums.
What kind of museums, you ask? Download the PDF booklet in English if you want (scroll down to the bottom of the page and there it is), but aside from world-class art and history museums, you can also visit:
The architecture museum, the schnapps museum, the chocolate museum, a museum of Vienna funeral services, a circus and clown museum, a museum where you can experience what it's like to be blind (you're led along by blind guides through total darkness and get to feel the exhibits), a museum of endoscopic instruments (!), a museum featuring globes made before 1850, a museum devoted to the nursing profession, a motorcycle museum, a museum of contraception and abortion...and many more. 113 museums in Vienna, about 600 total in all of Austria.
As I said, this is an Austria-wide event. In Vienna, over 200,000 people took part. It was unseasonably warm---I didn't really need my jacket until late in the evening----and the streets were jam-packed.
We visited 1) the ORF radio facilities and took a brief tour of the O1 studios 2) Urania, where amateur astronomers had several telescopes set up on the roof for your viewing pleasure 3) the Hungarian Institute, where we saw a great exhibit of the photos of Robert Capa 4) the Butterfly House, which was packed with people but not so many butterflies 5) a gigantic display of ancient musical instruments 6) a huge display of arms and armor.
In the musical instruments museum there were groups who played 16th Century songs on replica instruments, and in the arms and armor museum there were guys dressed like knights who explained the use of ancient weaponry like crossbows, etc.
In the famous film The Third Man there's a chase scene through the sewers of Vienna. You can take a tour of these very same sewers and we wanted to go, but even at 6 PM there were a couple of hundred people lined up---and they only take 20 people at a time for each tour, so we knew it was a lost cause. We'll go next time, when the crowds are more reasonable....
All in all, a great night with lots of walking and interesting things to see, and it shows me I have to visit the museums one at a time when I have most of a day to devote to each, because there's way too much to see in one night.
You knew there had to be a picture of some food here somewhere.
We stopped by Orlando di Castello for a late lunch.
We stopped by Orlando di Castello for a late lunch.
This was an excellent burger, organic meat. Cost: 7.50 Euro.
A rare treat for your tightwad correspondent.
A night boat tour on the Danube Canal.
Butterflies in the Butterfly House.
Exterior of the Butterfly House.
