Imperial Crypt

Imperial Crypt tickets: which one to buy

One ticket covers the crypt and is bought at the door; there is no queue to speak of and no need to book. An audio guide is available and a printed plan is included, which matters because 150 people are buried here and the labelling assumes you know the dynasty. Guided tours run occasionally and cost a little more. Walking tours of imperial Vienna include the crypt and cost several times the entry.

The Capuchin church above is free and takes two minutes. Note the Habsburg arrangement: bodies here, hearts in the Augustinian church five minutes away, entrails in the catacombs of St Stephen's, and seeing all three is a walk of fifteen minutes that most visitors never realise is available. The Capuchin friars maintain the crypt and the entrance is through a plain door on Neuer Markt that looks like nothing at all.

Visiting Imperial Crypt: what to see

Anna of Tyrol founded the crypt in her will of 1617 and it has been the burial place of the House of Habsburg since 1633. One hundred and seven metal sarcophagi and five heart urns stand in a sequence of vaulted rooms, and the styles map the family's taste across four centuries. The double sarcophagus of Maria Theresa and Francis I is a rococo bed of bronze on which the couple turn towards each other, surrounded by putti, four metres high. Beside it, her son Joseph II lies in a plain copper box, an Enlightenment rebuke to his mother.

Franz Joseph is flanked by his wife Elisabeth, murdered in Geneva in 1898, and their son Rudolf, who shot himself at Mayerling. The most recent burial was in 2023, and the Capuchin friars still act as guardians. Charles I, the last emperor, is not here; he died in exile on Madeira, and only his heart was brought back to Europe, to Muri in Switzerland. Maria Theresa had the rococo sarcophagus made during her lifetime and is said to have visited it regularly after her husband's death, descending the same stairs visitors use today.

Imperial Crypt opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily from mid-morning to late afternoon, with the last entry half an hour before closing; the crypt closes on 1 November and on a few other days. It is cool and dry year-round. The rooms are small and a tour group fills them, though the flow is usually steady. Photography is forbidden throughout, which is enforced and keeps the atmosphere. Dress is informal;

this is a burial place rather than a church interior. Allow forty-five minutes. Neuer Markt outside has been rebuilt and the Donner fountain in the middle is a copy, the original being in the Belvedere. The Kaisergruft is two minutes from the Kaerntner Strasse and easy to fit into any Vienna day. Anniversary masses for individual Habsburgs are held through the year and are open to anyone who happens to be there.