Vienna
Belvedere Palace
How to visit Vienna's Belvedere: which palace holds Klimt's 'The Kiss', why you book the Upper not the Lower, the timed-slot trick, and an honest read on the crowds around the painting.
Where
Vienna, Austria
Opening hours
Upper Belvedere daily 09:00–18:00 (last entry 17:30). Lower Belvedere daily 10:00–18:00, with late opening to 21:00 on Fridays. The garden between the two palaces is free and open daily from the early morning until dusk. Open on public holidays; always confirm your date on belvedere.at before you travel.
Tickets
Upper Belvedere from about €17.50 (£15) for adults booked online with a timed slot; under-19s free. A combined Upper + Lower ticket is about €28 (£24), and the all-sites Belvedere ticket adding the Belvedere 21 modern wing runs about €32 (£28). The garden between the two palaces is free to walk.
Time needed
About 90 minutes to two hours for the Upper Belvedere — long enough for the Klimt room, the Marble Hall and the medieval and Biedermeier floors without rushing.
In short
Visiting Belvedere Palace
The Belvedere is two baroque palaces facing each other across a free formal garden, and the one you book is the Upper Belvedere (Oberes Belvedere) — it holds Klimt's 'The Kiss' along with his 'Judith', plus Schiele and Kokoschka. The Lower Belvedere is for temporary shows, so most first-timers want a plain Upper ticket. It sits in the 3rd district, a 10-minute tram ride from the Ring. Buy a timed Upper slot online, go at the 09:00 opening before the coach groups reach the Klimt room, and allow about 90 minutes to two hours.
Book the Upper, not the Lower
The mistake people make is buying the wrong palace. The Belvedere is two baroque buildings facing each other across a free formal garden, and almost everyone who comes wants the Upper Belvedere (Oberes Belvedere) — that’s where Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’ hangs, along with his gold-ground ‘Judith’ and a serious Schiele and Kokoschka collection. The Lower Belvedere is a temporary-exhibition space, so a combined ticket only earns its keep if a current show actually grabs you. For a first visit, buy a plain Upper Belvedere slot.
Tickets are timed entry. Book a slot online before you fly — the Upper runs from about €17.50 (£15) for adults, under-19s are free, and the booking both guarantees your time and walks you past the ticket desk. The Klimt room is the busiest spot in the building, so take the 09:00 opening slot: go straight up to ‘The Kiss’ before doubling back through the medieval and Biedermeier floors and the Marble Hall, and you’ll get a clear few minutes with the painting rather than the late-morning scrum when the coach groups arrive.
Getting there, and is it worth it?
The Belvedere sits in the 3rd district (Landstrasse), not in the old town, so you do make a short trip of it: tram D runs from the Ring to the Upper Belvedere stop in about 10 minutes, or take the S-Bahn to Quartier Belvedere and walk up through the lower garden — the uphill approach past the fountains is the view the architect intended. Allow 90 minutes to two hours for the Upper.
Our honest take: ‘The Kiss’ is smaller and more crowded than the postcards suggest, and for ten minutes you’ll share it with a lot of phones. But the rest of the Upper Belvedere is underrated — the full Klimt and Schiele rooms, the Marble Hall, and the garden view back over Vienna are worth the slot on their own. Don’t stack it against the Hofburg or Schönbrunn on the same day; two sets of imperial rooms back to back is how Vienna stops landing. The garden between the two palaces is free, so even a non-ticket-holder can walk the terraces and the reflecting pool.
Planning the rest of your trip? See the Vienna city guide.
