Upper Belvedere vs Lower Belvedere: Which to Visit If You Only Have Time for One
The Upper Belvedere holds Klimt's The Kiss and the permanent collection; the Lower Belvedere hosts changing exhibitions and Prince Eugene's residential staterooms — how to choose, and when both make sense.
First-time visitors often arrive at the Belvedere assuming it is a single building. It is in fact two palaces — the Upper Belvedere (Oberes Belvedere) and the Lower Belvedere (Unteres Belvedere) — built one above the other on a gentle hillside, separated by a formal Baroque garden of perhaps four hundred metres. Both were commissioned by Prince Eugene of Savoy and designed by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt; the Lower Belvedere was completed first, around 1716, as Prince Eugene's residential summer palace, and the Upper Belvedere was finished in 1723 as a Lustschloss for receptions and state entertainment. A third site, Belvedere 21, sits ten minutes south on Arsenalstraße and shows post-1945 and contemporary Austrian art. The Upper Belvedere is the headline destination: the world's largest Klimt collection, the Marble Hall, the Schiele rooms and the Baroque ground floor. The Lower Belvedere is the rotating-exhibition palace. If you have time for only one, the answer is almost always the Upper. This guide explains when it is not.
What is in the Upper Belvedere
The Upper Belvedere holds the permanent collection of the Österreichische Galerie. Its first floor includes the Marble Hall (Marmorsaal), the building's grandest single room, with a ceiling fresco by Carlo Innocenzo Carlone and a view down the formal garden axis to the Lower Belvedere and the spires of central Vienna beyond. The Klimt galleries open off the Marble Hall on either side; The Kiss has its own wall in one of these adjacent rooms, joined by Judith I from 1901, the Sonja Knips portrait from 1898, and a substantial showing of Klimt's landscape work from the Attersee summers.
The Schiele rooms hold major works including the late Family and Death and the Maiden. Oskar Kokoschka, Hans Makart, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller and the Biedermeier school are also represented. Prince Eugene's preserved staterooms, the medieval and Baroque rooms on the ground floor — Maulbertsch, the Messerschmidt character heads and a strong Gothic collection — round out the building. The world's largest Klimt holding is here, twenty-four paintings in total per the operator, drawn from every phase of his career. Two hours is the standard suggested duration for a focused first visit; specialist art-history visitors often spend three to four hours and still leave wanting more time with the Schiele rooms.
What is in the Lower Belvedere
The Lower Belvedere was Prince Eugene's residential summer palace, smaller and more intimate than the Upper, and it now serves as the museum's principal temporary-exhibition venue. Its two main galleries — the Marble Hall (distinct from the Upper's) and the Marble Gallery (Marmorgalerie) — host two to four major exhibitions per year, typically on themes adjacent to the museum's collection: an in-depth Klimt drawings show, a Schiele retrospective, a survey of Austrian women artists, a Biedermeier theme. The adjacent Orangery and Palace Stables (Prunkstall) are additional exhibition halls included in the same ticket envelope.
The Lower Belvedere also preserves a series of original interiors that survive from Prince Eugene's residential occupation. The Hall of Grotesques (Groteskensaal), with its painted ceiling of fantasy creatures, and the Gold Cabinet (Goldkabinett), heavily gilded and originally lined with mirrors, give a sense of how Eugene actually lived in the early eighteenth century. The Hall of Mirrors is the third of these residential survivals. Visitors interested in the lived texture of an early Baroque court palace will find more of it here than in the Upper, which was always a Lustschloss for show. Current exhibitions and the precise rooms open at any moment are listed on belvedere.at; the building is normally closed only during exhibition changeover windows.
If you only have two hours: choose the Upper
For roughly eighty per cent of first-time visitors, the right choice is the Upper Belvedere alone. The Kiss is the single piece of art most people specifically travel to Vienna to see, and standing in front of it — a panel one hundred and eighty centimetres square, covered in real gold leaf, behind protective glass in a room calibrated for it — is the experience that justifies the trip. Two hours in the Upper Belvedere is the typical timing: roughly forty-five minutes in the Klimt rooms, twenty minutes in the Schiele rooms, twenty minutes through Prince Eugene's staterooms and the Marble Hall, twenty minutes through the medieval and Baroque ground floor.
Trying to add the Lower Belvedere in the same two-hour window means rushing both, and the Lower especially rewards the slower pace its exhibitions are designed for. Visitors who push to do both in a single morning typically come away saying they did not really see either. The exception is a half-day visit of three to four hours, where two and a half hours in the Upper followed by a leisurely garden walk down to the Lower and ninety minutes in a current exhibition delivers a more rounded experience. The combination ticket exists specifically for this case; the price difference between Upper-only and combination is modest compared to the doubling of content.
When the Lower Belvedere is the right call (and the garden between)
There are three situations where the Lower Belvedere genuinely earns priority. The first is when its current temporary exhibition is a once-in-a-decade survey of an artist or theme you specifically care about; check belvedere.at six weeks before your trip to know whether this applies. The second is on a return visit, when you have already seen the Klimt collection on a previous trip and want to go deeper into Austrian art history through the curated lens that the temporary exhibitions provide. The third is in shoulder-season weather, when the formal garden between the two palaces is at its most attractive and a slower day spent walking between exhibitions in both palaces is itself the pleasure.
Whichever palace you choose, the Baroque garden between them is free to enter and worth allowing twenty minutes for. Laid out in the early eighteenth century in the strict French formal style by the Versailles-trained gardener Dominique Girard, it climbs three terraces from the Lower Belvedere to the Upper, with tiered fountains, cascades, Baroque sculpture and parterres of clipped box framing the central axis. The view from the upper terrace back toward central Vienna — the Karlskirche dome, the Stephansdom spire, the spread of the historic city — is one of Vienna's best free panoramas. The gardens have multiple gates: south on Prinz-Eugen-Straße, north on Rennweg, and side entrances on Landstraßer Gürtel.
Frequently asked
Where is The Kiss — Upper or Lower Belvedere?
The Kiss is in the Upper Belvedere (Oberes Belvedere), in the Klimt galleries on the first floor immediately adjacent to the Marble Hall. The Lower Belvedere holds temporary exhibitions and the residential staterooms only — the permanent Klimt collection is not there.
Should I buy a combination ticket for both Belvederes?
If you have at least three to four hours and an interest in the current temporary exhibitions in the Lower Belvedere, yes. If you have only two hours or your priority is the Klimt collection alone, an Upper-Belvedere-only ticket is sufficient.
Can I walk between the Upper and Lower Belvedere?
Yes — the formal Baroque garden connects the two palaces directly, a ten-to-twelve minute walk along the central axis. The garden itself is free to enter. For step-free transit, tram 71 connects the Schloss Belvedere and Unteres Belvedere stops outside the two palaces.
Which Belvedere is more impressive architecturally?
The Upper Belvedere is the more theatrical of the two, designed by Hildebrandt to be seen from the gardens below. The Lower Belvedere is smaller and more intimate, originally Prince Eugene's residential palace, and preserves the Hall of Grotesques and Gold Cabinet from his occupation.
Are both Belvederes open every day?
Yes. The Upper Belvedere is open daily 09:00–18:00 per the operator; the Lower Belvedere is open daily 10:00–18:00. Belvedere 21 is the one site that closes on Mondays. Hours can shorten on 24 December and around major Austrian public holidays.
How long should I plan for the Upper Belvedere?
Two hours is the standard suggested duration for a focused first visit covering the Klimt rooms, the Marble Hall, the Schiele rooms, the staterooms and the ground-floor medieval and Baroque collections. Art-history specialists often spend three to four hours.
How long for the Lower Belvedere?
Approximately one to one-and-a-half hours, depending on the scale of the current temporary exhibitions and whether you also visit the adjacent Orangery and Palace Stables venues in the same ticket envelope.
Is the Belvedere garden free?
Yes. The Baroque garden between the Upper and Lower Belvedere palaces is free to enter and open daily from early morning to dusk. Only the palace interiors and the Orangery exhibitions require a ticket.
What is Belvedere 21?
Belvedere 21 is a separate contemporary-art venue on Arsenalstraße, about ten minutes south of the Upper Belvedere by tram D, showing post-1945 and contemporary Austrian art. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00–18:00, with late hours on Thursday until 21:00, and is closed Mondays.
Can I see Klimt's Beethoven Frieze at the Lower Belvedere?
No. The Beethoven Frieze (1902) is permanently installed at the Secession Building, about fifteen minutes' walk from the Upper Belvedere across Karlsplatz. It pairs naturally with a Belvedere visit but requires a separate ticket from the Secession.