Imperial Carriage Museum
Photo: Transferred from de.wikipedia to Commons. — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Located in Schönbrunn Palace, the Imperial Carriage Museum displays over 60 historic vehicles, including the ‘Imperial Carriage’ and Empress Elisabeth’s personal items.
Planning your visit
The Imperial Carriage Museum holds the Habsburg court's vehicles, and the scale of the operation it documents is startling: at its height the imperial stables kept hundreds of carriages and thousands of horses, with a dedicated department managing court transport as a branch of state ceremony.
Over 60 vehicles survive here. The Imperial Coach is the centrepiece — a gilded eighteenth-century state carriage weighing four tonnes, used for coronations, drawn by eight horses and moving at walking pace. Alongside it stand travelling coaches, sleighs with carved and painted bodies, children's carriages including one made for Napoleon's son, and the black funeral carriage that carried Franz Joseph in 1916.
Empress Elisabeth is heavily represented, including her personal travelling equipment and a reconstruction of her wedding dress, continuing the Sisi narrative that runs through Vienna's imperial sites.
It sits in a former winter riding school in the Schönbrunn grounds, and is frequently missed by visitors focused on the palace itself. Combination tickets with the palace and gardens are available. Allow an hour. Current availability is shown below.
Before you book
Where is Imperial Carriage Museum?
Imperial Carriage Museum is in Vienna, Austria. The map on this page marks its exact location.
How long should I allow for Imperial Carriage Museum?
Allow an hour. That is the time the collection itself takes at an unhurried pace, before any queue.
Do I need to book Imperial Carriage Museum in advance?
Tickets can be bought on the door at quiet times, but booking ahead fixes the date and avoids the queue at busy ones. Live availability is shown on this page.
