Vienna Technical Museum

The Technisches Museum Wien was founded in 1908 and opened in 1918 in a purpose-built hall near Schönbrunn, and its holdings run to some hundred and sixty thousand objects covering Austrian industry, transport, energy, mining and everyday technology. The heavy transport hall is the centre: steam locomotives including imperial saloon carriages, early motor cars, aircraft hanging from the roof, and the machinery of the industrial period at full size. A reconstructed coal mine runs under the building with tunnels, seams and equipment you walk through. Elsewhere are musical instruments, printing, computing, and a large section on energy and physics with working demonstrations, plus a children's area. The building itself, with its glass-roofed central hall, is part of the museum's period.

What you actually see

• A full-size transport hall - locomotives, imperial carriages, cars and hanging aircraft.
• A walk-through coal mine - reconstructed tunnels and seams under the building.
• Working demonstrations - the energy and physics section run with staff.
• A 1918 glass-roofed hall - the museum building as a period object itself.

When to go

All year; weekday afternoons outside school holidays are quietest. Half a day.

Honest expectations

School groups fill it on weekday mornings in term. It is large and tiring; pick sections. Some older displays are text-heavy in German with thinner English.

Nearby

Schönbrunn palace and gardens are a short walk; Penzing station is behind.