The Albertina sits on the last surviving stretch of Vienna's city-wall bastion, a Habsburg palais at the tail of the Hofburg complex holding one of the largest graphic-art collections anywhere: roughly a million prints and drawings begun in 1776 by Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, Maria Theresa's son-in-law. Dürer's Young Hare and his Praying Hands are the most famous sheets in the vault — light-sensitive, they surface only during dedicated Dürer showings, a detail worth knowing before building a visit around them.
What is reliably on the walls is the Batliner Collection, a permanent "Monet to Picasso" sweep through Impressionism, Fauvism, German Expressionism and the Russian avant-garde — Monet's water lilies, Degas dancers and late Picassos included. Upstairs, twenty restored Habsburg staterooms in yellow silk and gilt show how the palais lived before it became a museum, and the rotating special exhibitions (typically two or three at once) lean on the house's graphic holdings, from Michelangelo studies to contemporary photography.
Entry runs about €20, open daily 10:00–18:00 with Wednesday and Friday evenings to 21:00 — rare late hours for Vienna. The bastion terrace out front, behind the equestrian statue of Archduke Albrecht, gives a free elevated view down Albertinaplatz toward the opera house. Two sister venues, Albertina Modern near Karlsplatz and Albertina Klosterneuburg, run on combined tickets if the main house whets the appetite.
