Fancy giving the Hapsburgs a bit of lip? Then, if your nerves are up to it, go to the creepiest crypt in Europe.

The Kapuzinergruft (Capuchins' Crypt) lies is in the depths of the Capuchins’ Church (also known as the Church of St Mary of the Angels) and contains the bodies of over 100 members of Austria’s former imperial family – the famously lippy and chinny Hapsburgs.

The administration of the building remains in the hands of the monks, so your visit gets off to a suitably spooky start as a heavily becowled figure emerges silently from behind a curtain to collect your entrance fee and, crooking a bony finger, leads you down to the stygian gloom of the crypt itself (OK – I might have seen too much Scooby Doo in my youth).

And there the whole gang are. Not buried, you understand, but just lying about in their coffins. Sarcophagi are arranged in neat rows as if the Hapsburgs are saying “we may be dead and our empire may have crumbled to nothingness – but we’re not about to let our standards slip”.

The most elaborate tomb belongs to Emperor Franz Josef (the one with the unfeasibly large whiskers who reigned for ages and died in the middle of the first world war). He is flanked by his wife, the Empress ‘Sissi’ and his son Rudolf – tragic principal in the notorious Mayerling affair. Round the corner is Empress Maria Theresa to whom Haydn dedicated a symphony and her son Emperor Josef II – the so-called ‘enlightened despot’ – whose own contribution to Vienna’s musical life was to lambast Mozart for producing “too many notes”. “What a despot!” Mozart was heard to remark (or something very like that).

It is more than a little macabre but visit the Hapsburg stiffs in the Capuchins’ Crypt – where history comes, um, alive.

Neue Markt Square

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