Unlike many of Vienna’s great churches, Karlskirche can be approached from a distance as you walk across the open area before it.
The exterior architecture impresses with its great dome and the two giant columns. The latter’s reliefs and golden imperial eagles offer a clue to the history of the church, which Emperor Charles VI built in the early 18th-century and named after Saint Charles Borromeo.
The church also hosts the Karlskirche Contemporary Arts series, where an invited artist produces a large-scale piece of art specifically for the architectural and Baroque context of the building.
A scaffolded tower off to one side of the dome contains a panorama lift that takes you up to the ceiling for a dual treat.
A few steps up from the top of the lift leads you to a window that looks out across the city to the west.
