MuseumsQuartier and Spittelberg: the courtyards and the lanes
Painted benches, two modern museums, and the cobbled village hiding behind them. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. MuseumsQuartier courtyards
Start in the main courtyard of the *MuseumsQuartier* — the old imperial stables turned culture complex. You don't have to go into anything. Take one of the painted *Enzi* benches in the yard and watch the city sit around you; that's half the point of the place.

2. Leopold Museum
The white limestone block holds the Schiele — the largest collection anywhere — and the good Klimts. If you enter one museum here, make it this one. The top-floor galleries catch the afternoon light.

3. mumok
The dark basalt-clad cube opposite is the *mumok* (the modern-art museum), all Pop and Actionism inside. Even if you skip it, the contrast of black stone against the Leopold's white across the yard is the architecture of the place in one glance.

4. Volkstheater
Leave the *MuseumsQuartier* the back way past the *Volkstheater* (the people's theatre), its long 1889 facade facing the *Ring*. A useful hinge: behind it, the streets drop the grandeur and turn into the *Spittelberg*.

5. Spittelberg lanes
The heart of the walk: a grid of cobbled 18th-century *Gassen* (lanes) of low Biedermeier houses, galleries and *Beisls* (homely pub-restaurants). Wander *Spittelberggasse* and *Schrankgasse* with no plan. This is the village the boulevard forgot.

6. Burggasse
Climb out of the lanes onto *Burggasse*, the longer street that returns you toward the *Ring*. Stop at a corner *Beisl* for a glass before the U-Bahn — the *Schanigarten* (the pavement terrace) tables are the right way to end this one.

MuseumsQuartier and Spittelberg: the courtyards and the lanes