If you're visiting Vienna, make this a must see on your perusal of the city. Went here on a whim this afternoon and ended up walking around for two hours. Two amazing hours. Bought my better half a Valentines present (shh, don't tell him.) Since he occasionally reads yelp, I'll update this later with what it was, but needless to say, I think it is something that truly captures our time here so far, was a reasonable price (no honey, really), and something incredibly unique that I couldn't have found anywhere else (just like you, my husband..) Aww, but that's not why you read yelp.
You want to hear about the jewelry. And I'll drop a few hints in here too. Just in case. You read that it is an auction house. And it is. But the part that you don't normally read about is the Galleria section which is where they have fixed price sales going on all the time. For the gorgeous jewelry go immediately to the third floor (fourth for all the Americans). It was incredible. A mix of estate jewelry and watches as well as new Dorotheum collection pieces that are incredibly unique and reasonably priced.
I had walked in with someone having told me how reasonable most of the pieces were. Of course when you walk in on the ground floor, it's all the nicest of the nice. But head upstairs, by the time I got there I was thanking the person who told me about Dorotheum. Some incredible pieces upstairs, saw a huge yellow diamond arm cuff that was incredible, as well as some other pieces that were just stunning. Found an eternity band that I fell in love with (hint, hint..). Amber is a really good buy.
There is a cafe on the third floor to refuel, but you're probably not going to want to stop. On the ground floor there is another room with all the glass objects and furniture pieces that are for fixed price sale. I found an Andy Warhol in there; and yes, they knew what they had, it wasn't one of those 'finds'. But incredible nonetheless to stand in front of it and to know that for 42,000 Euros ($57,000 in round numbers...) it could be mine. A really neat selection of old advertisements.
I appreciated how upfront they were with everything, everything that was an imitation or a replica was noted very clearly (if you read German that is). The sales ladies were non obtrusive and very willing to open cabinets to let you try on anything that catches your eye. read more