The one important site I had yet to visit in Vienna was Schloss Schönbrunn (Schönbrunn Palace). This was the summer residence for the Hapsburgs until 1918. The longest-reigning Emperor Franz Joseph I was born, and died here. It is a hugely important site, but had passed me by somewhat. This was as a result of a combination of lack of prior research, and it being far removed from the centre of the city. The latter point may have indicated a long journey to get there, but it happened to be less than 30 minutes walk from the apartment. I set off early afternoon.
I bought a “classic ticket”. This allowed me access to the palace tour, as well as certain paid-for areas of the gardens. I started off on the tour.
I had to deposit my “Ghostbusters” backpack at a cloakroom, as it was not allowed inside. I remembered to remove my headphones from it as the small amount of research I had done indicated that these may be useful to be paired with the audio guide. This turned out to be the case. I was glad not to have to take the tour while permanently seeming to be on the telephone.
The tour started with a number of projections outlining the history of the building of the palace, and of the Hapsburg family. By this point I was starting to consider myself familiar with the Austrian dynasty, and I could pick out faces I’d seen either in the Vienna Museum at the start of my visit, or next to the coffins in the imperial crypt.
The tour then led to the rooms themselves. These were truly spectular, and very much the opulent vein I would expect from a place such as this. I think it is fair to spot a connection with the Palace of Versailles in terms of style. The European rulers were most like trying to “out do” each other.
Afterwards, I had a walk in the beautifully manicured gardens. This included the “Privy Garden”, “Orangery”, and a series of impressive mazes. I experimented with finding my way through these by keeping a hedge constantly to my left. I had read this somewhere as a useful maze strategy. It did indeed work, and I managed to find my way out of the maze by this method, having been a little more random on the way in.
My visit was conuded by a hike to the “Gloriette”. This is what I would describe as a “folly”. An essentially pointless piece of architecture that is rather nice to sit in, and view the world from. This one is up on a hill and offered glorious (hence the name?) views not only of the palace, but across Vienna.
I had intially been a bit “sniffy” about visiting this site as it was significantly flooded with tourists, but was glad I did. It “bookended” the story of the Hapsburgs very much, given all I had learnt over my time here.
A 30 minute walk took me back to the apartment. I bought myself a pork “schnitzel” from “Billa”, and enjoyed it with drinks on the balcony. I had less than 48 hours left here, and would be sad to leave.
