Schönbrunn Palace

The Habsburgs' Baroque summer palace, with vast formal gardens.

The palace has 1,441 rooms and sits in front of huge formal gardens full of statues, fountains, flower beds and long tree-lined paths. Today it is the most visited sight in Vienna, drawing millions of people every year. In 1996 UNESCO added the palace and its gardens to the World Heritage List as an outstanding Baroque ensemble, a place where buildings, gardens and art were designed to work together as one.

History

In 1569 Emperor Maximilian II bought the land as a royal hunting ground and kept pheasants, deer and boar there. In the 1640s Empress Eleonora Gonzaga built a small palace on the site, but it was badly damaged when Ottoman armies attacked Vienna in 1683. Emperor Leopold I then asked the architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach to design a new hunting lodge for his son, and work began in 1696. In the 1740s and 1750s Empress Maria Theresa turned it into the splendid palace we see today. Emperor Franz Joseph was born and died here, and after the monarchy ended in 1918 the palace became a museum.

The gardens and the zoo

Behind the palace lies the Great Parterre, a wide garden of patterned flower beds lined with statues of gods and heroes, leading to the Neptune Fountain. Above it, on a hill about 60 metres high, stands the Gloriette, a long arched building finished in 1775 that is now a café with views over Vienna. The park also has a make-believe ancient "Roman Ruin", a large glass Palm House and Schönbrunn Zoo. The zoo opened in 1752 and is the oldest zoo in the world that is still open, with around 700 kinds of animals, including giant pandas.

Visiting today

Visitors can walk through the state rooms and private apartments where Empress Maria Theresa, Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife Empress Elisabeth, known as Sisi, once lived. These rooms have been restored to look as they did long ago. The gardens are open to walk in, and every summer the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra gives a big outdoor concert, the Summer Night Concert, in front of the palace. The palace was also the setting for an important meeting between US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1961.

On the globe

The model shows the Habsburgs' long Baroque summer palace in Vienna with its wide formal gardens. Look for the long front of the palace facing the neat garden in front of it.