In this story · 5 sections
Schönbrunn Palace lies in the west of Vienna, between Meidling and Hietzing, on the old floodplain of the river Wien. It was the summer residence of the Habsburgs, and its Baroque palace of 1,441 rooms, formal gardens, follies and zoo were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996. In 2017 the palace had almost four million visitors.
Schönbrunn Palace
Palace · Hietzing
- Address
- Schönbrunn, Vienna
- Rooms
- 1,441
- World Heritage
- 1996
- 1569
- Maximilian II buys the estate
- 1642
- Name Schönbrunn first recorded
- 1775
- Gloriette crowns the hill
- 1916
- Franz Joseph dies at the palace
- 1996
- UNESCO World Heritage Site
1,441 rooms, the Gloriette, the Palm House and Tiergarten Schönbrunn.
01From the Katterburg to Maria Theresa
In 1569 the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II bought the estate, where the Katterburg mansion had stood since 1548. Eleonora Gonzaga added a palace in 1638–1643, and the name Schönbrunn – “beautiful spring” – first appears on an invoice in 1642. Maria Theresa received the estate as a wedding gift, and the palace was rebuilt and remodelled under her in the 1740s and 1750s.
02Franz Joseph, Kennedy and Khrushchev
Emperor Franz Joseph, the longest-reigning Emperor of Austria, was born at Schönbrunn and died there on 21 November 1916, aged 86. The palace was bombed in February 1945, and in 1961 President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev met there. Since 1992 palace and gardens have been run by Schloss Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H., a company wholly owned by the Republic of Austria.
03The Gloriette, the Roman Ruin and the Palm House
The gardens rise to the Gloriette, which has crowned the hill at the end of the garden axis since 1775. Along the way are the Neptune Fountain and the Roman Ruin, a set of follies designed by Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg and erected in 1778. By 1882 a large palm house had replaced about ten earlier, smaller glasshouses.
04Tiergarten Schönbrunn – the oldest zoo
Within the palace park lies Tiergarten Schönbrunn, which claims to be the oldest zoo in the world – an easy addition to a day at the palace.
05How to visit Schönbrunn
See the state rooms first, then walk the main axis past the Neptune Fountain and climb to the Gloriette for the view back over the palace and the city. Read Metro Mode's Vienna guide (in Swedish), browse Metro Mode Travel, and find more city guides among metromode.co's destinations.
