The Hall of Mirrors
Where the child Mozart played for Maria Theresa in 1762 — the room that turns the palace from architecture into story.
Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de — CC BY-SA 3.0 de · Scotch Mist — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Scotch Mist — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Sjaak Kempe from Groningen, The Netherlands — CC BY 2.0
The Grand Tour (40 rooms) beats the Imperial (22): the price difference is small, and the finest rooms — the Hall of Mirrors and the Chinese cabinets — are in the second half the shorter ticket misses.
An hour for the interior, two for the gardens and Gloriette, and two more if you add the zoo — half a day minimum, a full day with children.
Schönbrunn for gardens, summer atmosphere and families; the Hofburg because it is central and holds the Sisi Museum and Imperial Treasury. For a first visit to Vienna: Schönbrunn.
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The summer residence of the Habsburgs, who ruled central Europe for six centuries: a palace in the famous "Schönbrunn yellow" with 1,441 rooms, forty of which open to visitors — from Franz Joseph's austerely simple bedroom to the Hall of Mirrors where a six-year-old Mozart played for Empress Maria Theresa. But the palace is only half the visit. Behind it stretch entirely free baroque gardens climbing gently to the Gloriette on the hill — and from there you look back over the palace with all Vienna behind it. The grounds also hold the world's oldest zoo (1752), a maze, a glass palm house and the imperial carriage museum. The practical rule: your ticket fixes the palace entry to the minute, while the gardens are free and need no slot. Book ahead and choose the Grand Tour (40 rooms) over the Imperial (22) — the price gap is small and the finest rooms are in the second half. Allow a full half-day; the metro gets you here in fifteen minutes from the centre.
Where the child Mozart played for Maria Theresa in 1762 — the room that turns the palace from architecture into story.
Twenty minutes up through the garden to the hilltop colonnade and Vienna's most famous view back over palace and city — free.
Founded in 1752 within the same grounds and still rated among the world's best — pandas and red pandas its stars.
The emperor's spartan rooms beside his wife's lavish ones — a contrast that tells a whole marriage without words.
Schönbrunner Schloßstraße, Vienna
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