Hola todos,
This morning, we were all pretty tired from the long day before, but we still had a lot to check off our list! We didn’t know it yet, but we were in for another hot and sweaty day. Lots of sun!
After a quick breakfast at the Airbnb, during which we sketched out our plans for the day, we headed back to the Hofburg Palace to see the Sisi Museum.
Empress Elizabeth, or Sisi, was the wife of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Frank Joseph I. They were married in 1854 when she was 16, and they were first cousins (she was Bavarian royalty).
She had an unusual temperament and lifestyle for a woman of her era (too independent! we love to see it.) and rejected traditional court duties. That combined with her eventual assassination created a sort of mysticism and cult of personality around her. The Hungarians were quite fond of her when I was in Budapest; she visited Budapest quite frequently and had a special place in her heart for Hungary.
The Hofburg Palace tour (came with an audio guide! super helpful.) went through her quarters at the palace and other royal apartments, as well as a mini museum with her art, belongings, and clothes.
These are the only pictures I was able to get at the Sisi Museum since the museum itself didn't allow any pics. But you can still see the elaborate interior design and decorating of the palace!
The royal apartments are beautiful, designed in neo-Baroque and Rococo styles. Emperor Franz Joseph I also received citizen petitions and meetings in that part of the palace, and you can see where he did his work. He saw around 100 citizens a day during his busy seasons!
My favorite fact about Sisi, though, is that she loved ice cream! I’m sounding even more royal now.
We picked up some quick lunch makings at a local grocery store and went to the Burggarten, beautifully green gardens open for picnicking in the Hofburg complex.
Our next stop was the Hapsburg summer palace, Schonbrunn Palace, about 30 minutes by subway out of the main city center. As a side note, the subway is great here. We’ve been using it a lot, and it’s quick and clean with lots of stops.
Schonbronn Palace tour tickets came with our Sisi Museum tickets, and the gardens are free. The gardens are gorgeous and worth exploration in their own right if the weather’s nice.
Schonbrunn was redecorated by another famous Hapsburg Empress, Maria Therese (who ruled a few generations before Sisi and had, like, 16 children while ruling), almost entirely in the Rococo style. That woman had style! I’m a fan of the glitz and glam. Schonbrunn also came with a helpful audio guide, though some of the information was the same as the Hofburg apartments/Sisi Museum.
As a fun fact: the Hapsburg royal family often at French food for official meals, but Emperor Franz Joseph I preferred traditional Viennese food for family dinners.
Schonbrunn also holds:
- the room where 6 year old Mozart played for Empress Maria Therese for the first time
- the ballroom in which Kennedy and Khrushchev officially conferenced during the Cold War
- the rooms of Napoleon, who married an Austro-Hungarian princess, and stayed at Schonbrunn twice during his conquests of Europe
Can’t keep track of who is ruling over where and who married whom? Yeah, me neither. Throughout the tour, the rooms and audio guide kept bouncing between rulers and their children and their legacies. It would have been helpful to have mini-family tree in hand!
After finishing the tour, we walked through the gardens and up the (very long, but not that steep) hill to the Gloriette. It was a portion of the Palace and is now a cafe. You can pay to get to the top of the roof for some amazing views, but even the view at the top of the hill is amazing!
The Gloriette. (Sorry the pic was crooked-- I was winded...)
The Schonbrunn gardens and Palace are visible behind us, as well as much of Vienna itself!
After we got some water, it was time to head back into town and go to Karlskirche (or St. Charles’s Church). We had briefly seen the Karlskirche exterior yesterday in our whirlwind tour with Brett, but we wanted to see the interior. It was beautiful inside—maybe one of the more gilded interiors I’ve seen at a church. And all of the interior walls seemed to be either covered by a painting or marble/granite.
To conclude our exploring, we headed off to Ferrari Gelato, an ice cream place that had been independently recommended by our tour guide yesterday and my cousin Brett.
It was delicious, albeit a bit expensive compared to other gelato shops.
Then we decided to walk back to our Airbnb instead of take the quick metro ride. We walked along Stadtpark, a beautiful green park, and searched for some dinner spots along the way.
We ended up at Eduardo, an Italian place in the neighborhood of our Airbnb, for dinner. [And before I get too much shade for going to an Italian place in Austria, I’ll note that 1) we were really hungry, 2) it was really good, and 3) it was reasonably priced! And don’t forget—Austria shares a border with Italy!]
It started drizzling toward the end of dinner, but the thunderstorm passed through quickly. Hopefully the storm will cool things down for tomorrow’s final day of touring!
Besos,
Tina the ExploraDora
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