Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace

When you purchase a ticket, you sign up for a time to enter the palace. We

The 1,441-room Baroque palace is one of the most important architectural, cultural, and historic monuments in the country. The history of the palace and its vast gardens spans over 300 years, reflecting the changing tastes, interests, and aspirations of successive Habsburg monarchs. It has been a major tourist attraction since the mid-1950s.

We paid for the grand palace tour and saw most of the 2nd floor (of 3 floors). It was pretty elaborate, but not over the top like some places we’ve seen. Clearly, they had money and power and control. The palace is a symmetrical yellow building with long wings on either side. We walked through with an audio headset and explanations of each room and what took place there.

One was the room where Mozart performed for the first time as a child. There were state rooms, ball rooms, receiving rooms, bedrooms, and everything in between, one after the next with all connected by a long passage/hallway.

The hard-to-see map in this room showed the extent of the Habsburg empire in Europe.

I didn’t know much about Austria’s history. The Habsburgs ruled a long time. Rather than fighting/wars to conquer territory, they focused on marrying off the daughters and having lots of children, who were then married off to political alliances to have more children. They wanted everything kept in the family. One matriarch had 16 children. Over time, the imbreeding got so bad, it led to the end of the monarchy. The children had defects and deformities, the men couldn’t reproduce, the women weren’t attractive, there were mental issues. They had prominent chins, big lips and long noses. The palace was filled with portraits of people who all looked the same. That was interesting.

About the time WWI began and a plague struck, the monarchy came to an end. But for a long time, they ruled a great part of Europe from Austria.

This painting shows people coming to celebrate a royal wedding.

Here’s a look at a room that’s being restored:

One of the famous large families:

The tour took about an hour and it was very interesting. Afterwards we took a quick walk out back into the expansive gardens (all put to bed now for the winter and Very Cold). We didn’t linger long there. The gardens are free to the public.

Outside in front of the palace was another Christmas Market, a really fun one. There was an old-fashioned Ferris wheel and 2 merry-go-rounds (old vintage). The stalls and shops were nicely spaced and it wasn’t overly crowded. The food smelled good. Music played, there was a small skating rink and some curling going on.