Schönbrunn Palace Park
Sprawling imperial garden of manicured parterres, mythic fountains, and a hilltop colonnade with sweeping city views.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Schönbrunn Palace Park follows Empress Maria Theresa's decades of building here after her husband's death in 1765, in a mourning she wore for the rest of her life. It traces the Gloriette's construction on the hilltop above, designed by her court architect after courtiers complained the slope deserved something grander, and the years sculptor Wilhelm Beyer spent carving the Neptune Fountain below. In 1779, she opened these grounds to the public, so that ordinary Viennese could walk where empresses walked.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Gloriette Schönbrunn
Hilltop garden temple with a triumphal-arch centerpiece, an imperial café, and panoramic city views.
Schönbrunn Palace
Rococo imperial summer palace of gilded state rooms, sprawling gardens and a hilltop Gloriette above Vienna.
Burggarten
Former imperial private garden with a Mozart memorial, Art Nouveau palm house and butterfly conservatory.
Volksgarten
Rose garden and neoclassical temple laid out over a bastion blasted apart by Napoleon.
Lainzer Tiergarten
Vast walled forest preserve of a former royal hunting ground, roaming with wild boar and deer.
Augarten
Baroque public garden with tree-lined avenues, an Enlightenment-era porcelain works, and two hulking wartime flak towers.