VIKING TRAVELOG GRAND EUROPEAN RIVER CRUISE RHINE-MAIN-DANUBE RIVERS DAY 13 – VIENNA (Schonbrunn Palace) SPLENDID RESIDENCE OF THE HAPSBURGS Tour the magnificent home of the Hapsburg Dynasty, built to rival the sprawling Château de Versailles. With your guide, drive just outside the city center to the monarchy’s fabulous summer residence. In 1569, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II erected the original hunting lodge here and called it Schönbrunn, meaning “beautiful spring.” In 1775, Empress Maria Theresa, the only female ruler of the Hapsburgs, added the grand neoclassical Gloriette colonnade so she could have sweeping city views. Enjoy a guided tour of the imperial apartments and grandly furnished rooms where Maria Theresa resided. Learn about her extraordinary reign, which featured many military campaigns and domestic reforms in medicine, education and civil rights. There will be free time to explore the formal gardens. https://www.schoenbrunn.at/en/about-schoenbrunn/the-palace/tour-of-the-palace/ [Virtual tour of the Palace] 1 On the forty-five-minute bus ride to the Schonbrunn Palace, our guide Rainer Toih told us some history of the palace: “The palace was built in 1620 as a small hunting pavilion. The old town of Vienna was surrounded by a fortification that protected it; in those days cities were protected by walls. Some of the walls still exist, like in Nuremberg, with cobblestone inside. Outside the walls of Vienna used to be a forest, the Vienna Forest (Wienwald) in the north. East is where the new high-rise buildings are. “At the time the forest extended into the basin (the city bowl). The Hapsburgs loved to go riding into the forest, and as they rode into the forest they saw water coming out of the ground – that was a well. An order was given to build a well, and it was simply called, ‘The Beautiful Well.’ And that’s why the palace today is called Schonbrunn, which means the beautiful well. “Where they saw water coming out of the ground they built a small hunting pavilion, and then in about 1720 the first plans were drafted to make a palace there. The Hapsburgs envied the French kings, especially the palace in Versailles that Louis XIV ordered to be built. The Hapsburgs literally said that if they have a palace, we also need one of those. In 1740, they started the construction by Wolfgang Fischer von Erlach. The palace as we see it today dates back to 1750. “The understanding in those days was to have a summer residence – the rulers figured their rulership was given to them by God (i.e. they were chosen by God). The idea was to not live amongst the loyal servants and people who served the ruler, but to live separately from them. That explains the 20 miles distance in Versailles (from Paris), except the distance for the Hapsburgs was only four miles. “Building a palace was a matter of prestige. Another reason was to escape the stinky city. There was in those days the idea that if you bathed too often, your skin would peel off. So the stinkiness developed, and therefore moving to the forest away from the city was a choice almost out of necessity. “Let’s come back to Schonbrunn Palace. It was built in 1750, and yellow was the most preferred color. It was called imperial yellow, a dark-colored yellow. Only 40 of the 1441 rooms are known as Imperial Rooms. Everybody that served and worked for the Hapsburgs lived in the palace: the chambermaids, the bodyguards, kitchen personnel, gardeners, and so on. Everybody who worked there was accommodated there. “When the Hapsburgs were sent into exile after WWI, the palace became an empty place. Nowadays, part of the palace is open for visitors (like the Imperial Rooms), and the rest of the rooms are now apartments that you can rent. The only difference is that you don’t have to work for the Hapsburgs anymore. We’re going to see 20 out of the 40 rooms – the Highlights Tour.” 2 It was raining most of the day, and we had our red Viking umbrellas with us as we walked towards the twin obelisks at the entrance to Schonbrunn Palace. As cosmic symbols, obelisks were associated with the sun cult of the Ancient Egyptians. The obelisk represents the path of the rays of the sun down to earth, while the four edges signify the cardinal directions. In Baroque iconography the obelisk stood for princely steadfastness and stable government. Held to be the only creature that can approach the sun without coming to harm, the eagle perching on top symbolizes the ruler mediating between heaven and earth. 3 The first view of the Schonbrunn Palace through the entrance gates was one of awe at the immensity of the building. The history of the palace and its vast gardens spans over 300 years, reflecting the changing tastes, interests, and aspirations of successive Habsburg monarchs. The Schönbrunn Palace in its present form was built and remodeled during the 1740–50s during the reign of empress Maria Theresa who received the estate as a wedding gift. Franz I commissioned the redecoration of the palace exterior in the neoclassical style as it appears today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B 6nbrunn_Palace 4 Between 1817 and 1819 the palace façades were modernized by Johann Aman. Working in a Neo-classical spirit, he wanted to improve the balance and unity between the various parts of the building; he extended the pilasters up to the main, continuous entablature and removed the Rococo decoration on the garden side. The delicate blue tint of the exterior was changed to ochre, the ‘Schönbrunn yellow’. The last phase of renovation of the palace interior took place under Emperor Francis-Joseph; a restoration from 1869 removed much of the early 19th-century alterations, replacing them with neo-Baroque copies of the original 18th-century work. http://www.everycastle.com/Schonbrunn -Palace.html 5 Fountain in the forecourt (front of palace): Danube, Inn, and Enns Rivers - by Franz Anton von Zauner, Joseph Baptist Hagenauer. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Donau,_Inn_und_Enns At the 20th session of the World heritage committee in Dec. 1996, it was decided to include Schonbrunn Palace in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Inclusion in this register confirms the world-wide importance of the former imperial residence of Schonbrunn and its park as a unique work of baroque art. The Schloss Schonbrunn Kultur-und Betriebsges m.b.H was founded in 1992 with the aim of preserving Schonbrunn as a unique cultural heritage for future generations. UNESCO World Heritage, 1996 6 Inside the palace foyer – Habsburg & Palace charts: Genealogy of House of Habsburg, 1740-1918 (fantastic webpage with photos/bios) https://www.habsburger.net/en/habsbur gs The House of Habsburg (also spelled Hapsburg in English) and alternatively called the House of Austria (Haus Österreich in German). The throne of the Holy Roman Empire was continuously occupied by the Habsburgs from 1438 until their extinction in the male line in 1740. The house also produced emperors and kings of Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia, Galicia, Portugal and Spain with their respective colonies, as well as rulers of several principalities in the Netherlands and Italy. From the 16th century, following the reign of Charles V, the dynasty was split between its Austrian and Spanish branches. Although they ruled distinct territories, they nevertheless maintained close relations and frequently intermarried. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_ Habsburg 7 Schonbrunn in the time of widowhood. The sudden death of Emperor Franz I Stephan in 1765 was followed by a new phase of decoration in the palace in which several of the rooms the imperial couple had shared were transformed into memorial rooms with precious Chinese lacquer panels and costly tropical hardwoods. The palace and its gardens were more or less completed by 1770, although Schonbrunn Hill, rising behind the Great Parterre, was as yet merely a clearing in the forest. After considering elaborate plans by the court architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg (1733-1816), which the dowager empress discussed in numerous letters with her daughter Marie Antoinette, the French queen, Maria Theresa decided on a simplified solution for this new part of the gardens, with the Neptune Fountain at the foot of the hill and the Gloriette on its crest. The laying of Schonbrunn Hill was carried out in tandem with the redesigning of the Great Parterre. Here mythological figures executed by Johann Wilhelm Beyer and his workshop were placed along the lateral clipped hedges. At the same time several architectural features were erected in the part, including the Roman Ruin, the Obelisk Fountain and the eponymous “Schoner Brunnen” or “Fair Spring”. By 1780, the final year of Maria Theresa’s life, all the work had been completed, and one year previously the park and gardens – with the exception of the Privy Gardens – had been opened to the general public. 8 View from the Schonbrunn Palace of the garden area. View of the Neptune Fountain and the Gloriette in the distance. 9 A Hunting Lodge for the Heir to the Throne. In 1683 the chateau de plaisance built by the dowager empress Eleonore of Gonzaga fell victim to the devastation wrought during the Turkish siege of Vienna. After the besieging forces had been defeated, Leopold I decided to build a new stately seat at Schonbrunn for the heir to the throne, his eldest son Joseph. In 1688 the architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656-1723), who had trained at Rome, designed what is known as the “Schonbrunn I Project”, a grandiose but unworkable scheme which nevertheless so impressed the emperor that he commissioned concrete plans for a hunting lodge from him a few years later.