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Imperial sights in Vienna

The Hermes Villa in the Lainz Game Reserve is the Wien Museum's largest branch location and a place of remembrance of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. In the summer of 1881, Emperor Franz Joseph decided to have a residence built for his wife, Elisabeth in the Lainz Game Reserve. The area of the reserve is in Vienna, not far from Schönbrunn Palace, the summer residence of the Habsburgs. With building the villa, the Emperor’s intention was to urge his wife to spend more time in the Imperial city as well as with him. He wished to spend his old age with her in the Lainz Villa. He wrote to Sisi about his intention in a letter and she was glad about it.

Imperial sights in Vienna

MEET EMPRESS SISI AT THE MADAME TUSSAUDS MUSEUM, VIENNA

Imperial sights in Vienna

WELL-KNOWN THEORIES ARE REFUTED BY THE SISI MUSEUM

The exhibition shows the main events of the Empress’s life by providing several information along with her personal belongings. Besides, as referred above, some well-known theories are refuted in connection with Elisabeth, including the theory about her bad teeth and the fact that she wore only black gowns after her only-son, Rudolf’s death.

Imperial sights in Vienna

THE VIENNA HOFBURG: Sisi Museum, Imperial Apartments, Imperial Silver Collection

For many centuries the Vienna Hofburg was the centre of the Habsburg Empire. Today three museum attractions provide visitors with historically authentic insights into court tradition and daily life: the Imperial Apartments with their historically authentic decoration and furnishings, the Imperial Silver Collection with its extensive holdings of objects that recreate the sumptuous world of imperial dining, and the Sisi Museum with its lyrical exploration of the empress’s life which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2014.

Imperial sights in Vienna

SCHÖNBRUNN PALACE AND ITS GARDEN

The World Cultural Heritage Site of Schönbrunn Palace is Austria’s most frequently visited tourist attraction. In the ownership of the Habsburg dynasty for centuries, this Baroque ensemble of palace and gardens has been preserved largely in its original state. Numerous attractions await the visitor, including tours of the authentically furnished state rooms and residential apartments of the imperial family in the palace, to the Maze and Labyrinth in the gardens and a dedicated Children’s Museum.

Imperial sights in Vienna

ON THE TRAIL OF EMPRESS ELISABETH

It is very surprising for the Hungarians that in her homeland and all around Europe she did not use to be as popular and admired during her lifetime as in Hungary, what is more, little interest was shown towards her then. However, she gained popularity several decades after her a tragic death. As Katrin Unterreiner says “there has hardly ever been a monarch stylised posthumously to such iconic status as Empress Elisabeth.” She “did not become an international marketed product with romaticised biography and entwined by legend until long after her death". It was not only her violent death but also the movie which surrounded her by the aura of a myth.