Spectacular Schönbrunn, an Informational Guide to the Star Attraction of Vienna

As we walked into the entrance courtyard of Schönbrunn palace, the entire palace seemed to be bathed in a thick sheet of golden light, almost like honey in consistency, and was reflecting off of the grand staircases winding above the arched entrance leading to the central hall. Just to back you up on the general information before we start, I decided to go to Schönbrunn on one of our days in Vienna. I had seen pictures, and the palace was very beautiful in the photos, but it was so much more impressive in real life (and this is saying something, as the photos were also incredibly beautiful).

When we came into the front of the palace grounds, the small fountains to the side of the yard sprayed up prismatic water that shone brightly in the sun, like liquid diamonds. This prismatic effect caused for an extremely dramatic entrance that took the awesomeness to a whole new level! The majority of the back courtyard, on the other hand, is taken up by an enormous flower mosaic in the floor, entirely symmetrical and divided into beautiful shapes. To top it all, the back was closed in with the huge, regal Neptune fountain, a large slab of granite with a statue of Neptune on top, with his trident held high and water spraying across the rocks. In all, the outer courtyards were out of this world (pun intended)!

As we walked into the front room of the palace, we saw the true size of the room we were in, with its gigantic stairs and arching entrances. After I dropped my camera off in the entrance room, we grabbed our voice tours and rushed off into the palace. Some of my favorite rooms include the Great Gallery and the Millions Room. The Great Gallery contained an enormous amount of gold and marble, as well as an elaborate ceiling mosaic and detailed matrix-style trim (also made of gold). The gallery also contained hundreds of elaborate candle mounts and chandeliers, fittingly also (perhaps a little obvious at this point because of the decoration style that had been used for a fair amount of the room thus far) made out of polished and gleaming golden shafts. The Millions Room was a different style of fancy, with exotic rosewood panels (made of a special archetype of rosewood called Feketin) and miniature busts in the walls, framed in curves of spiky gold frames. These rooms were the highlights of the palace interior, and maybe even my favorite part of the palace! I could not take photos to show you the inside of the palace, so here are links you should use to see the inside of this amazing palace. Use this link to see the Great Gallery: https://www.schoenbrunn.at/en/about-schoenbrunn/the-palace/tour-of-the-palace/great-gallery?tourId=8 and this link to see the Millions Room: https://www.schoenbrunn.at/en/about-schoenbrunn/the-palace/tour-of-the-palace/millions-room?tourId=8.

Up the hill from the main courtyard, we walked to the huge, grand Gloriette. The hill it was situated on was very tall and covered in a latticework of paths, so when I finally got to the top, I felt like someone had cooked my legs into a stew and left it on the stove for 5 days! At the top of the hill, the Gloriette loomed above us with its dramatic pillars, and was crowned by a large statue of an Imperial Eagle perched on a globe. When we got into the side staircase, we took it all the way up to the large observation deck on the roof and looked out over the city. When we came down the hill, I had some gelato at the small stand below the hill (spoiler alert, very delicious).

Outside of the main building, the back courtyard branched out into spectacular gardens, with the huge central yard as the crossroads into these amazing attractions, such as an enormous area covered in hedge mazes. In the largest maze, there was a huge tree, with a large iron observation deck hanging on top. There were also two smaller mazes, but these were less impressive, and the only one that was actually hard to navigate was the large one. Because it was so hard to navigate, it was actually used in the Amazing Race as a spot for a clue box (if you do not know, the Amazing Race is an international challenge, and if you do not watch the tv show, which I highly recommend watching, you are missing out as of now). These mazes were so cool that, if you go to Schönbrunn, make sure you at least visit the mazes (they are aMAZEing)!