Yesterday we went on a tour of the Schönbrunn Palace. We did the Grand Tour, which meant we paid more money for the privilege of seeing 5 more rooms of the palace. I did notice that the most elaborate rooms were the ones we got to see though, so I thought it was worth the money. We only saw two floors of the palace, which was quite a lot, but there was still another 4 or 5 floors that aren’t open to tourists, so what is on those floors? Here are a couple pictures of inside the palace, but sshh… don’t tell! You are not supposed to take pictures inside the palace…
The walls in this room were all tapestries. I have no idea how they wove these elaborate pictures into fabric. It is so amazing… The chairs also had pictures woven into the fabric.
This is the empress Marie Theresa with her family. She actually had five more children than this, but three had already died, and two were not yet born. I had no idea that the royalty used to have so many children… She was quite devoted to her family, and had many portraits of her children throughout the palace. Elora loved looking at the paintings of “Princesses” and “Queens”.
This is the room that was like a ballroom. They still do concerts in it I think. Elora liked the big paintings on the ceiling. It was amazing how many tourists were in this room… We got there at the same time as about 5 tour groups… It was a beautiful room though.
I love the floor in this room. It’s called the China room because they took wood and artwork obtained in China (black panels on walls and the floor) and inlaid in between the classical decorative baroque European styles. Euro – Asian fusion of styles was very popular at this time.
Don’t remember much about this room. But it’s pretty. Pictures don’t do it justice. It was very dim in the rooms and we didn’t have a flash.
Each framed picture on the wall is a drawing that was done by either Empress Marie Theresa or one of her children. I wish we had gotten a close up of some of the pictures, they were really quite beautiful.
This room was called the “Millions Room” because it is the most valuable room in the palace. The wall paneling is made of antique rosewood. Check out Oliver zonked out in the stroller. Apparently the tour was not as interesting for him as it was for me.
This is the back of the palace. The palace has a huge garden with fountains, a maze (labyrinth) for kids, and a zoo. Elora’s been to the zoo, but not the maze yet. Maybe next week. We live near the back entrance right now, so we have gone into the gardens a couple times to walk around. Chris’ mom took Elora to the zoo and said it was really nice. I hope to take her back again soon. This palace is probably the nicest one I have seen in Europe because it is the first one I have visited that did not have scaffolding everywhere… I know they have to renovate the palaces, but it sure stinks when you try to get pictures of beautiful buildings and they are under construction!!!
Here is another picture out in the gardens. There is a huge fountain in the background. One of these days I’ll take a good picture of it. Elora is a big fan of all the statues and fountains in the gardens.
Check out our picture gallery for more pictures of our European adventures as well as hiking trips in Utah and family photos.
