On a nice rainy afternoon during Nana and Grampy’s visit, we went to the Schönbrunn Children’s Museum. It was SO FUN. The kids really loved the museum which is filled with great interactive exhibits. We even had a coupon that we got when we purchased our zoo passes this year!
The first exhibit is a fun dress up station where you can try on wigs, hats, gloves, dresses, fans, and coats that the imperial children might have worn. James liked the coat that looked like a soldier and Oliver loved choosing different shirts and coats that looked like Mozart might have worn them. Even Nana and Grampy joined the fun.
There were some fun horses to ride on and a throne to pose on as well. I think we could have spent the entire afternoon in this part of the museum! Our kids love costumes.
The kids had several costume changes each (except James who loved the first outfit he chose), and they were very sad to leave the costumes behind to move on.
There was a section with signs explaining how to speak “the fan language”. Apparently when a lady held her fan in different positions, she was actually sending secret messages to the gentlemen she interacted with, ranging from “I would like a kiss” to “I’ll meet you later”. How shocking!
The museum is really creative in finding ways to make each section interesting. There is a cute little ghost who plays tour guide and you can find him hiding around the museum. Each room has information about the life of the imperial children, and many rooms also had exhibits contrasting the life of the common children to the life of the imperial children. There are information cards in several languages to help the children understand each exhibit and also games and puzzles to work on in several rooms. There is even a slide at one point!
The kids really liked the imperial toy room where they could play with toys the imperial children might have enjoyed. We had a hard time getting James to leave all the fun wooden toys!
The kids also really loved the room where they could learn to set the table properly and serve wonderful meals with pretend food. There was even a large gingerbread sculpture of Schonbrunn to look at in this room! I got to sit down and enjoy several courses served by the super excited kids. Marion enjoyed her pretend dessert and had Oliver serve her several different trays of pastries.
Some other highlights of our tour were the displays featuring clothing worn by imperial children and also servants, a hair styling room where the kids could style various wigs and also got to see a copy of Marie Antoinette’s fancy hair style that featuring a sailing ship (she apparently had a taste for unique and elaborate hairstyles), and they really loved the leech game where they got to pretend they were doctors using leeches to cure the patients. The tour is set among the rooms in the palace where the imperial children actually lived and played, and I found that it was not only fun for the kids, but also very informative. The kids were excited to learn about the lives of the kids who grew up in the palace.
On the way out there were more horses to ride and also a great bookshop with several books about the imperial family in English and German, including some children’s books (and also some super awesome costumes and toys). We picked out a couple books for the kids about the Hapsburg Family and I am impressed at how interested the kids are in learning about the imperial family. Elora is really interested in Sissi, a famous Empress of Austria.
This museum was definitely worth the visit and a huge hit with the kids. It wasn’t crowded when we were there either, so the kids really enjoyed the whole experience.
