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Vienna's Hofburg Palace: Emperors, Stallions, and Unicorn Horns

By Rick Steves

Once the capital of the grand Hapsburg Empire, Vienna hosted a string of Holy Roman Emperors for 640 years. Today, sightseers find this city is the sum of its illustrious past — rich with Hapsburg reminders. One of the most prominent is the Hofburg, Vienna's complex and imposing Imperial Palace.

This first Hapsburg residence grew with the family empire from the 13th century until 1913, when the new wing was opened. The winter residence of the Hapsburg rulers until 1918, it's still the home of the Spanish Riding School (with the famous Lipizzaner stallions), the Vienna Boys' Choir, the Austrian president's office, 5,000 government workers, and several important museums.

Rather than lose yourself in the Hofburg's myriad halls and courtyards, focus on three sections:the Imperial Apartments, Treasury, and the museums at the New Palace (Neue Burg).

The Imperial Apartments are lavish, Versailles-type "wish-I-were-God" royal rooms. Palace visits are a one-way romp through three sections: the luxurious Imperial Apartments themselves, the Sisi Museum dedicated to the troubled Empress, and a porcelain and silver collection. Stroll through the audience room, where citizens exercised their right to speak privately with the emperor. Here, Emperor Franz Josef I lived and worked along with his wife, Sisi.

In his study, the walls between the rooms were wide enough to hide servants' corridors. The emperor lived with a personal staff of 14. His bedroom features his notably spartan iron bed and a portable washstand (necessary until 1880 when the palace got running water).

Franz Josef's wife Elisabeth was mysterious, narcissistic, and beautiful. Nicknamed "Sisi," she was mostly silent, worked out frantically to maintain her Barbie Doll figure, and spent hours each day tending to her ankle-length hair. In the Sisi Museum, ponder Sisi's fairy-tale existence. Sisi's been compared to Princess Diana because of her beauty, her estrangement from her husband, and her tragic death. She was murdered by an Italian anarchist.

At dinnertime, Franz Josef called his large family together in the dining room. The settings were modest... just silver. Gold was saved for formal state dinners. Next to each name card was a menu with the chef responsible for each dish. (Talk about pressure.) While the Hofburg had tableware for 4,000, feeding 3,000 was a typical day. The cellar was stocked with 60,000 bottles of wine. The kitchen was huge: 50 birds could be roasted on the hand-driven spits at once.

The Hofburg's Treasury contains the best jewels on the Continent. Slip through the vault doors and reflect on the glitter of 21 rooms filled with scepters, swords, crowns, orbs, weighty robes, double-headed eagles, gowns, gem-studded bangles, and an eight-foot-tall, 500-year-old unicorn horn (or maybe the tusk of a narwhal) — which was thought to be incredibly powerful in the old days, giving its owner the grace of God.

Next door is the Imperial Chapel where the Vienna Boys' Choir sings at Mass each Sunday from September through March. While seats must be reserved two months in advance, standing room inside is free and open to the first 60 who line up. Rather than line up early, you can simply swing by and stand in the narthex just outside, from where you can hear the boys and see the Mass on a TV monitor. They're nice kids, but, for my taste, not worth all the commotion. Remember, many churches have great music during Sunday Mass. Just 200 yards from the Boys' Choir chapel, Augustinian Church has a glorious 11:00 service each Sunday.

The Spanish Riding School, a must for horse lovers, sits on the edge of the Hofburg grounds. Performances are expensive and sell out long in advance. Lucky for the masses, training sessions (with music) in a chandeliered Baroque hall are open to the public. Tourists line up for hours to get in at 10:00, but almost no one stays for the full two hours — except for the horses. As people leave, new tickets are printed continuously, so you can just waltz in with no wait at all.

The Hofburg's New Palace Museums, the last grand addition to the complex from just before World War I, was built for Franz Ferdinand Hapsburg but never used. This "new" section houses three small but fine museums: an armory, historical musical instruments, and classical statuary from ancient Ephesus. The musical instruments are particularly entertaining. Free radio headsets play appropriate music in each room. Graceful period music accompanies a wander through the neighboring halls of medieval weaponry — a killer collection of crossbows, swords, and armor.

If you haven't gotten enough of the Hapsburgs, you'll find their bodies — about 150 in all — in the Kaisergruft (Capuchin Crypt). Their hearts are in the Augustinian Church and their entrails in the crypt below St. Stephan's Cathedral. Don't tripe.

Rather than chasing down body parts, remember that the magnificence of this city is the real remains of the Hapsburgs. Pan up and watch the clouds glide by the ornate gables of Vienna.