Schoenbrunn Palace – Palm House

Schoenbrunn Palace (Schoenbrunn Castle when translated out of the German) was the emperor’s summer residence. The Habsburg emperors built the complex with extensive gardens as well as a zoo and a palmery as a place to get away from the center of Vienna during the summer. In this way it is similar to Versailles and with similar shapes to the building.

I studied in Vienna for a summer. Study abroad was definitely the fuel that helped my desire to travel. We had a lot of free time to wander. So when I came back to Vienna a few years later (this time with a digital camera( I had already seen the big sights and could explore deeper, which I enjoy more anyway.

In a city with so many museums and grand buildings like Vienna, I get tired of them fairly quickly. There are only so many paintings I can look at before they blend together. The same goes for a lot of the buildings. Most architects at the time were French or copied them. My favorite part of the Schoenbrunn complex is in the large gardens in the back and my absolutely favorite part of the gardens was the palm house.

Palm House

I love the Jugendstil era of architecture with the sweeping arches of steel. The palm house was built in the 1800s and contains many species of plants both hot and cold. I guess the emperor had a penchant for plants from around his domain. I don’t really know enough about plants to identify them beyond what is written on the signs. I still enjoyed just wandering around taking pictures.

Small Purple Flower

Although the collection is pretty diverse, this small purple flower was the only one that caught my attention enough to take a picture of just it. It was labeled as vanilla flower, although I’m pretty sure the flowers on the ice cream boxes are yellow. It was pretty anyway.

Great place to Relax in Vienna

So if you get tired of the palatial buildings and many Viennese museums, come out to the Schoenbrunn for some garden time. There is also a zoo (Tierpark) and a maze in the gardens to enjoy on a sunny day.