The places of Princess Sissi in the Netflix TV series “The Empress”
The unpublished story of Elisabeth of Bavaria, better known as Princess Sissi, Empress of Austria, is told in the Netflix TV series “The empress“. The series focuses mainly on the early years of Sissi’s reign at the court of Vienna.
Who visited the Austrian capital certainly had the opportunity to discover many places related to the court life of His Highness that inspired so many films – the most famous are those of the 1950s with Romy Schneider – and other television series first of this, including “Sissi” , aired on Canale5.
Schönbrunn Palace
Starting with Schönbrunn Palace, the most famous of the Austrian imperial palaces as well as one of the most beautiful Baroque complexes in Europe and a Unesco World Heritage Site, which served as a summer residence for the princess and her husband, Francesco Giuseppe d ‘ Austria called Franz. The sumptuous straw yellow residence, commissioned by Maria Theresa of Habsburg in the 18th century, is surrounded by a vast park of 120 rooms, designed in French style and opened to the public in 1779.
The Carriage Museum
Inside it houses the royal apartments, the theater – the oldest in Vienna, which can only be visited during concerts open to the public – and the Carriage Museum, the Wagenburg. Here you can find almost all the royal carriages: used on the occasion of the wedding, the sumptuous gilded carriage for the coronation of the imperial couple as King and Queen of Hungary, the children’s carriages, used before the assassination of Sissi which took place in Geneva by hand the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni, and the imperial hearse.
Sissi’s luxury wagon
The Technisches Museum Wien, on the other hand, houses the “Hofsalonwagen”, The court railway carriage that Sissi had available to travel by train, equipped with all the comforts and luxury of the time. A curiosity: because of her habit of moving quickly it seems that she was given the nickname “the train”.
Vienna railway station
In his honor, the railway line from Vienna to Munich via Salzburg, inaugurated in 1860, was named Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Bahn. Curiously, the first statue of the empress was also erected in the Viennese station of this line. The old station is no longer there, replaced by a modern building, but the marble statue, after having long been reported missing and then found, is still housed in the Westbahnhof.
Hermesvilla, “the castle of dreams”
Sissi was a restless woman and, as soon as she could, she set out on a journey, moreover she did not like court life very much. To convince her to spend more time in Vienna, Franz Joseph gave her the Hermesvilla which he called “the castle of dreams”, an elegant palace nestled in the vast Lainzer Tiergarten park, on the hills of the Viennese forest, used as a hunting lodge. The villa owes its name to a statue of Hermes which is located in the garden. Today it houses the Vienna Museum, but it was abandoned for years. Until a curious fact happened: in 1963, Disney made the film “The Last Train from Vienna” which brought back interest in this structure, so the Viennese authorities decided to restore it.
Hofburg, the imperial residence
Those who know everything about the life of this passionate modern woman can visit the museum dedicated to her inside the Hofburg, the imperial residence in the center of Vienna. Enlarged over at least six centuries, this complex includes several buildings and gardens that change from Gothic to Baroque, from Renaissance to Neoclassical. Its best known facade is the Neue Burg, facing the Josefsplatz, where there is the statue of Joseph II, son of Maria Theresa. Seat of the imperial court, today it houses several museums. Not to be missed are the imperial apartments, the court silverware museum and the museum dedicated to Sissi.
The castles of Laxenburg
Also worth seeing are the castles of Laxenburg, on the outskirts of the capital, owned by the Habsburg family since 1333 and used as a summer residence. Some villas are part of it as well as castles. Here, the young couple spent their honeymoon and, in the Blauer Hof palace, two of Sissi’s four children were born.
The set of the unforgettable Romy-Sissi
An itinerary in Vienna on Sissi’s footsteps would not be complete without a visit to the Möbelmuseum, the Furniture Museum, where you can retrace the “behind the scenes” story of Ernst Marischka’s films starring Romy Schneider, who introduced the character of world empress. The museum retains many furnishings that once belonged to the Habsburgs. In fact, many original pieces of furniture were used for the shooting of the films, which in the museum have been arranged with the same settings as the films.