an itinerary on his trail in Vienna
An itinerary to discover the places of Empress Elisabeth Amalia Eugenie of Wittelsbach, better known as Sisi, in the Austrian capital.
Duchess of Bavaria and later Empress of Austria, the story of Elisabeth Amalia Eugenie of Wittelsbachbetter known as Yes, yeshas enchanted girls and women of all generations, even if in reality its existence has not been so happy with its beautiful Francis Josephsaid Franz. Theirs was love at first sight, but imperial married life was not the most rosy: he was always busy with state affairs, she was a lover of nature and long rides with her horses, reading and traveling, but above all of freedom; the young Elizabeth, become empress just sitting years old, she felt imprisoned by the etiquette of the Vienna court and by the anything but serene relationship with her mother-in-law. She also had to face the death of her eldest daughter before her and subsequently the suicide of her son Rodolfo; she then fell into depression, already tried by her lung disease. And finally her tragic death, her murder, perhaps just by coincidence. Films, cartoons, television dramas and recently a Netflix series have been dedicated to her story, but undoubtedly the fascination for this controversial and unhappy female character exploded with the famous interpretation of Romy Schneider as the young empress nella trilogy started in 1955. It seems that the name Sissi written with a double S derives from this trilogy: in fact it would be more correct to write Sisi.
To retrace its history, there are many i places in Vienna talking about Sisi, starting with Schoenbrunn Palace, at the gates of the center of the Austrian capital. Here, in one of the most beautiful buildings in Austria, Sisi and Emperor Franz Joseph lived. Former summer residence of the Habsburgs, the Royal Palace has 1441 rooms in rococo style, even if there are about forty-five that can be visited. You can choose to visit all the rooms on the main floor or focus only on the imperial tour, or the apartments of Franz and Sissi: among the most beautiful rooms of this itinerary, the Billiard Room which introduces to the emperor’s private apartments, the Walnut Wood Room used by the latter as a hearing room, his Studiolo, the Ketterl Room where Eugen Ketterl lived, chamber valet personal exhibition of Francesco Giuseppe, the bedroom and the imperial bedroom furnished for the marriage between Francesco and Sissi in 1854 in the “rococo revival” style. Among the Sisi rooms, the small room of the stairs where the empress wrote letters and read, the dressing room and the bedroom, the reception hall. Then there is the dining room reserved for the imperial couple and their children, the Hall of Mirrors and the Great Gallery. Since 1996 the Castle and the Park have been included in the list of Unesco World Heritage: in addition to the park with its splendid fountains, the Orangerie, the Imperial Carriage Museum where the clothes and personal belongings of the empress are also kept, and the zoological garden which is the oldest in the world.
Me too’Hofburg it was the Viennese imperial residence and is considered one of the largest residential complexes in the world with its eighteen wings, its nineteen courtyards and its two thousand six hundred rooms. They can be visited here Imperial apartmentsthat is, the private and official sales of the couple, their children, and the entire court, furnished in rococo style with stucco decorations, Bohemian crystal chandeliers and tiled stoves. Among the most fascinating rooms of the visit itinerary are the dining room, Sisi’s toilet and bathroom and the gymnastics room. Inside the Hofburg Imperial Apartments is the Sisi Museum, in which the life of the empress is told through the reproduction of her living context and her rebellion against court life, from which she finds comfort in travelling, reading and sport. Are exposed over three hundred pieces including original clothes, the watercolor paint box, a miniature writing desk; and again the harp that Elizabeth played as a child in Bavaria and the reconstructions of the dress she wore on the eve of the wedding and of the one she wore on the occasion of the Hungarian coronation. You can also see the death mask of the assassinated empress, the black coat in heron feathers with which the empress was covered after the attack on Lake Geneva. Not far from the Hofburg, in the Kohlmarkt, the pastry shop where Sisi had her loved ones bought and brought to her Candied violets and its violet ice cream which he could not resist.
In the Lainzer Tiergarten Nature Reserve is Villa Hermes, the late-Romantic building that the emperor gave to Sisi to keep her longer and more willingly in Vienna. The castle was built by Carl von Hasenauer, the architect of the Ringstrasse, from 1882 to 18866 and its name is due to the statue of Hermes placed in the garden. Inside, on the first floor, an exhibition tells the story of the building and its inhabitants, including that of Franz and Sisi, through many personal objects and original furniture.
To visit the place where the couple got married you have to go to the Church of the Augustiniansbut on the occasion of the wedding Baron Carl Freiherr von Sothen had it built on the hill I am Himmel in the 19th district the Sisi Chapel, the first neo-Gothic building in Vienna designed by the architect Johann A. Garben. The Chapel, surrounded by landscaped gardens, was to commemorate the historic event, but was also to serve as the future burial place of the client and his wife Franziska.
The tomb by Francesco Giuseppe and Sisi are found instead in the Crypt of the Emperorsunder the Capuchin Church, where almost 150 Habsburg rulers have been buried since 1633. The last emperor buried here was Franz Joseph in 1916. In addition to Sisi, the hereditary prince Rudolf who committed suicide is also buried here.
A. is also dedicated to the empress monument: it was made in marble by the architect Friedrich Ohmann and is placed in Volksgarten, the park along the Ringstrasse known for its large variety of roses. “To the unforgettable Empress Elisabeth the people of Austria erected this monument in 1907 with undiminished love and fidelity,” is written on the plinth of the monument. The architect depicted her seated, in the center of an architectural setting. Before the realization, two competitions were held, in which about seventy projects participated, and once Ohmann’s project was chosen, out of competition, the discussion moved to its location. In the end it was Franz himself who decided it and at that point the architect also designed that part of the Volksgarten.
The Furniture Museumlocated in Andreasgasse, in the seventh district, finally houses the permanent exhibition Sissi in the movie with reconstructions of environments and costumes taken from Romy Schneider trilogy dedicated to the empress. There are also still photos, posters, film fragments. A curiosity: neither the Schönbrunn Palace nor the Hofburg were allowed to shoot the films indoors. The scenes were mostly shot in the Rosenhugelstudios in Vienna, drawing on period furniture from the vast collection of the Museo del Mobile.
The tour in the footsteps of Sisi can be concluded fifteen kilometers from Vienna, al Laxenburg Castle, for centuries the favorite summer residence of the imperial family. Here, and especially in the Franzenburg Castleinaugurated in 1801 and built on an artificial island in the lake in imitation of a medieval building, Sisi spent his honeymoon, after his sumptuous wedding with the emperor Franz Joseph, and always here he indulged in long rides in the woods of the castle.
For more information on Sisi’s places visit the website austria.info
Schoenbrunn
Schoenbrunn
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