# Schönbrunn Palace audio guide, five stops, free.

A summer palace of 1,441 rooms, begun as a hunting lodge in 1696, with a park that runs 1.2 kilometres from east to west — all five stops stream in this tab, and Chiaro narrates the rest from a photo.

Made by Chiaro. Not affiliated with Schloss Schönbrunn. Page: https://chiaro.ai/landmarks/schonbrunn-palace/

This Schönbrunn Palace audio guide takes you along the palace's main axis in five self-guided stops, from the forecourt to the crest of the hill: three of them free, two inside on one ticket, and the first heard before any turnstile. The first is in the Parade Court, inside the main gate on Schönbrunner Schloßstraße, facing south to the palace front and its twin stairway. Then inside and up to the principal floor, the piano nobile: the great white-and-gold hall at the centre of the building, then east to Franz Stephan's lacquer-panelled memorial. Out to the garden front, due south down the length of the Great Parterre to the Neptune Fountain at the foot of the hill, and up the hill to the Gloriette on the crest, where the whole axis turns back towards the palace. Back to back, the recordings take about ten minutes in all. The palace's own tour of the whole principal floor is timed at about 75 minutes, and the park runs about a kilometre from north to south.

Every name, date and measurement on this page was checked against the operator's own site, schoenbrunn.at, and a second source on 23 September 2026, and each visit fact is filed with the sentence it came from, so we find out when something changes. Hours change with the season and prices are marked subject to seasonal change, so check the official page for the day you are going. If the palace staff or a notice on site says something different on the day, theirs is the answer to act on; drop us a line and we will bring the page up to date.

## The stops

### 1. The Parade Court and the courtyard front

Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656–1723) for Leopold I; rebuilt and extended by Nikolaus Pacassi (1716–1790) for Maria Theresa; facade simplified by Johann Aman (1765–1834) · Begun 1696; rebuilt 1743–1749; facade altered 1817–1819 · Rendered masonry with stone dressings, in Schönbrunn yellow; the front towards the city 175 metres long · Parade Court (Ehrenhof), inside the main gate on Schönbrunner Schloßstraße, facing south towards the palace's twin stairway; free, before any ticket

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/schonbrunn-palace/en/parade-court-front.mp3?v=1107634 (138 s)

Look for:
- The twin stairway in the middle of the front, with the carriage passage underneath. It replaced Fischer von Erlach's single outside staircase in 1746, and on private occasions it led straight up to the Great Gallery.
- How plain the front is for a Baroque palace. Johann Aman stripped Nikolaus Pacassi's Rococo ornament off it between 1817 and 1819.
- The two fountains in the court, both given new figures in 1776: on the east side, Johann Baptist Hagenauer's Galicia and Lodomeria, then only just acquired, and Transylvania; on the west, Franz Anton Zauner's Danube, Inn and Enns.
- The yellow itself. It only became the palace's colour in the middle of the nineteenth century; before that the front had been orange and brick red, then ochre, then grey.

Stand in the middle of the courtyard with the gate behind you and the whole front ahead: a hundred and seventy-five metres of yellow, and a pair of white stairways curving up to the centre. This is the Parade Court, the palace's forecourt.

Start with those stairways, because they explain the building. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach designed the first palace on this spot for Leopold the First, as a grand hunting lodge for his son Joseph. Work began in 1696, the centre was ready to live in by the spring of 1700, and it was probably this commission that got Fischer ennobled; that is where the von Erlach comes from. His lodge had one monumental staircase climbing straight up the middle of this front. In 1746 Maria Theresa's architect, Nikolaus Pacassi, took it away. He cut a carriageway through the ground floor under the centre, put two long rooms for festivities on the floor above it, and built the twin flights you are looking at. On a private evening, guests could walk up those steps and straight into the Great Gallery. On an official one, court ceremonial sent them the long way round from the Blue Staircase.

Pacassi did a great deal more. From 1743 he turned the hunting lodge into a summer residence, the imperial family moved in every summer from 1745, and as the family grew he slipped mezzanine floors in under the top storey, in the east wing by 1747 and in the west wing in the 1750s.

Now notice how plain the front is. That is not Baroque restraint. Between 1817 and 1819 the court architect Johann Aman stripped Pacassi's Rococo decoration off this facade and left the flatter, quieter wall you see today.

And the colour is younger than the wall. Paint samples show that Fischer's lodge was light orange and brick red, picked out in white. Under Maria Theresa it was golden ochre, then a paler ochre. Aman painted his new front grey, to look like stone. The yellow everyone calls Schönbrunn yellow only won out in the middle of the nineteenth century, possibly as a deliberate look back to Maria Theresa's time.

Two more things before you go in. The fountains on either side of the court got their figures in 1776: on the east, Johann Baptist Hagenauer's Galicia and Lodomeria, then only just acquired, and Transylvania; on the west, Franz Anton Zauner's rivers, the Danube, the Inn and the Enns. And the west wing, on your right as you face the palace, is where Franz Joseph lived. He was born in this building in 1830, moved into rooms on that side overlooking this courtyard in 1848, and died there on the twenty-first of November 1916.

### 2. The Great Gallery

Nikolaus Pacassi (1716–1790) for Maria Theresa; ceiling frescoes by Gregorio Guglielmi (1714–1773); stucco by Albert Bolla · Created from 1746; ceiling frescoes 1755–1761; stucco 1761/62; restored 2011–2012 · Gilt stucco, mirrors and painted ceiling; 43 metres long and almost 10 metres wide · Piano nobile, at the centre of the palace above the carriageway; on both the Palace Ticket and the State Apartments routes

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/schonbrunn-palace/en/great-gallery.mp3?v=1136892 (142 s)

Look for:
- The middle ceiling painting: Maria Theresa and Franz Stephan enthroned among the virtues, and round its edges the Crown Lands and the goods they produce.
- The eastern painting, with Mars on a white horse. It is a copy of 1947 and 1948 by Paul Reckendorfer and Carl Krall, because a bomb destroyed Guglielmi's original in April 1945. Compare it with the western one.
- The mirrors on the wall opposite the windows, placed to double the daylight.
- The candle-shaped lights in the chandeliers and sconces: LED lamps with crystals, fitted in the 2011 and 2012 restoration to imitate a flickering flame.

You are now standing directly above the carriage passage you saw from the courtyard, in the room Pacassi made when he took Fischer's staircase away. Forty-three metres long, almost ten wide, with the windows on the courtyard side and mirrors on the wall opposite, put there to throw the daylight back into the room.

When it was made, in 1746, it was bare. The white and gold stucco and the painted ceiling came later, and the ceiling is the point. Look up at the middle painting. Gregorio Guglielmi shows Maria Theresa as ruler of the Habsburg lands and her husband Franz Stephan as Holy Roman Emperor, enthroned in the clouds among the virtues a ruler is supposed to have: justice, clemency, generosity. Now let your eyes drop to the edges, where the picture comes down to earth. Those are the Crown Lands and what they produce, people at work among their goods. It is a ceiling about an economic reform programme, and it is unusually frank about it.

The painting at the western end is peace, the pax austriaca. Concordia sits at the top with Abundance and Peace, and below her are Ceres for farming, Bacchus for wine and Mercury for trade, with Apollo among the arts and sciences. Guglielmi painted his frescoes between 1755 and 1761, and Albert Bolla's stucco went up around them in 1761 and 1762.

The painting at the eastern end is war. Mars gallops across the sky on a white horse, and Minerva presides over a lesson at the Military Academy that Maria Theresa founded at Wiener Neustadt in 1752. Except that it is not Guglielmi's. A bomb destroyed it in April 1945, in the last days of the Second World War, and what you see is a copy painted in 1947 and 1948 by Paul Reckendorfer and Carl Krall.

The lights have a history too. The two big carved and gilded chandeliers originally carried seventy-two candles each. Electricity came to the palace in 1898, a second, upper row of wall lights went in, and from then on this room was lit by 868 light bulbs. In the restoration of 2011 and 2012 those gave way to candle-shaped LED lights with crystals that imitate a flickering flame.

The room outlived the monarchy by staying useful. The Republic kept holding state receptions in it, among them the reception after the Austrian State Treaty was signed at the Upper Belvedere on the fifteenth of May 1955. And in 1961 this is where John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev met.

Before you walk on, go to a window. The Parade Court where you started is right below you, and the twin stairway you looked at from down there is the one that brought private guests up into this room.

### 3. The Vieux-Laque Room

Probably designed by Isidor Canevale (1730–1786) for Maria Theresa; portraits by Pompeo Batoni (1708–1787) and Anton von Maron; Chinese lacquer panels cut from export screens · Remodelled as a memorial room after 1765; Batoni portraits 1769; panels restored 2002–2005 · Walnut panelling set with black-and-gold Chinese lacquer: 138 larger and 84 small panels on the walls, door panels and overdoors · Piano nobile, east wing, among the memorial rooms to Franz Stephan; on the Palace Ticket route only

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/schonbrunn-palace/en/vieux-laque-room.mp3?v=1041179 (130 s)

Look for:
- The seams in the lacquer. The panels were sawn out of Chinese folding screens and rearranged to suit the room, not the original pictures.
- Franz Stephan in the centre, painted by Pompeo Batoni and finished in 1769, four years after he died.
- The double portrait of Joseph and Leopold, and the book on the table in front of Joseph: Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws.
- The dim light, which is deliberate: the room is kept out of the sun to protect the gold on the lacquer.

This is a small room and a dark one, and the darkness is on purpose. The walls are walnut from floor to ceiling, and set into the walnut are black lacquer panels painted in gold, Chinese work, and gold on lacquer fades in the sun. So the room is kept out of daylight and lit only by dimmed electric light.

Look closely at one of the big panels and you will find the seams. These were never meant to be walls. They were folding screens, made in China for the European market, and here they were sawn apart and fitted into the panelling in whatever order suited the room, not the order of the original pictures. The sawing cracked them. At the last restoration, which began in 2002 and took three years, all 138 larger and 84 small panels were taken down one by one, repaired and put back. The time before that was 1872, when the palace was smartened up for the World Exhibition of 1873.

The room exists because of a death. It was Franz Stephan's private withdrawing room, the innermost of the emperor's reception rooms. He died suddenly in 1765, and Maria Theresa turned it into his memorial, probably to a design by the architect Isidor Canevale. From then on she wore nothing but mourning. When she died in 1780, a note was found in her prayer book in which she had worked out exactly how long her marriage had lasted: twenty-nine years, six months and six days. Then, as if that were not precise enough, she converted it: one thousand five hundred and forty weeks, ten thousand seven hundred and eighty-one days, two hundred and fifty-eight thousand seven hundred and forty-four hours.

Now the pictures. In the centre is Franz Stephan, painted by Pompeo Batoni and finished in 1769, four years after the sitter was dead. To its right is Batoni's double portrait, from the same year, of their sons Joseph and Leopold, both future emperors. Find the book on the table in front of Joseph, who stands on the right: it is Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws, one of the central books of the Enlightenment, put there to say what kind of ruler he meant to be. The third painting, by Anton von Maron, is Leopold's wife, Maria Ludovika, with three of their sixteen children, among them the future emperor Franz as a small child in a violet gown. Three generations in one room: a widow making sure the dynasty looked unbroken.

And one unexpected tenant. When Napoleon occupied Schönbrunn, in 1805 and again in 1809, it was these memorial rooms to Franz Stephan, in the east wing, that he took as his quarters.

### 4. The Neptune Fountain

Very probably designed by Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg (1733–1816); figures by the court sculptor Johann Christian Wilhelm Beyer (1725–1796) and his workshop · 1776–1780 · Sterzing marble figures on a brick structure faced with Kaiserstein; a good hundred metres long, just under fifty metres wide and a little over seven metres high without the figures · Palace park, at the south end of the Great Parterre on the main axis, at the foot of the Gloriette hill; free

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/schonbrunn-palace/en/neptune-fountain.mp3?v=954870 (119 s)

Look for:
- Thetis, kneeling at Neptune's side. The whole group turns on what she is asking him for.
- The Tritons at the foot of the grotto, holding their conch-shell trumpets and restraining the sea-horses that pull Neptune's chariot.
- The masks on the panels of the curved plinth, and the vases along the retaining wall behind.
- The marble statues lining the Great Parterre behind you, most of them from the same sculptor's workshop.

You have walked the length of the Great Parterre to get here, between tall clipped hedges lined with marble statues, most of them from the workshop of the sculptor who made the group in front of you. This is the Neptune Fountain, and it was meant as the full stop at the end of the garden, where the flat ground meets the hill.

It is bigger than it looks from the palace: a good hundred metres long, just under fifty wide, and a little over seven metres high before a single figure is added. The structure is brick, faced with Kaiserstein, a hard limestone. The figures are Sterzing marble, carved by Johann Christian Wilhelm Beyer and his workshop. The design was very probably by Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg, the court architect who remade this garden for Maria Theresa in the seventeen-seventies. Digging started in 1776, and the fountain was finished four years later, just before she died.

It was supposed to have company. Basins for four more fountains were dug in the parterre behind you, and then, in 1777, it turned out that not enough water could be brought in to feed them. The holes were filled in again. Even this fountain used to run only on special occasions, and after each of the world wars not at all. Only since its last full restoration has it had a circulating water system that lets it run as a matter of course.

Now read the group. Neptune stands at the top in a chariot shaped like a shell, trident in hand, above a rocky grotto, with a nymph at his side. On the other side kneels Thetis, the sea-goddess and mother of Achilles, and what she is asking him for depends on whom you ask. The palace's own reading is that she wants Neptune to favour her son's voyage to Troy. Another reading has her begging for a storm to stop Paris carrying Helen away, and so to prevent the war in which Achilles was fated to die young. Either way, the god who rules the sea stands for the monarch who steers a nation.

Below them are the Tritons, half man and half fish, with their conch-shell trumpets, wrestling the sea-horses that draw the chariot. And one thing is missing from this basin. Beyer made two groups of naiads for it, and they came out so small next to everything else that they had to be moved to two round basins elsewhere in the garden. He was accused of doing it on purpose, to get his own work into the basins other sculptors would otherwise have filled.

### 5. The Gloriette, on the crest of Schönbrunn Hill

Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg (1733–1816); trophies by Johann Baptist Hagenauer, eagle by Benedikt Henrici; columns and arches reused from Maximilian II's Neugebäude palace · 1775; east wing rebuilt after a 1945 bomb; restored 1994/95 · White Kaiserstein limestone colonnade, 84.3 metres long (135.3 metres with its flights of steps) and 25.95 metres high · Crest of Schönbrunn Hill, at the top of the paths up from the Neptune Fountain, on the lawn and by the pond in front of the Gloriette; free. The roof viewing terrace is a separate paid attraction

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/schonbrunn-palace/en/gloriette.mp3?v=1091961 (136 s)

Look for:
- The imperial eagle on a globe on top of the centre, surrounded by trophies: Benedikt Henrici's sculpture.
- The date in the inscription under the roof, written the old printers' way, with no M and no D.
- The twin columns of the arcades, recycled from the Neugebäude, a Renaissance palace Maximilian II began in 1568.
- Turn round: the axis runs straight back down over the Neptune Fountain and the Great Parterre to the palace.

Look at what you have climbed to. The Gloriette is 84.3 metres long, 135.3 with its flights of steps, and 25.95 metres high: a colonnade on the crest of a hill sixty metres high, built in 1775 to Hohenberg's design. Fischer von Erlach had wanted something up here from the start, a belvedere to crown the whole ensemble. It was only built decades later, when Hohenberg remodelled the park.

What makes it strange is that most of it is second-hand. The twin columns, the capitals, the arches and the entablatures came from the Neugebäude, a Renaissance palace that Maximilian the Second began in 1568 and never finished. By 1774 it had been handed to the army as a powder magazine, and Maria Theresa wrote that there was an old gallery of stone columns and cornices out there that was of no use, and that she had decided to have it taken down and brought to Schönbrunn. So this monument to Habsburg glory is made of recycled Habsburg parts.

And it is a monument. Maria Theresa meant it to glorify Habsburg power and the just war, the war fought out of necessity that ends in peace. Look at the top of the centre: an imperial eagle on a globe, surrounded by trophies, by the sculptor Benedikt Henrici. The Roman armour, shields, standards and lions on the side stairways are Johann Baptist Hagenauer's.

Then find the inscription under the roof. It names Joseph the Second and Maria Theresa and gives the year 1775, but not the usual way. There is no M and no D in it. The thousand and the five hundred are built out of the letter C, the letter I and a backwards C, an ancient Roman sign that the early printers borrowed for writing large numbers.

The glazed middle has had a restless life. In the nineteenth century it was often used as a dining room, with its own kitchen nearby; the kitchen was pulled down around 1925 and the glass came out a year later. In 1945 a bomb destroyed part of the east wing, which was rebuilt after the war, and in the restoration of 1994 and 1995 the centre was glazed again. It is a café now, and the flat roof above it has been used as a viewing platform since the early nineteenth century.

Now turn round. The whole garden runs away from you in one straight line: the Neptune Fountain at the foot of the hill, the long parterre, and at the far end of it the yellow palace where you started, a hundred and seventy-five metres wide and small enough from up here to hide behind your thumb.

## Before you go

Schönbrunner Schloßstraße 47, 1130 Vienna. Come in through the main gate on Schönbrunner Schloßstraße into the Parade Court, the forecourt where the first stop is, before any turnstile. The operator's only official online shop is imperialtickets.com; its own site warns about fake ticket websites.

Underground line U4 to Schönbrunn. Trams 10 and 60 and bus 10A stop at Schloss Schönbrunn. From Westbahnhof, take tram 60 westbound, about fifteen minutes. From Wien Hauptbahnhof, take the U1 to Karlsplatz and change to the westbound U4; from Meidling, the northbound U6 to Längenfeldgasse and then the westbound U4.

- Palace admission is by fixed admission time, and the operator advises booking online to secure one. The two interior stops need the Palace Ticket, which covers the whole principal floor in about 75 minutes and cost 42 euros for an adult in the 2026 summer season. The cheaper State Apartments ticket, 30 euros, reaches the Great Gallery but not the Vieux-Laque Room. Both include the audio guide, and prices are marked subject to seasonal change.
- The Gloriette's roof terrace is not free. It is part of the Exclusive Gardens ticket, 16 euros for an adult in the 2026 season, with the Maze, the Privy Garden and the Orangery Garden, and of the Classic Pass; it is reached only by stairs; and its listed 2026 season ends on 2 November. The lawn and the pond in front of the Gloriette, where the fifth stop stands, cost nothing.
- The palace is open every day, public holidays included, and last admission to every attraction is 45 minutes before closing. The park opens at 6.30 am and is free. Hours change with the season, so check the operator's opening-times page for your date. The fountains do not run from mid-October to mid-April, so the Neptune Fountain may be still when you get there. Tripods, selfie sticks and flash are not allowed in the palace, and dogs are not allowed in the palace or the park. The palace is step-free for wheelchair users, with a lift to the first floor: tell the staff at the turnstile.

Official tickets: https://www.schoenbrunn.at/en/tickets-and-prices/all-tickets-tours

The palace's own audio guide is free. It comes with the Palace Ticket and with the State Apartments ticket, in 21 languages, or as a printed tour description in 24, depending on availability, and it is handed out after the turnstiles. The operator also publishes a free Schönbrunn app with an interactive map of the park, and sells guided tours as a separate ticket. This page is independent of the operator: its three outdoor stops need neither a ticket nor a turnstile, and in a crowded room you can read a stop instead of hearing it, because its full text sits beneath the player.

Official site: https://www.schoenbrunn.at/en/

## Questions

**Is there a free Schönbrunn Palace audio guide?**

Yes, two. The palace's own audio guide costs nothing extra: it is included in the Palace Ticket and the State Apartments ticket, in 21 languages, and handed out after the turnstiles. The other is this page, a route of five stops that runs on your phone and begins in the Parade Court before you have bought anything, with the text of each stop written out below it. Anything neither guide covers, from a garden statue to a painted ceiling, just photograph, and the Chiaro app will tell you about it.

**Which stops can I hear without a palace ticket?**

Three of the five. The Parade Court is the palace's forecourt, entered from the street through the main gate, and the Neptune Fountain and the Gloriette are in the park, which is free during opening hours. The Great Gallery and the Vieux-Laque Room are inside the palace, and for both you need the Palace Ticket with a fixed admission time; the State Apartments ticket reaches the Great Gallery only.

**How much is the official Schönbrunn Palace audio guide?**

Nothing on top of your ticket. The operator's audio guide, or a printed description when no device is available, is included in the price of the Palace Ticket and the State Apartments ticket. In the 2026 summer season the Palace Ticket is 42 euros for an adult and the State Apartments ticket 30, and the operator marks both as subject to seasonal change.

**Where in the grounds does the walk begin?**

In the Parade Court, the big courtyard inside the main gate on Schönbrunner Schloßstraße, facing the palace's twin stairway. The U4 to Schönbrunn, or tram 10 or 60 to Schloss Schönbrunn, brings you to it. Play the first stop there, before you go in.

**Is Schönbrunn Palace closed on any day?**

No. The palace is open daily, public holidays included, with last admission 45 minutes before closing. In 2026 it is open 8.30 am to 5.30 pm from 1 September to 2 November, and 8.30 am to 5 pm from 3 November to 31 March 2027. The park opens at 6.30 am and costs nothing.

**Can I go up on the Gloriette?**

Onto its roof terrace, yes, with a ticket: the terrace is included in the Exclusive Gardens ticket and the Classic Pass, it is reached only by stairs, and its listed 2026 season runs to 2 November. The Gloriette itself, the lawn and the pond in front of it are in the free park, which is where the fifth stop on this page is played.

## Continue in the app

Point Chiaro at anything at Schönbrunn Palace.

The palace has 1,441 rooms and a park 1.2 kilometres wide, and this walk pauses at only five places in all of that. Hold your phone up to a statue on the parterre, a portrait in a gilded frame, a fountain with no label on it, and Chiaro works out what you are looking at and who made it, then stays on hand for whatever you ask next, all the way up to the Gloriette.

Download Chiaro: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6745618830?pt=127817940&ct=schonbrunn-palace-md&mt=8