Breakfast With The EmperorExploring Schönbrunn

Griaß enk!
Welcome!
A welcome in Tyrolean dialect
at the entrance of the beautiful Gastgarten
of the Restaurant Tirolerhof

Red flowers
in a window box

Carved wood porch column
at the outdoor stair landing.

I love how
these blossoms
caress the wood just so.

And this is the view,
from the porch of the restaurant,
built in Tyrolean farmhouse style,
looking down to the 1722 farmhouse
located in the gardens of
Schönbrunn Palace!

Right here, at this table,
did I savour a perfect Mother's Day breakfast,
accompanied by the cock-a-doodle-doo of
the resident rooster at the farmhouse below
and the finest chorus of birds imaginable!
Particularly enjoyable was the friendly service
all around, and for this alone would I encourage you
to have a meal there.

The Tirolerhof's bucolic setting,
amidst a forest-like area of the palace gardens,
the outdoor dining terrace under tall leafy trees,
and the great food, prepared from
local and even organic ingredients where possible,
make it a really enjoyable Gasthaus experience.

The Tirolerhof entrance to
the famous Schönbrunner Zoo is only steps
away from this Country Inn in the City,
offering you a golden opportunity to work off
the Schnitzel and Apfelstrudel right there!

Or you decide to walk straight ahead,
in south-easterly direction,
where you will see this side-façade rise in front of you:

Schönbrunn's Gloriette!
Standing high on the hill behind Schönbrunn Palace,
the Gloriette with its large high-ceilinged center hall
and arcaded wings, this graceful folly in all
its splendid non-usefulness,
is in my opinion one of the most romantic places
in all of Vienna.

"Built in 1775
as the last building constructed in the garden
according to the plans of Austrian imperial architect
Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg
as a 'temple of renown' to serve as both a focal point
and a lookout point for the garden,
it was used as a dining hall and festival hall
as well as a breakfast room for emperor Franz Joseph I
." *)
Where once the Emperor
used to entertain his dinnerguests
or have breakfast in solitude -
lost in thought, following a mallard duck
swimming in the reflection pool, perchance,
or gazing down onto the summer palace and its gardens
and the city beyond  -
nowadays we commoners can do the same,
while drinking a cup of coffee or tea,
and eating a slice of apfelstrudel
if we so chose, all in imperial surroundings.



Click on the image
for more views of the city
from the Gloriette!

And so the answer
to the question in my Sunday post
- Where in the City? -
has become clear:
Schönbrunn Palace's Garden
is the location of both the 1722 Tyrolean farmhouse
and the building where emperor Franz Joseph I,
the next to last ruler of a long line of Habsburg owners,
used to have his solitary breakfast
(see also Morning in the City).

A view of Schönbrunn Palace
and gardens from the Gloriette


Photographs and Text
May 2009
© by Merisi

Gloriette.
Eye-catcher, or pavilion in a garden from which views may be enjoyed, e.g. Hohenburg's Gloriette at Schönbrunn, Vienna (1775).
JAMES STEVENS CURL. "gloriette." A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Oxford University Press. 2000.
(Retrieved May 12, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com)

Hohenberg, Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von
(1732–1816).
Architect of the arcaded Gloriette, the celebrated eye-catcher in the park at Schönbrunn, Vienna (1773–5), an early revival of the Cinquecento style, as well as the ‘Roman Ruin’ (1778), inspired by Piranesi. He redesigned (1772) the landscape garden at Schönbrunn, and is credited with the interior of the theatre at Schönbrunn Palace.

JAMES STEVENS CURL. "Hohenberg, Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von."
A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Oxford University Press. 2000.  (Retrieved May 12, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com)

*) Text in cursive, between quotation marks, quoted from Wikipedia.org!

Click for  a map of Schönbrunn!
R e p o s t - first published in May 2009