Hofburg Palace

You pass beneath a stone archway, and the space suddenly opens into a huge courtyard. Carriages once rolled across these stones. Now it is your own footsteps that echo. Wings of pale stone surround you on every side. Statues stand out against the sky above. This is the Hofburg, the winter palace of the Habsburg rulers.

If Schoenbrunn was the summer home, the Hofburg was the seat of power through the cold months. For more than six hundred years the Habsburgs ruled from here. The palace grew along with them. Each ruler seemed to add something of their own. The result is not one building but many, joined together across the centuries. No other family ruled Europe for quite so long.

Because of this, the Hofburg has no single style. Walk from one section to the next and the architecture shifts around you. The older parts are plain and solid. The later parts grow grand and heavily decorated. You are reading the passage of time, written in stone, as you walk from wing to wing. Some doorways are low and worn smooth by time. Others soar high above your head.

Today the palace is still at work. The President of Austria keeps offices here. So this is not only a museum to the past. It is a living seat of government. Power has flowed through these walls, almost without pause, for many hundreds of years.

Inside, several museums share the great complex. One set of rooms holds the old Imperial Apartments. These were the private living spaces of the emperor and the empress. They are kept much as they once were. You can see the desks, the beds, and the long dining tables set as if for the family. Silver and porcelain crowd the tables in one long room. The display alone fills a small museum.

One museum here is devoted to a single person. Her name was Empress Elisabeth, known to many simply as Sisi. She married into the imperial family very young, and never truly felt at home in court life. Her story holds beauty, fame, deep sadness, and a violent death. The museum tries to look past the legend to the real woman beneath it.

The Hofburg also guards a great treasury. In its rooms you can see crowns, robes, and jewels gathered over many centuries. One crown stands above all the rest. It is the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. It is more than a thousand years old. Its gold plates and bright stones once crowned emperors across half of Europe. There are also robes heavy with gold thread, and rare jeweled objects from distant lands.

Music and faith have their place here too. Within the palace there is a chapel. On many Sunday mornings the voices of the Vienna Boys' Choir rise inside it. The choir has roots reaching back more than five hundred years. The sound fills the small space and climbs slowly toward the ceiling.

The palace is also home to the famous white horses. The Spanish Riding School trains and performs right here. The horses are a breed called Lipizzaner. They are born dark and slowly turn white as they grow older. In a bright hall hung with chandeliers, riders guide them through slow, exact movements that look almost like a dance. The shows are famous, and tickets sell out far ahead. Even the practice sessions draw a crowd.

Step out into the wide square known as Heroes' Square. It is broad and open to the sky. Two large statues of men on horseback face out across the space. Beyond them the city stretches away. Great crowds have filled this square at turning points in history, in moments both proud and dark.

There is also a library here that many call one of the most beautiful in the world. Its main hall is long and very high. Wooden shelves hold tens of thousands of old books. A painted ceiling curves overhead. Standing in the middle of the hall, most people simply turn in a slow circle and look. The smell of old paper hangs in the air. Globes and statues stand among the shelves.

The Hofburg is hard to take in all at once. It is a palace, a museum, a church, a stable, a library, and a working seat of government, all at the same time. It grew for six centuries, and it has never stopped being used.

Stand in the courtyard for a moment before you leave. Listen to your own steps on the worn stone. Countless feet have crossed this ground before yours. Emperors, soldiers, servants, and travelers like you. Many more will cross it long after you have gone.