A visit to the Schonbrunn Palace Gardens is a must for visitors to Vienna.
The word Gloriette given on the sign boards fascinated me and I immediately googled.
The Gloriette in the Schönbrunn Palace Garden, Vienna, Austria
A gloriette (from the 12th-century French gloiremeaning “little room”) is a building in a garden erected on a site that is elevated with respect to the surroundings. The structural execution and shape can vary greatly, often in the form of a pavilion or tempietto, more or less open on the sides.
It is one of the highlights of the Gardens is the Gloriette built high up on a hill behind the palace and was the last building constructed in the palace in 1775 as per the plan of 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 served as a dining hall and festival hall as well as a breakfast room for emperor Franz Joseph I. That hall is now a cafe.
It is quite a steep climb but we’ll worth it for the stunning view. There is a cafe there and has been used since the beginning of the nineteenth century, as a viewing platform.
