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Compared with the hotchpotch that is the Hofburg, the Habsburgs' summer residence of Schonbrunn ( www.schoenbrunn.at ) is everything an imperial palace should be: grandiose, symmetrical and thoroughly intimidating. Built over the course of the eighteenth century to a design by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, it contains nearly 1500 rooms and, in its day, would have housed more than a thousand servants. The exterior is plain, but inside, there's a superb array of Baroque and Rococo Prunkraume (State Rooms), dating from the time of the Empress Maria Theresia, the first of the Habsburgs to make Schonbrunn the official imperial summer residence. There's also a fine collection of imperial carriages in the outbuilding of the Wagenburg , plus temporary exhibitions in the Orangerie . In the Schlosspark , you'll find the Tiergarten far more uplifting than most inner-city zoos, which combines easily with visits to the nearby Palmenhaus and Irrgarten (Maze).
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