Kaiservilla

Franz Joseph I's summer retreat, preserved as he left it

The summer residence of Emperor Franz Joseph I sits in landscaped parkland above the town, a neo-classical villa painted yellow in the Viennese imperial style. Franz Joseph came here every summer from 1849 until his death in 1916, and the villa has been maintained by his descendants largely as he left it — a genuine museum of late Habsburg life rather than a staged reconstruction.

Guided tours move through the hunting room (with its extraordinary collection of trophies), the emperor's study and bedroom, and the personal apartments of Empress Elisabeth. The contrast between the two is instructive: his rooms are spartan and military; hers are light, refined, and reflect a personality that had long since escaped the court. The villa and its park are owned by the Habsburgs, not the state, which gives the place an unusual personal quality. Tours run in multiple languages.

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A story
It was in this villa, on 28 July 1914, that Franz Joseph I signed the declaration of war against Serbia that triggered the First World War. He had spent every summer here for 65 years, and he signed the document at his desk in the study — the same desk that visitors can see today, in the same room, more or less unchanged. He died in Vienna two years later, before the war he started had ended.