Most crowns are made for a coronation. This one never saw one. Rudolf II had it made in Prague in 1602 to wear when the real imperial crown was out of reach, and two centuries later it became the crown of an empire that didn't exist when it was made.
If you see one thing in the Hofburg, make it the Treasury. It's small, about twenty rooms, and it holds the objects that made a Habsburg an emperor…
Vienna's Hofburg gets the crowds, but the Habsburgs had a second Hofburg in Innsbruck, and it holds one of the saddest stories in the family. It's…
When Austria swears in a new government, the ceremony takes place in a Rococo room in the Hofburg called the Maria Theresa Room. It was once the…
The Neue Burg was meant to be the grandest wing of the Hofburg, half of an imperial forum on Heldenplatz. The empire ended before it was used as a…
The most visited part of the Hofburg is in the middle of a makeover. On 19 November 2026 the Imperial Apartments, the Sisi Museum and the Imperial…
The Spanish Riding School is the oldest working part of the Hofburg. It's been training horses here since at least 20 September 1565, the date of the…
