Bad Ischl

Bad Ischl became the Habsburg summer residence in the nineteenth century after Franz Joseph's mother took the brine cure here and credited it with her three sons; Franz Joseph came every summer for over sixty years, met Elisabeth here, and the court followed, which turned a salt town into a resort with villas, a Kurhaus and a promenade. The Kaiservilla, still owned by his descendants, is open with the rooms as he used them - and it was in his study there, on 28 July 1914, that he signed the declaration of war on Serbia, which makes a modest desk in an Upper Austrian villa one of the more consequential objects in Europe. Lehár lived here and his villa is a museum. The town was a European Capital of Culture in 2024.

History

People have lived here since the Hallstatt culture, and the place is first recorded as Iselen in a deed of 1262; in 1419 Archduke Albert V set the local seat of the Salt Chamber at Wildenstein Castle, Emperor Frederick III made Ischl a market town in 1466, a salt mine opened in 1563 and an evaporation works in 1571. When brine cures came into fashion early in the 19th century, Ischl became a resort for Metternich and the archdukes, the Hotel Post of 1828 was the first hotel in the Salzkammergut, and in 1849 Emperor Franz Joseph made it his summer residence; he was engaged to Elisabeth of Bavaria at the Seeauerhaus on 19 August 1853, and in 1854 his mother, Archduchess Sophie, gave him the Kaiservilla as a wedding present (Wikipedia, Bad Ischl).

What to look for

• The Kaiservilla - Franz Joseph's summer house, still in family hands and furnished.
• The desk of July 1914 - where the declaration of war on Serbia was signed.
• Lehár's villa - the operetta composer's house on the river, now a museum.
• A brine spa town - the cure that brought the court and built the resort.

When to go

May to October; the villa closes for much of winter. A day.

Good to know

The Kaiservilla is shown by guided tour, mainly in German, and closes seasonally. The town is busy in summer. The 1914 room is treated matter-of-factly, which some visitors find jarring.

Nearby

Hallstatt is south; Gmunden and the Traunsee are north; St Wolfgang is west.

Key facts