Mirabell Palace and Gardens

Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau built the palace in 1606 for Salome Alt, with whom he had around fifteen children despite his office, and named it Altenau; his successor renamed it Mirabell and expelled her. Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt rebuilt it in the 1720s, and a fire in 1818 removed much of that, leaving the marble hall - once the archbishops' banqueting room, where Leopold Mozart and his children played - as the finest surviving interior. It is now a civil wedding and concert venue. The gardens were laid out in 1690 by Fischer von Erlach on a strong axis pointing at the fortress, with the Pegasus fountain, the hedge theatre and the dwarf garden of grotesque marble figures, and the steps were used in The Sound of Music.

History

Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich Raitenau had the palace built about 1606 on the Salzach north of the city walls, after gout and a stroke made the narrow streets hard for him, as a pleasure palace for himself and his mistress Salome Alt; said to have been built in six months on Italian and French models, it was first called Schloss Altenau. When Raitenau was deposed and imprisoned in Hohensalzburg in 1612, his successor Markus Sittikus von Hohenems drove out Salome Alt and her family and renamed it Mirabell, and Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt rebuilt it in lavish Baroque style from 1721 to 1727. The future King Otto of Greece was born here on 1 June 1815, and the present Neoclassical look dates from about 1818, when the palace was restored after a fire (Wikipedia, Mirabell Palace).

The main sights

• The marble hall - the surviving state room where the Mozart children played.
• Formal gardens on an axis - laid out to line up on the Hohensalzburg fortress.
• The dwarf garden - grotesque marble figures on the terrace.
• The film steps - the flight used in The Sound of Music, permanently busy.

When to go

April to October for the planting; the gardens are open all year. Two hours.

Things to know

The marble hall is a wedding and concert venue and often closed. The gardens are free but crowded, especially at the film steps. Flower beds are bare from late autumn to spring.

Nearby

The old town, Mozart's residence and the Salzach bridges are minutes away.

Key facts