A strange, exotic world awaits us in these rooms. Walls and ceiling are covered in landscape painting which conveys the illusion of a remote world alive with exotic birds and animals. Here nature is not untouched but orderred according to human notions.

In the garden of the palace, nature is ordered according to architectonic principles, and in the Botanic Garden according to scientific and pedagogical aims. In the Bergl rooms it is structured into a painted garden architecture by balustrades, arbours and Rococo vases. The visitor´s eye is led past these into the gardens of splendid villas or temples.

Johann Wenzel Bergl´s rendering of the plants and fruits is based on studies of nature, which he could easily have made in the hothouses of the palace gardens. He could also have sought advice from the botanists belonging to the circle around Emperor Francis Stephen as he brought the world of the tropic into the chilly rooms of the ground floor. In her old age, Maria Theresa used these rooms as her "summer rooms" when it became too hot and oppressive in her apartments upstairs.

The following generation covered over the murals with grey canvas screens. It was not until 1891 that these were removed, and in 1965 restoration work was started on the murals and measures undertaken to eradicate the damp.

The east and southeast Bergl rooms were occupied by Crown Prince Rudolf (Crown Prince Apartment), the south Bergl rooms were the summer rooms of Maria Theresia (today known as the Goëss Apartment).
Since 2009 the remarkable rooms of the Crown Prince and the Goëss Apartments, with its breathtaking mural paintings, has been open exclusively for groups!

Guided tour of the Bergl Rooms

The Gisela Apartment in the westwing of the Palace is nowadays a part of the Children museum.