Schönbrunn: the palace and the gardens
The yellow summer palace, the climb to the Gloriette, and the city laid out behind you. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Schloss Schönbrunn
Come up from the U-Bahn and the long yellow facade fills the courtyard — *Schönbrunn* yellow, the colour they named after this. The state rooms inside run to over a thousand; you only walk a fraction. Buy the timed ticket the night before or queue early, because the courtyard fills by ten.

2. The great parterre
Walk round to the garden side, where the flat formal *parterre* runs straight away from the palace to the hill. The clipped hedges and flowerbeds are laid out for symmetry, not strolling — but the central gravel path pulls your eye to the *Gloriette* on the ridge, and that's the route.

3. Neptunbrunnen
The Neptune Fountain sits at the foot of the hill, where the parterre ends and the climb begins. Stand behind it, above the basin, for the framed shot back over the gardens to the palace. Then take the path up either flank — left is gentler.

4. The Gloriette
The hilltop arcade Maria Theresa built as an eye-catcher and a war memorial. The climb is the price; the view back over the whole layout — palace, parterre, the city's spires beyond — is the oh-my-god. There's a café under the arches if your legs want a reason to stop.

5. The maze and the orangery
Coming down the west side, the *Irrgarten* (maze) is a proper hedge labyrinth — skip it or get lost in it, your call, it's small. The long orangery alongside is one of the world's oldest, still wintering citrus trees; Mozart once played a concert in it.

6. Tiergarten Schönbrunn
The world's oldest zoo, founded 1752 as the emperor's menagerie, still arranged around the original baroque pavilion where you can have a coffee ringed by enclosures. You don't have to go in — but the pandas are here, and few zoos have this bones.

Schönbrunn: the palace and the gardens