Belvedere Gardens: From the Underworld to Olympus
Why is it significant?
Walk slowly up the central axis, between the clipped hedges and the gravel paths, past the basins and the stepped cascades, towards the palace on the top of the hill. Every few steps, turn round. The view behind you is the whole point of this garden.
Key Facts
| Place | Belvedere Gardens: From the Underworld to Olympus |
|---|---|
| Address | Prinz-Eugen-Straße 27, 1030 Wien, Austria |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.19400, 16.38030 |
| Part of Walk | Gold, Rebels and The Kiss: Vienna from the Secession to the Belvedere |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk slowly up the central axis, between the clipped hedges and the gravel paths, past the basins and the stepped cascades, towards the palace on the top of the hill. Every few steps, turn round. The view behind you is the whole point of this garden.
The garden was laid out for Prince Eugene by Dominique Girard, a Frenchman trained in the tradition of Versailles. It climbs the slope in three levels, and the classic reading is that it tells a story. The lowest part, by the Lower Belvedere, belongs to the elements and the underworld. The middle with its cascades belongs to Parnassus, the mountain of the Muses. And at the top, at the Upper Belvedere, you reach Olympus, the home of the gods, where the prince himself liked to be imagined.
Now look at the sphinxes guarding the ramps: lion bodies, women's heads, and rather knowing smiles. They stand for strength and wisdom, and Vienna's children have been climbing on them for generations, polishing their stone backs. Around them the stone figures, vases and putti once gleamed with water from the cascades, a show that cost a fortune in pipes and pumps.
Around 1760, the Venetian painter Bernardo Bellotto, nephew of Canaletto, stood at the top of these terraces and painted Vienna laid out below him: the garden, the domes, the spire of the Stephansdom on the horizon. That painting now hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, and when you reach the top, you can hold your own view up against it. The city has grown, but the spire is still there, exactly where he put it.
To the east, behind the wall, lie two more gardens you might miss: the Alpine Garden, with mountain plants, and the university's Botanical Garden. Eugene himself was a passionate collector of rare plants. Now carry on uphill to the top of the garden, and stand in front of the palace that crowns it.