Belvedere, Vienna

Passing through this beautiful gate,you'll reach the Beldevere Palaces and gardens.Is the perfect place to make some good photos.Unfortunatelly is not allowed to take any photos or videos inside all these palaces,the gardens is the only place where you can take the photos that you want.

Since its thorough restoration, this castle has been breaking all attendance records. The Unteren Belvedere (lower Belvedere) , rather sober-looking, was completed in 1716 as the residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy, Austrian history’s most successful general. His art collection was housed here also. At present one can admire baroque art there. The magnificent Oberes Belvedere (upper Belvedere) was intended to be a State Palace and was fitted out by Emperor Joseph II as the imperial portrait gallery.
Here you can now look at art from the 19th and 20th centuries displayed in the Österreichische Galerie.

The Belvedere Palace was built in 1721-22, when Prince Eugene of Savoy --during the war against the Turks, Commander in Chief of the Imperial Army-- asked Johan Lukas von Hildebrandt to construct a Summer palace. He actually never lived here.

Nowadays inside the Palace there’s the Austrian Gallery, with 19th and 20th centuries Austrian and International works, among others there are works of Amerling, Hausner, Hundertwasser, Klimt, Kokoscha, Romako, Schiele, Waldmüller, and some French impressionists too.

The Lower Belvedere was only just complete (1716) when they decided to build a more grandiose one up higher.
Though the decision was made in 1717, the bulk of construction took place in 1721 and 1722, though the fitting out continued past 1730.
This shot shows one of the side entrances.

One cannot miss out on the opportunity to visit the Belvedere Palace. Although not as big in size as the Schonbrunn it is still majestic in its own way.

Make sure you visit in June/July when the flowers have bloomed and the shrubs have been taken care of. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see much of the greenery because it was still the beginning of Spring and it was raining all day long.

The wintry sky hung like a pall over the scene, lending atmosphere to the starkness of a fountain in winter. No water moving. Icicles hanging here and there. A thaw, however slight, reflecting the sun's yellow pallor in a small pool.
It was gloom personified and I looked on with a fascination that locals would have found hard to uderstand.
As the atmosphere enveloped me I revelled in it. A moody day in a classic garden. Wonderful.

I mischeviously clicked on the "flowers and foliage" button for this one. Couldn't help myself really. You have to imagine it in spring colour with the lawn laid out in splendour rolling towards the original palace, now an art gallery and museum.
The European gardens are so unlike those I'm used to with their emphasis on clipped hedges and gravel paths interspersed with neo-classical fountains.
With the statuary beside me, the large dome of Karlskirche beckons in the distance.

Sometimes in Europe I have to pinch myself to believe I'm seeing what I actually came to see. In Australia we don't really have seasons like Europe. Deciduous trees are thin on the ground (and in the ground for that matter) so what you see is what you get; generally.
In Europe the white velvet of the winter snows can paint a vastly different, though just as pretty, picture to that in your brochure.
Here the fountain might as well be an ice skating rink and the verdant landscaped lawns have disappeared.