Explore Schönbrunn Palace with expert guides, audio tours, and special experiences.
Buy TicketsSchönbrunn offers an excellent multilingual audio guide included in every ticket, official live-guide tours from the visitor centre, and small-group external tours that combine the palace with the gardens, the Gloriette and the Tiergarten zoo. The right choice depends on whether you want narration, conversation or contemplation. See our visitors guide for help choosing, and the best time to visit page if you want a quieter tour experience.
Find the right format for your group and your pace
The official audio guide is included free in every Schönbrunn ticket — 21 languages including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Dutch and Korean. Written descriptions are provided in 24 languages at the entrance. ~60 minutes of content for the Imperial Tour, ~90 minutes for the Grand Tour.
50-minute Grand Tour led by a Schönbrunn-trained guide. Covers all 40 state rooms — the Great Gallery, Maria Theresa's apartments, the Vieux-Laque Room, the Million Room — with a live commentary in English, German, Italian, French or Spanish. From €36 per adult including admission.
Up to 15 people with an English-speaking Viennese historian, 2 to 2.5 hours combining the palace Grand Tour with the Gloriette climb, the Neptune Fountain and selected gardens. From €45 per person, includes palace ticket and audio system. Q&A throughout — particularly strong on the Habsburg family history.
The Schönbrunn Palace Concerts run nightly year-round at 20:30 in the Orangerie — the very building where, in 1786, Mozart and Salieri famously competed in front of Emperor Joseph II. Mozart and Strauss programme, ~90 minutes, dinner-and-concert option available. From €58.
For a first visit, the included audio guide is the best value by a wide margin — it's free with the ticket, available in 21 languages, paced to the one-way route through the state rooms, and lets you skip rooms that don't interest you. The narration is rich on Habsburg court life and the architectural history without being heavy-handed. Don't bother with the third-party "audio rental" services on Schloßstraße — they're identical content at a markup.
If you want depth on the Habsburg family story — Maria Theresa's sixteen children, Franz Joseph's 68-year reign, Sisi's tragic life, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand — the small-group walking tour with a live Viennese historian is excellent. It combines the palace with the Gloriette climb in a single coherent 2.5-hour narrative, and the Q&A is worth the price alone.
For something atmospheric, the Schönbrunn Palace Concerts at the Orangerie are a Vienna institution. The programme leans Mozart-and-Strauss-greatest-hits — not the most adventurous, but the setting is genuinely the room where Mozart performed for Emperor Joseph II in 1786, and the candlelit dinner option in the same wing makes it the most romantic Schönbrunn experience available.
Languages, group sizes, and what is included