#schlosshellbrunn

My favorite class that I’m taking this semester is a Mozart Opera Institute (MOI) course called “Mozart & Salzburg”. The class, led by my Fulbright project advisor and the director of MOI, Dr. Josef Wallnig, is basically a tour of important historical places around Salzburg. The class has been to places like the Salzburg Gewandhaus, Schloss Frohnburg and taken a trip to see the famous Salzburg Panorama. Last week, Dr. Wallnig took the class to Schloss Hellbrunn. The beautiful palace was built by Prince-Archbishop Markus Sittikus in 1613 and was designed to be a place of fun and relaxation during the summer days. From the outside, Schloss Hellbrunn is pretty much like any other early-Baroque palace - the building is painted in the typical Schönbrunn Yellow of the Baroque era and has beautiful gardens with walkways, ponds, areas to relax. What is unique about this place is the water games. Wikipedia describes Markus Sittikus as having a “keen sense of humor” but I’d say he was a little cray. Markus Sittikus decided that a palace to relax wasn’t entertaining enough and so he designed a series of water games and trick fountains that would surprise and spray his guests. Some of his contraptions include secret fountains built into the ground that would spray people as they walked over them and rooms within the palace that were rigged with water. There are also stone seats around a stone dining table through which a water sprays into the seat of the guests when the mechanism is activated. Of course, the only seat that isn’t rigged is the Archbishop’s. 

In addition to the secret spray fountains, there were little figurines throughout the garden. Some acted as fountains while others were water-powered animatronic figurines. There is also a mechanical, water-operated and music-playing theater built in 1750 that contains around 200 figurines that move about the set doing chores and dancing around. 

Taking this Wasserspiel tour was a lot of fun but also kept everyone on edge. There was a lot of screaming and people running away from surprise fountains, clinging on to their cameras to protect them from the water. This was definitely one of the most unique tours I have ever been on. The most entertaining part about this whole thing to me is imagining some crazy 17th-century Archbishop laughing at all his soggy friends during a dinner party. If you’re ever in Salzburg, this is definitely worth a visit.

To see the water games in action, check out this video:

Liebe Grüße,