The Royal Palace was designed by Antal Mayerhoffer for Count Antal Grassalkovich (1694–1771), confidante of Empress Maria Theresa, in 1741. After the formation of the Dual Monarchy, the palace was enlarged as a summer retreat for Emperor Franz Joseph, and soon became the favoured residence of his consort, the much-beloved Habsburg empress and Hungarian queen, Elizabeth (1837–98), affectionately known as Sissi. Between WWI and WWII the regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy, also used it as a summer residence, but after the communists took control part of the mansion was used as a barracks for Soviet and Hungarian troops and as an old people’s home. The rest was left to decay.
Partial renovation of the mansion began in the 1990s, and today more than two-dozen rooms are open to the public as the Palace Museum on the ground and 1st floors. The rooms have been restored (too thoroughly in some instances) to the period when the imperial couple were in residence, and on the 1st floor Franz Joseph’s suites, done up in ‘manly’ greys and maroons, and Sissi’s violet-coloured private apartments are impressive, if not as evocative of the past as the rooms at the Esterházy Palace. On the 1st floor, check out in particular the Ceremonial Hall , all gold tracery, stucco and chandeliers, where chamber-music concerts are held throughout the year but especially in October during the Liszt and International Harp Festivals; the Queen’s Reception Room , with a Romantic-style oil painting of Sissi patriotically repairing the coronation robe of King Stephen with needle and thread; and the Grassalkovich Era exhibition , which offers an in-depth look at the palace before the royal couple moved in.
A number of other recently opened rooms and buildings can be visited on a guided tour only at extra cost, including the Baroque Theatre in the southern wing. A combined ticket offering entry to the Royal Hill Pavilion in the park, built in the 1760s, the Royal Baths as well as the museum and the theatre costs 3300/1650Ft for adults/students and children.
