I stopped near Schloss Hellbrunn the other day with the Sound of Music tour, however I didn’t have a chance to visit the lodge or see its “world famous” trick fountains (I always wonder whether things I haven’t heard of before really are world famous, or whether advertisers just label them as such, hoping to make them what they say they are).
Upon entering the grounds I had to wait for a little while for the next guided tour, but I was so taken by the streams and pools surrounding the waiting area that I could have happily waited for much longer than I actually did. Schloss Hellbrunn was conceived of as a hunting lodge or leisure palace in the 1600s by one of the prince-archbishops of Salzburg. The idea seems to have been to create a place outside the city where he and his guests could rest and rejuvenate their spirits.
The prince-archbishop and his designer seem to have taken the fact that the area was thick with natural springs and streams as an inspiration, and based on this they created a water wonderland. Wherever the streams would naturally have run they created small artificial canals and broad pools (describing them as such doesn’t do justice to their beauty – the water everywhere was clear and flowing and large fish meandered through it). As if this wasn’t enough, they added a range of grottos (the one in this video even features "bird sounds" produced by water whistling through pipes), fountains, waterfalls, statues with moving parts, and tiny tableaux of small wooden figures who moved, powered entirely by the natural flow of the water through the property. There was even a huge puppet show, with an organ, again all just powered by water. It was awesome (in the deepest sense of that word) today, even with all our electricity and technology, so I can only imagine what visitors in the 1600s must have thought.
The world famous fountains were yet another layer of entertainment superimposed over all the above. In a number of places in the garden, unwary guests would be admiring a sculpture or a grotto, when all of a sudden spigots of water would shoot out, apparently from nowhere. There was even a large table set round with stools where the prince-archbishop and his guests used to sit and drink wine long into the evenings. When everyone was thoroughly drunk, the host would turn a tap and spouts of water would shoot up through the seats, soaking his guests – while he of course remained perfectly dry.
Perfectly ordinary table (note the pools and castle in the background).
Ha ha, got you! Same table with fountains turned on.
I could have stayed at Hellbrunn all the rest of the afternoon, wandering through the grounds and admiring the waterworks, but there was still so much to see and do!
Inside Schloss Hellbrunn - the octagonal music room with original frescoes from the 1600s.