Vienna’s not the first place that comes to mind when you think of cacti and cave fish. But you’ll actually find plenty of both in Schönbrunn’s Wüstenhaus (the desert house).
- Large iron and glass hothouse from the early 1900s
- Full of cacti, succulents, desert fauna, and cave dwellers
- Be sure to check out the naked mole rats, nature’s answer to the Alien films
- Excellent destination on a cold day
- Book a Schönbrunn concert, tour & more*
- See also:
- Included in the Vienna Pass
- Schönbrunn Zoo
- The Palmenhaus
Inside the desert house
(View of the glasshouse. Press photo © Daniel Zupanc)
One advantage of being an Emperor is never needing to worry if your houseplants will survive a cold Austrian winter. A purpose-built hothouse is a mere snap of the fingers away.
The 1905 Sonnenuhrhaus in Schönbrunn Palace park provided winter accommodation for the more sensitive specimens among Emperor Franz Joseph’s exotic plant collection.
This giant green iron and glass construction underwent a complete refit back in 2003 and reopened as the Wüstenhaus desert house: a mix of botanical and zoological gardens.
The desert house essentially serves as a showhome for some of the succulents owned by the federal gardens service and also educates and informs the public about desert (wild)life and its peculiar survival strategies.
(Aldabra Giant Tortoises occupy indoor and outdoor areas at the desert house; press photo © Daniel Zupanc)
Once you pass through the ticket barrier, you go through a set of artificial tunnels with glass enclosures featuring various desert and underground fauna (lizards, scorpions, newts, a rattlesnake, and fish like the blind cave tetra on my last trip there).
The tunnels lead you out into the first, smaller, open glasshouse space, filled with succulents like the crown-of-thorns with its brilliant red flowers.
This area now houses Aldabra Giant Tortoises, who moved here from the neighbouring zoo in mid-2024. The eldest left its shell when Franz Joseph was still visiting his houseplants.
Next up is the main glasshouse area, a huge edifice stuffed to the brim with tiers of cacti and similar plants. Some make a remarkable impression indeed: the kind of thorned giants you won’t find down your local garden centre.
(Find tickets and experience options for the palace and zoo)
Look out for various free-roaming birds (and even lizards) as you wander round; the avian twittering adds considerably to the experience.
An outside area features the hardier sort of cacti, yuccas, bulb plants and similar, as well as outdoor enclosures for the tortoises and two Austrian natives: the European green lizard and the European ground squirrel.
Apart from the venerable tortoises, two particular highlights for me were the naked mole rats and the Welwitschia Mirabilis plant.
(A naked mole rat at the desert house. Press photo © Daniel Zupanc. Editor’s note: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.)
The mole rats scurry through 70m (!) of see-through tunnels. This extraordinary species has colonies that operate much like ants, with sterile workers and a queen. (“Queen of the mole rats” would look good on a CV.)
Incidentally, “naked” is part of their name rather than a mole rat colony lifestyle choice.
The Welwitschia Mirabilis plant, native to the Namib desert, enjoys unusual longevity: specimens are believed as old as 1500 years and beyond.
Each plant’s two corkscrew leaves grow up to 6m, and the roots reach down up to 30m. The name comes from its “discoverer”: the Austrian botanist Friedrich Welwitsch.
(Back in early 2023, we had twins born to the round-eared elephant shrew, which also live in thee Desert House. The event was well-received, since the shrews are notoriously picky when it comes to choosing a partner; press photo © Daniel Zupanc)
Tickets & visitor tips
At the time of writing, a standard adult ticket cost €9 with the desert house opening daily. One-time entry is free if you have, for example, a Vienna Pass (see my review).
- When you enter the building, the location of the ticket office isn’t obvious – just keep going the only way you can and you’ll find it easily
- A quick trip around the glasshouses takes no more than 30 minutes. Whether that’s worth the entrance fee for an adult depends on your interests. Personally, I reckon the mole rats are worth at least double the ticket costs
- Nearly all display information was in German only when I last went round, though the outdoor area featured bilingual German/English information displays. Not that you really need descriptive labels to enjoy the plants and animals
- This is one of the places you can usefully kill time should you have to wait for a later time slot on the main Schönbrunn palace tour
- If you like your plants and animals, then drop into two nearby attractions:
- Schönbrunn zoo (just a little further up the path). They actually run the desert house in partnership with the federal gardens service
- The giant palm house sits opposite the desert house
How to get to the desert house
Just follow the instructions for getting to Schönbrunn (go to the heading marked “Hietzing station” to find the desert house).
Address: Schlosspark Schönbrunn, 1130 Vienna | Website