Kloster Schönbühel

A former Servite monastery stands on a rocky outcrop 500 metres downstream from Schönbühel Castle on the right bank of the Danube. Its foundations incorporate the ruins of a medieval Danube watchtower known locally as the Devil’s Castle. Construction began in the 1660s after Konrad Balthasar von Starhemberg invited the Servites to build a new house on the site. His conversion to Catholicism and subsequent endowments helped establish Schönbühel as a centre of baroque piety. The first Mass was celebrated there on Christmas Eve 1667, and a Calvary was added two years later. The complex soon became one of the smaller pilgrimage places in baroque Austria. The monastery flourished until the reforms of the late 18th century, when Joseph II restricted public worship and reduced the number of priests. French troops plundered the buildings during the Napoleonic wars, accelerating its decline. In 1844 Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria, later Empress Sisi, visited the site; the scene appears in the first Sissi film. After decades of neglect, restoration began in 1967, but a shortage of Servite priests led to their departure in 1980. The church remains in use as a parish church under Stift Göttweig. A paved path from the village leads to the monastery, passing a wayside chapel with a walled spring once venerated by pilgrims. Inside the church stands a copy of the Bethlehem grotto commissioned by Eleonora de Gonzaga, widow of Emperor Ferdinand III. Steps beside the church climb to a Calvary whose statues mark the transition from early to late baroque style. A short distance away, five of the original fifteen rosary chapels survive along the via sacra that once linked Schönbühel to Maria Langegg. Near one chapel the remains of a tower recall the horn that once announced tolls to passing ships.