informational Pillar guide 8 min read
Empress Elisabeth of Austria: Who Sisi Really Was
Updated September 18, 2026
Elisabeth of Austria, called Sisi, was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Franz Joseph I on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898. That is the whole official arc, and almost everything else people think they know about her comes from three films made in the 1950s.
The name, first
The operator of the Sisi Museum settles the spelling in its own FAQ: she was called Sisi within the family and always spelled it with one s. The double-s “Sissi” comes from Ernst Marischka’s film titles, starring the young Romy Schneider, and it is how the name is usually abbreviated in Austria to this day.
That detail is a good way into the larger point. The most famous version of this woman was written for cinema decades after she died, and the museum in the Hofburg exists in part to argue with it.
Where she actually lived
At the Hofburg, in winter. The operator is direct about the confusion: “Yes, she really did live here. The Hofburg was the winter residence of the Habsburgs. When she wasn’t away travelling, Empress Elisabeth resided on the main floor of the Amalia Wing, which can be seen on the tour of the Imperial Apartments.”
In summer the family had Schönbrunn and Laxenburg, and they often stayed at the imperial villa at Bad Ischl. The qualifier in that quote — when she wasn’t away travelling — is the biography in four words. She travelled for much of her adult life, and the court she had married into was the thing she was travelling from.
Why the museum takes the line it does
The Sisi Museum has been in the Stephan apartments since 2004. Its stated purpose is to use her personal possessions “to help illustrate the true personality of the frequently misunderstood Empress”, and its displays, designed by Rolf Langenfass, are inspired by her own poetry. A museum built around what someone wrote about themselves is making a claim about who gets to tell the story.
What to see, and where
The Sisi Museum and the Imperial Apartments sit on one ticket, EUR 20 for an adult, with the Silver Collection on the ground floor. If you want to follow her further, the Imperial Crypt on Neuer Markt holds the Habsburg tombs, and Schönbrunn shows the summer side of the same life.
One caveat for this autumn: the museum section is closed from 6 October to 18 November 2026 for refurbishment. The apartments — the rooms she actually lived in — stay open, and tickets are 25% cheaper.