With its Neo-Gothic façade, Ehrenburg Palace sits proudly on Coburg’s Palace Square.
It offers visitors a glimpse into the lavish living and sleeping quarters of Coburg’s nobility. The bedroom once used by Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland, the wife of Prince Albert, is a reminder of her visits to Coburg. In the famous great hall, Queen Victoria first met Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. The magnificent Baroque chapel is where Johann Strauss, the King of Waltz, married his third wife Adele. From 1547 to 1918, Ehrenburg Palace served as the town residence of the Dukes of Coburg. The palace was commissioned in 1543 by Duke Johann Ernst of Saxe-Coburg and built on the site of a former Franciscan monastery. Legend has it that Emperor Charles V named the palace ‘Ehrenburg’ due to its construction without compulsory labor. After a fire in 1690, Duke Albrecht extended the building into a three-winged Baroque residence. The palace church and great hall, with its 28 mighty atlantes, date from this period. In the 19th century, under Duke Ernst I, the palace received its current Neo-Gothic façade, designed by the renowned architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Between 1816 and 1840, the living rooms were renovated in the French Empire style, featuring luxurious furniture, clocks, lamps, and tapestries from Parisian craftsmen. The portraits throughout the palace highlight the significant dynastic connections of the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family, whose diplomatic alliances were key to their European prominence in the 19th century.
