The rooms of the violet suite were reconstructed in 1996 based on authentic sources. Beautiful portraits of the Queen can be seen on the walls, together with portraits of the most outstanding politicians of the age who Elisabeth had been in contact with in preparation for the Compromise of 1867. In the writing room we can get to know Elisabeth’s Hungarian language and history teachers, while the dressing room gives us a picture of her favourite pastimes: travelling and horse riding. In the bedroom hangs a full-length painting of Maria Theresa, just as it was in the time of Antal Grassalkovich I, who had the Palace built.
The next rooms in the suite, the reading room and the quarters of Ida Ferenczy, the Queen’s Hungarian reader, house the Queen Elisabeth Memorial Exhibition with relics connected to the cult surrounding her person.
The secret spiral staircase between the bedroom and the reading room led to the three-room suite on the ground floor, decorated with stucco. (The spiral staircase cannot be reconstructed, though its location is marked in the room leading to the air-raid shelter.)
Just before Elisabeth arrived for a visit to Gödöllő, gardeners would always plant her favourite flowers in the front garden: violets and pansies. In the finely restored front garden are the gravestones of two of the queen’s favourite dogs. The front garden is accessible through the wooden veranda. The wooden veranda was designed by court architect Ferdinand Kirschner. It was presumably dismantled following the queen’s death. Queen Elisabeth’s porch was rebuilt in 2010 in accordance with the original designs.
