On 29 and 30 September 1900, Emperor Franz Joseph visited Gorizia to take part in the celebrations for the four hundredth anniversary of the acquisition of the County of Gorizia and Gradisca by the House of Habsburg.

Retracing the route taken by the sovereign, along streets decorated with triumphal arches and imperial insignia, the itinerary leads to the discovery of Habsburg Gorizia, the city for which Baron Carl von Czoernig, an illustrious imperial pensioner won over by the beauty of the landscape and the climate, had coined the apt nickname of “Austrian Nice”These were the years in which Gorizia sought to establish itself as a new destination for aristocratic tourism, promoting the creation of parks, hotels, cafés and shops, in a Central European and multi-ethnic atmosphere, swept away by the destruction of the First World War.