She was born in Munich on December 24, 1837, Bavaria. Elisabeth accompanied her mother and her 18-year-old sister, Helene, on a trip to the resort of Bad Ischl, Upper Austria, where they hoped Helene would attract the attention of their cousin, 23-year-old Franz Joseph, then Emperor of Austria. Instead, Franz Joseph chose Elisabeth, and the couple were married in Vienna at St. Augustine's Church on April 24, 1854. Elisabeth later wrote that she regretted accepting his proposal for the rest of her life. Elisabeth had difficulty adapting to the strict etiquette practiced at the Habsburg court. Nevertheless she bore the Emperor three children in quick succession: Archduchess Sophie of Austria (1855–1857), Archduchess Gisela of Austria (1856–1932), and the hoped-for crown prince, Rudolf (1858–1889). In 1860 she left Vienna after contracting a lung-disease which was presumably psychosomatic. She spent the winter in Madeira and only returned to Vienna after having visited the Ionian Islands. Soon after that she fell ill again and returned to Korfu. After that Elisabeth began to use her beauty to gain influence on her husband. She achieved her only political goal whereby in 1867 she and Franz Joseph were crowned King and Queen of Hungary, and ten months later, another child Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria (1868–1924) followed. Elisabeth was denied any major influence on her older children's upbringing, however — they were raised by her mother-in-law Sophie, who often referred to Elizabeth as their "silly young mother." Soon after Marie Valerie's birth the marriage again started to deteriorate, undone by Elisabeth's increasingly erratic behaviour. To ease her pain and illnesses, Elisabeth embarked on a life of travel, seeing very little of her offspring, visiting places such as Madeira, Hungary, England, and Corfu, where she commissioned the building of a castle which she called Achilleion — after her death the building was sold to the German Emperor Wilhelm II. She not only became known for her beauty, but also for her fashion sense, diet and exercise regimens, passion for riding sports, and a series of reputed lovers. She paid extreme attention to her appearance and would spend most of her time preserving her beauty. Her diet and exercise regimens were strictly enforced to maintain her 20-inch (50 cm) waistline and reduced her to near emaciation at times (symptoms of what is now recognised as anorexia). One of the few things she would eat was raw veal meat juice, squeezed from her juice press, then boiled and seasoned. Some of her alleged lovers included George "Bay" Middleton, a dashing Anglo–Scot who was probably the father of Clementine Ogilvy Hozier (Mrs. Winston Churchill). She also tolerated, to a certain degree, Franz Joseph's affair with actress Katharina Schratt. National unrest within the Habsburg monarchy caused by the rebellious Hungarians led, in 1867, to the foundation of the Austro–Hungarian double monarchy, making Elisabeth Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. Elisabeth had always sympathised with the Hungarian cause and, reconciled and reunited with her alienated husband, she joined Franz Joseph in Budapest, where their coronation took place. In due course, their fourth child, Archduchess Marie Valerie was born (1868–1924). Afterwards, however, she again took up her former life of restlessly travelling through Europe. The Empress also engaged in writing poetry (such as the "Nordseelieder" and "Winterlieder", both inspirations from her favorite German poet, Heinrich Heine). Shaping her own fantasy world in poetry, she referred to herself as Titania, Shakespeare's Fairy Queen. Most of her poetry refers to her journeys, classical Greek and romantic themes, as well as ironic mockery on the Habsburg dynasty. In these years, Elisabeth also took up with an intensive study of both ancient and modern Greek, drowning in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Numerous Greek lecturers (such as Marinaky, Christomanos, and Barker) had to accompany the Empress on her hour-long walks while reading Greek to her. According to contemporary scholars, Empress Elisabeth knew Greek better than any of the Bavarian Greek Queens in the 19th century. In 1889, Elisabeth's life was shattered by the death of her only son: 30-year-old Crown Prince Rudolf and his young lover Baroness Mary Vetsera were found dead, apparently by suicide. The scandal is known by the name Mayerling, after the name of Rudolf's hunting lodge in Lower Austria. After Rudolf's death, the Empress continued to be an icon, a sensation wherever she went: a long black gown that could be buttoned up at the bottom, a white parasol made of leather and a brown fan to hide her face from curious looks became the trademarks of the legendary Empress of Austria. Only a few snapshots of Elisabeth in her last years are left, taken by photographers who were lucky enough to catch her without her noticing. The moments Elisabeth would show up in Vienna and see her husband were rare. Interestingly, their correspondence increased during those last years and the relationship between the Empress and the Emperor of Austria had become platonic and warm. On her imperial steamer, Miramar, Empress Elisabeth travelled restlessly through the Mediterranean. Her favourite places were Cap Martin on the French Riviera, where tourism had only started in the second half of the 19th century, Lake Geneva in Switzerland, Bad Ischl in Austria, where she would spend her summers, and Corfu. More than that, the Empress had visited countries no other Northern royal went to at the time: Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Malta, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. Travel had become the sense of her life but also an escape from herself.