Tourist Highlights
Tourist Sights
Karlsaue Park
A Unique Example of German Baroque Architecture
The palace-like Orangery is flanked by five avenues which spread out like a fan. The central pavilion offers a view of the three largest avenues: Mittelallee (Central Pathway), Küchengraben (the Kitchen Trench) and Hirschgraben (the Deer Trench).
The main avenue takes visitors from the Orangery to the large basin comprising the Schwaneninsel (Swan Island) and the Kuppeltempel (Domed Temple). Siebenbergen Island rounds off the panorama with a magnificent array of trees and flowers. And there the Karlsaue Park ends.
The Karlsaue Park has something for everyone: tranquil walkways, space for sport and games, the Orangery containing the marble bathroom for those interested in culture, a compact museum for astronomy and physics and unique vegetation and bird life for nature lovers.
Orangery
Landgrave Karl (1654-1730) had the Orangery Palace built at the point where the baroque avenues join the park as a summer residence and place to keep his Mediterranean pot plants in winter.
In 1710 the building was used for its intended purpose. From the mid-century onwards, sculptures from ancient mythology were placed on the rooftop balustrades, some of them created by the baroque sculptor Johann Georg Kötschau.
The palace was used as an “exotic winter garden” until the beginning of the Second World War. Today, in addition to its function as a restaurant, the Orangery primarily houses the compact museum for astronomy and physics as well as the planetarium.
Siebenbergen Island
The island came into being in 1729 after the excavation of the large basin and Swan Island. Several artificial little panoramic hilltops featured on the island before some of them were washed away at the beginning of the 19th century and the little island was modelled along natural lines and planted anew in keeping with landscape garden architecture.
Favourable climatic conditions plus mild winters allow virtually all shrubs, ornamental trees, rhododendrons and rare conifers to thrive. This has earned the island its “aristocratic title”- loveliest island of flowers in Hesse. The island of flowers is open from Good Friday through to October 3rd and is open daily form 10am to 7pm. Admission prices: 3.00 Euros/ 2.00 Euros students/ children up to 18 years free.
Planet Footpath in the Karlsaue Park
Since 1966 a unique planet footpath in the Karlsaue Park turns a walk into a globetrotting experience for visitors as they follow a kind of “Map of the Universe” which portrays the size and distance of planets on a reduced scale of 1:1.000,000,000. Visitors get a better grasp of the inconceivable distances and differences in size of the planets visible from the Earth in relation to the Sun, making this a tangible and vivid experience.
The Sun is clearly marked and visible above the glass entrance of the museum in the centre of the Orangery. From here globetrotting visitors continue towards Mercury on the edge of the Karlswiese meadow, then on to Venus, both the size of a hazelnut, before reaching the Earth, roughly the size of a walnut. Further along the Karlsaue avenue you come to Mars. Passing through the Eichenallee avenue visitors reach Jupiter which appears as a golden sphere on the roof of the small temple on Swan Island in the Aue pond. Then Saturn comes, going past the Aue meadow followed by Uranus since 2002, both marking the end of the walk.
Information
Tourist Information Centre in the Town Hall
Obere Königsstraße 8
Phone:+49(0)561/707707
Fax:+49(0)561/7077169
Opening Times:
Monday to Friday
9am to 6pm
Saturdays
9am to 2pm
Tourist & Health Spa Information
im Bahnhof Wilhelmshöhe (Intercity Railway Station)
Phone:+49(0)561/34054 Fax:+49(0)561/315216
Opening Times:
Monday to Friday
9am to 6pm
Saturdays
9am to 1pm