Wilhelmshöhe Mountain Park

It is the largest mountain park in Europe. More than 560 hectares of parkland on the slopes of the Habichtswald, a mountain range near the northern Hessian city of Kassel, show garden artistic ideas for the representation of absolutist rule.

Water games at night - the Hercules statue in the background. 
Picture: Malte Ruhnke, www.wikipedia.de, CC-BY-SA 3.0

There are also mountain parks in Italy, mostly in the form of terraces on mountain slopes, but never in size. Baroque gardens in the French style lie on the plain. Today - especially the lower part - follows the ideas of the English landscape garden with its simulation of nature. The combination of styles and size make “Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe” unique.

Wilhelmshöhe has been attracting curious visitors from all over Europe and the world for several centuries. The water games are regularly played with 750,000 litres of water, which are unleashed on a mountain top and artistically guided in lifts. Over a length of many kilometres, five different stage sets can be seen: the baroque cascades, the Steinhöfer waterfall, the Devil's Bridge, the aqueduct and the fountain pond, which has a 50-metre-high fountain. The complex is dominated by a statue of Hercules, which today is the landmark of the city of Kassel.

The park was laid out by the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel from 1696. In the following 150 years it was extended several times. Since 2013, the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe with its historic fountains has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


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