Wilhelmshöhe Mountain Park

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

There are also mountain parks in Italy, mostly in the form of terraces on mountain slopes, but never in that 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 starting in 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.

 

 

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

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:WasserspieleKasselNachts_kasselgalerie_de.jpg

 

 

The spa park of Bad Orb

As early as Roman occupation times, the Rhine-Main region had places where hot and salty springs were used. One of them is Aquae Mattiacorum (today: Wiesbaden, the capital of Hesse). Medical bathing treatments also existed in the Middle Ages and early modern times. From 1800 onwards, modern bathing establishments were built, but mainly for the upper classes. This can be seen in the architecture and structure of the bathing resorts. In addition to the bathing facilities, accommodations and clinics, the recreational offerings as strolling halls and parks with casinos, theaters and luxury facilities were aimed at a wealthy part of the population. Spacious parks as places to stay and relax are often attached to the bathing facilities.

This is also the case in the small spa town of Bad Orb. After salt production became unprofitable in the nineteenth century, a medical bathing establishment was built around the salty water in the valley of the small river Orb.

Accordingly, the spa park also shows typical signs of such a park. The park, which is about 100 years old, is a typical landscape park with recreational facilities for spa guests. A reading hall, walking paths with flower beds and a concert shell for spa concerts as well as the open-air inhalatorium of the historical graduation works can be found to the right and left of the banks of the Orb River. The park is lined by restaurants, residential buildings and the thermal bath.

At the edge of the park begins the barefoot path through the landscape of the Orb Valley, which is especially popular with families. With a length of 4.5 km, it is the longest barefoot trail in Germany. Without shoes, you can walk on various surfaces through forest and meadow. Partly the path also leads in the streambed of the Orb or through swampy sections. 

 

 

Art in the park - the sculpture garden in Niederhöchstadt

 

To take art out of the museum and bring it to the people was the basic idea of the later sculpture park in the late 80s. Starting in 1992, more and more outdoor sculptures were created in the urban area of Niederhöchstadt, a district of Eschborn northwest of Frankfurt. Since 2010, there has been a contiguous green space in the valley of the Westerbach dedicated to this idea. Numerous permanently acquired works of art are stylishly placed in the park with lawn, meadow and perennial areas. The first work is the sculpture group "The Promise" by sculptor Stephan Guber, created on site from massive oak logs.

An audio guide can be used on site, and QR codes provide information about each artwork. The park is accessible throughout the day and is well visited when the weather is nice, especially on weekends.

Parks of Bad Nauheim

A bath, three parks and a solar system

The Rhine-Main region is rich in spas. On the slopes of the Taunus Mountains north of Frankfurt is Bad Nauheim, a health resort that has gained importance as a spa for cardiovascular diseases since the mid-19th century. As with any health resort, Bad Nauheim includes parks for the spa guests. Three of these parks are connected by a planetary path, which, starting from a representation of the sun in Goldstein Park in the east to a model of the (former) planet Pluto on Johannisberg in the west, not only leads through the historic heart of the spa town, but also illustrates the distances between the planets of the solar system.

 

The path begins in the Goldstein Park located outside. There is an observation tower in the center of the park. This Goldstein tower is part of an old waterworks of the city. The planetary path on a scale of 1 : 2.8 billion also begins there. The park includes large lawns for sunbathing, playgrounds, an area for open-air concerts and, on the outskirts, a bird of prey observatory.

If you follow the planetary path, you will come to the historic Sprudelhof, the spa facilities and bathhouses built between 1905 and 1911 in the Art Nouveau style on the edge of the spa park. This park extends at the foot of the Johannisberg and is a landscape park designed by the Frankfurt garden architect Heinrich Siesmayer as a strolling area for the spa guests. The path leads past a monument to Elvis Presley, who was stationed in Bad Nauheim as an American soldier. Halfway up the Johannisberg, there is a smaller green area with a large war memorial to those who died in the two world wars. The planetary path (Planetenweg) ends on the Johannisberg in the middle of a vineyard with a view of the city. The town's public observatory is also located there. The sculptures for the representation of the planets are from the hand of the sculptor Rainer Landgraf.