The Hermitage is Bayreuth’s most magnificent garden complex, and here too the trail leads back to Margravine Wilhelmine. In 1735, Margrave Friedrich presented her with the older grounds; Wilhelmine immediately began to develop them into her summer residence and to redesign them according to her own ideas.
🏛️ The Old and New Palaces
She had the Old Palace lavishly furnished, including the Japanese Cabinet and the Chinese Shard of a Mirror Cabinet, where she wrote her famous memoirs. Between 1749 and 1753, the New Palace was built to the west of it, featuring the Temple of the Sun, whose gilded figure gleams from afar, flanked by two curved arcaded wings that served as an orangery.
⛲ Water features
Numerous fountains bubble up all around the palaces. In the large basin in front of the New Palace, dozens of fountains shoot up into the air on the hour, a spectacle featuring figures of gods and nymphs.
🌳 The park
The Hermitage combines strictly Baroque sections with a loosely designed landscape park and areas that have been deliberately left to run wild, along with grottoes, small waterfalls and temples.
🕒 Visiting
The park on the eastern outskirts of Bayreuth is open to the public free of charge; the interiors of the palaces can be viewed as part of guided tours organised by the Bavarian Palace Administration. The water features are in operation during the warmer months.