Dornburg Palace Gardens @museum.de

"Flowers bloom in well-maintained gardens, grapes hang plentifully from the trellises, and below my window, I see a thriving vineyard. From the other side, the rose arbours are so bedecked as to appear fairy-like, and the mallows and what not are blooming and colourful."

An enthusiastic comment from the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, made during a long visit to Dornburg in the summer of 1828. And he was right: the gardens that link the series of three palaces are distinct, varied and yet complement each other to form a synthesis of the horticultural arts.

Over the centuries, the gardens were altered and modified many times in keeping with the prevailing taste. Their present form is largely due to the court gardener Carl August Christian Sckell, who started work on joining them up in 1824 and redesigned large areas:

"I considered the beautiful grounds, walked around them with the court gardener, who showed me the very skilful method of connecting the Stohmann property ...

... the Renaissance palace...

... with the former princely properties."

Sckell combined three different gardens into a single whole. At the back, on the right, is the Renaissance Palace – you can see its white gables and turrets from here. To the right of it, there’s an area of gentle slopes with a landscape garden in the English style – which was all the rage if you were designing a new park in around 1820!

In the centre, the Rococo Palace is surrounded by axisymmetric garden terraces. They date back to when it was built in the 18th century. But it only in the early 19th century, when the palace was being used as a summer residence, that stylish new features were added, such as the Rose Arbour Walk and the Tea Piazza.

On the steeper slopes, vineyard terraces link the palaces and form the boundary of the gardens towards the Saale valley. There’s a particularly good view of them from the pentagonal viewing terrace next to the Rococo Palace on the valley side.

Now, if you move on into the courtyard of the Old Palace and head to your right, you’ll find an exit into a garden featuring beds of herbs and vegetables. Although the design was based on plans from the 19th century, it features stylistic elements associated with Renaissance gardens.

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Zitat Goethe 1: zitiert nach Detlef Ignasiak, Dornburg an der Saale, S. 37

Zitat Goethe 2: zitiert nach Dornburger Schlösser und Gärten, Amtlicher Führer, S. 23