JAXFAX Editorial Archives - JAXFAX Travel Marketing Magazine

Germany’s Posh Palaces and SecretGardens
By Tom Bross
Agents can count on their
colleagues at the German National
Tourist Office (GNTO) to come up with at
least one attention-getting marketing scheme to
perk up annual travel planning. So, for all of
2008, you’re well-advised to keep this diverse trio in mind:
Palaces, Parks and Gardens. Adding centuries-old castles
and palaces – some of which clients can stay in — makes it
a compelling foursome.
Numbering nearly 5,000 castles, (a figure some say is closer
to 10,000; Saxony alone has more than 2,000 castles for
sale right now) plus Renaissance- and Baroque-era palaces
dot Germany’s 16 federal states, on ridges and countryside
landscapes as well as busy urban midsections. Up toward
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Baltic seacoast, Duke
Friedrich Franz’s 15-turreted Schloss Schwerin stands commandingly
on its own garden-bordered island in the middle
of a lake.
Historians credit a 16th-century Thurn and Taxis count with
establishing Europe’s postal service, symbolized ever since
by a curved posthorn. His descendents still preside over
their hereditary Schloss St. Emmeran in Regensburg on the
Danube. Castle-touring sightseers are liable to bump into
Princess Gloria, a familiar personality in Continental highsociety
social circles. Clients traveling through north-Bavarian
Franconia shouldn’t bypass Coburg, ancestral seat of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dukedom, which produced British
Queen Victoria’s husband Albert. (While staying at Schloss
Ehrensburg, Her Majesty no doubt dared to use Germany’s
first-ever flush toilet.)
Gardens, Wines and UNESCO Accolades
Parks and flowery formal gardens are abundant, too, on
municipal acreage and in outlying natural areas. Clients
inquiring about German destinations could opt for a palaceand-parks
itinerary or, instead, tour the Castle Road
(www.burgenstrasse.de). Covering 285 miles and more
than 70 imposing landmarks, it zigzags from Prague to
Mannheim via the Franconian wine country, the Neckar Valley
and the Rhineland. That puts the castle ramparts of
Nuremberg and Heidelberg—plus picturesque Bad
Wimpfen, its skyline dominated by a fortified 13th-century
imperial palace—on the route.
Traveling inspired by this year’s promotional theme can be
coordinated with Germany’s lengthy roster of UNESCO
World Heritage Sites. The list includes Würzburg’s stupendously
Baroque Residenz, a decorative showstopper conceived
with wild abandon by Bathasar Neumann as the
domain of the period’s prince-bishops. Indoors: the world’s
largest ceiling fresco, painted by Venice’s Giovanni Tiepolo
to symbolize the four continents, overhangs the palace’s
cantilevered grand staircase. Outdoors: the rococo Hofgarten,
floodlit during midsummer Mozart concerts.
Similar 18th-century eminence pertains to archbishop-elector
Clemens August’s namesake Schloss Augustusburg and
its French-style garden. Barely a mile away, that easy-living
cleric kept his Jagdschloss Falkenlust as a base for falconry
hunting, accessible by journeying to Brühl on the southern
outskirts of Cologne. Elsewhere, UNESCO credentials distinguish
Eisenach’s Wartburg castle (locale of medieval
Christmas markets), perched atop a 600-foot Thuringian
promontory, and the classical Dessau-Wörlitz garden kingdom
in easterly Saxony-Anhalt. West beyond Berlin, Potsdam
qualifies, thanks mainly to Frederick the Great’s
Schloss Sanssouci and its terraced garden.
Posh Places to Dream In
Dozens of nationwide palaces, castles and manor-house
estates are open for close-up visits. And a welcoming few
even provide overnight accommodations on the aristocratic
12 MARCH 2008 WWW.JAXFAX.COM
premises. Gast im Schloss
(www.gast-im-schloss.com), a Munich-headquartered
Ringhotel affiliate, is your resource for bookings in nine
such properties. Among those are lakeview Schloss
Waldeck, near a golf course south of Kassel, and Saxony-
Anhalt’s Schloss Tangermünde, a Prussian royal residence
dating from the 14th century, in a garden setting providing
Elbe River panoramics and a courtyard dining area. We also
like the stately ambience of Schloss Kommende Ramershof
as well as its sophisticated French-Mediterranean
restaurant, situated in a genteel villa district on the south
side of Bonn.
A niche pricier than that supplier’s rate structure, two palatial
Rhineland hotels in Bergisch-Gladbach (on lofty frontage
above the river, overlooking Cologne) exude five-star luxury.
They feature topnotch spa amenities and epicurean cuisine
at its absolute best. Grandhotel Schloss Bensburg has 120
guest rooms and Michelin-star Restaurant Vendôme.
Schlosshotel Lerbach comprises 52 guest rooms and a dining
salon overseen by chef Dieter Müller.
Pre-war Prussia’s landed gentry endowed old-time Mecklenburg
with many richly adorned manor houses and vacation estates.
Now a dozen function hospitably as upscale country hotels
(www.culture-castles.de). Circa-1750 Bömitz Manor and its intimate
restaurant exemplifies the selection. The family-owned
property nestles on forested grounds close to Hanseatic Anklam
and a short distance inland from Usedom, Germany’s second
biggest island after nearby Rügen, both fringed with white-sand
beaches. Another highly recommended overnight choice is Horst
Sanders’ double-towered Park-Hotel Schloss Schlemmin, displaying
artworks and rare antiques. The white neo-Gothic edifice
contains 35 guest suites.
City Park Appeal
Urban layouts throughout the Federal Republic are
admired worldwide for their generous percentages of public
greenery. Notable is vast Munich’s Englischer Garten that
encompasses lakes, pavilions, riding trails and a sizeable
beer garden in its four-mile-long expanse of terrain. Spreading
far beyond an 18th-century Württemberg palace, inner-
city Stuttgart’s Schlossgarten rambles two and a half miles
northward to Bad Canstatt’s Neckar riverbanks. Twenty-five
miles north from there, Ludwigsburg’s Schlosspark (and
432-room Residenzschloss) deserves its “German Versailles”
nickname.
A similar palace-and-garden combination—an 18th-century
Experience Europe, with...
GREECE
AUSTRIA
FRANCE
GERMANY
SPAIN • ITALY
SWITZERLAND
TURKEY
U.K.
FIT's • Groups • Car Rentals • Honeymoons
Worldwide Hotel Accommodations • River Cruises
Greek and Mediterranean Cruises • Rail Tickets and Passes.
800-882-3983
info@europtours.com
www.europtours.com
WWW.JAXFAX.COM MARCH 2008 13