Altenstein Park with Castle

Garden architecture and freestanding rock formations

The Altenstein Castle Park with the summer residence of the Dukes of Saxe-Meiningen is one of the largest landscape parks in central Germany, covering an area of 160 hectares. The park complex is characterized by the artistic fusion of the garden architecture design with the landscape-defining rock formations.

History

The park developed from 1798 under Duke Georg I of Saxe-Meiningen into a sentimental-romantic landscape park. Numerous park architectures such as the Chinese House or the Devil's Bridge were erected. Around the middle of the 19th century, three of the most famous German garden artists, Hermann Fürst von Pückler-Muskau, Carl-Eduard Petzold, and Peter Joseph Lenné, were active at Altenstein. They complemented the park with specific plantings and systematically laid out visual axes.

Towards the end of the 19th century, Duke Georg II had the baroque Castle remodeled along the lines of English country estates. Georg II and his wife, Helene Baroness von Heldburg, welcomed here, among others, Johannes Brahms, who offered performances of his compositions in a small circle with musicians of the Meiningen court. In the surroundings of the Castle, an inner park with flowerbeds was created. The most famous is the large carpet bed south of the Castle.

In 1982, the Castle was almost completely destroyed by fire. Although restoration work is still ongoing, a memorial to Johannes Brahms and a Chinese Cabinet have already been opened in 2017 and can be visited as part of group tours.