Confessions of a Castleholic

This is basically a live edition of Confessions of a Castleholic , I don't think I have ever shared a palace on here so quickly after visiting. But I fell in love - and I wanted to share that love. If you follow me on Instagram (note: you should as not to miss all the latest castle adventures ), you already know that I paid a visit to Schloss Wilhelmsthal near Kassel over the weekend. And it is a stunning Rococo dream come true! Long time followers of this blog may recall me visiting Schloss Wilhelmshöhe once upon nearly a decade ago. Schloss Wilhelmsthal - Höhe literally means "hill" while Thal is "valley" - is only a stone's throw away but somehow I never knew about it. Probably that's what keeps me castle hunting for more than decade now: There's still so much more to discover yet. Schloss Wilhelmsthal , now a museum, was once owned by the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel. The surrounding estate was purchased by Landgravine Amalie Elisabeth, widow ...

Earlier this year, on Easter Sunday to be precise, I visited the Bergpark Wilhelmhöhe hillside park in Kassel which also includes Schloss Wilhelmshöhe and Schloss Löwenburg . However, unfortunately the park didn't show all its splendour back then as the fountains and water works are only turned on between May 1st and October 3rd on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons. Last Sunday was finally the Sunday I managed to go back to Kassel to have a look at the park in all its glory and mind you, I wasn't the only one. At pretty much 2:30pm sharp, an acoustic signal announces the start of the water displays as the air pressure generated by the running water causes the horns of the centaur and faun statues of the grand cascades to sound. The sound marks the beginning of about 350,000 liters of water running down the grand cascades, the Steinhöfer's waterfall and the devil's bridge, until it tumbles down the aqueduct before arriving at the lake of the castle where a...

"Inspired by the dramatic topography of its site, the Hercules monument and water features of the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe created by the Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Kassel from 1689 combine in an outstanding demonstration of man’s mastery over nature. The monumental display of rushing water from the Octagon crowned by the massive Hercules statue via the Vexing Grotto and Artichoke Basin with their hydro pneumatic acoustic effects, Felsensturz Waterfall and Giant’s Head Basin down the Baroque Cascade to Neptune’s Basin and on towards the crowning glory of the Grand Fountain, a 50 metre high geyser that was the tallest in the world when built in 1767, is focused along an east-west axis terminating in the centre of the city of Kassel. Complemented by the wild Romantic period waterfalls, rapids and cataracts created under Karl’s great-grandson the Elector Wilhelm I of Hesse, as part of the 18th century landscape in the lower part of the Bergpark , the whole composition is an outs...