Bad Homburg Palace Park Walk: Schloss, White Tower, Lebanon Cedars & Temple of Pomona

Photo: Johannes Robalotoff / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 de

Photo: Carsten Steger / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Muck / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Welcome to the palace park of Bad Homburg. The tall white tower in front of you is the oldest structure here, and it has been the town's landmark for more than six centuries. It was built in the second half of the 14th century as the keep of the medieval castle, and it rises about 48 metres. If you have the energy, 174…

Photo: Dguendel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Photo: Dguendel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

These two enormous trees are Lebanon cedars, and they are the most famous trees in the palace park. They came here around 1820 thanks to Landgravine Elizabeth, the English princess who had married into the Homburg family. She had a keen interest in botany and obtained the cedars from Kew Gardens near London, the royal …

Photo: Karsten Ratzke / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Photo: Dguendel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

This long building on the northern edge of the upper garden is the palace orangery. Don't confuse it with the Orangerie in the Kurpark, a different building from 1844 – Bad Homburg has two. The palace orangery is much older. It was built in the late 17th century, at the same time as the Baroque palace and garden, to gi…

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You are now in a hollow on the slope below the palace. This was once a quarry – a Steinbruch in German – and in the late 18th century it became part of a new landscape garden. The change began in 1771, when Landgravine Caroline started turning the old vineyard on this hillside into a 'Boskett', a planted woodland with …

Photo: Alexander Hoernigk / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Dguendel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

This pond is one of the oldest features of the whole park. A lake below the castle already appears on Matthäus Merian's engraving of Homburg from 1646, decades before the Baroque palace was built. The palace park covers about 13 hectares today, and its history goes back a long way. A garden is first mentioned here in 1…

Photo: Carsten Steger / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

This is the Herrschaftlicher Obstgarten, the landgraves' orchard, and it is one of the oldest parts of the palace grounds. Merian's engraving of 1646 already shows a geometric kitchen and pleasure garden below the castle, with fruit trees beside it, and kitchen accounts from 1622 and 1623 confirm that the castle had it…

Photo: Carsten Steger / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

This small pavilion stands in the part of the park known as the 'Fantasie'. When Landgravine Caroline had this area laid out in the 1770s, it was Homburg's first attempt at a landscape garden in the English style, and it was dotted with little houses and pavilions. This one began as a tea house. It is first mentioned i…