Hanover and Herrenhausen Gardens

A Baroque Garden Of The 1670s Laid Out For The Hanoverian Electors, With The Great Garden, The Grotto Remade By Niki De Saint Phalle, A Palm House And The Berggarten; The City Adds The Sprengel Museum And A Red Guide Line Through Its Sights · Hanover, Lower Saxony

Hanover is a trade-fair city that was bombed to pieces and rebuilt in concrete, and nobody should come expecting a pretty old town. What it has is one of the most complete baroque gardens in Europe. The Great Garden at Herrenhausen was laid out from the 1670s for the electors who would shortly become kings of Britain, and it survives as a geometry of clipped yew walls, parterres, canals and a fountain that throws water some eighty metres into the air. The palace at the top is a post-war rebuild and now a conference centre with a museum wing, so the garden, not the house, is the visit. Two things lift it above a tidy baroque layout: the Grotto, which Niki de Saint Phalle lined with mirror, glass and pebbles in her last years, and the Berggarten next door, a botanical garden with one of the largest orchid collections anywhere. The city adds the Sprengel Museum, the Maschsee lake, a town hall dome reached by a slanting lift, and a red line painted on the pavement that walks you round the sights.

Herrenhausen Gardens north-west of central Hanover, with the Maschsee and the rebuilt old town nearby, Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany

The Great Garden and the Berggarten open daily year-round, with long summer hours and a much shorter winter day that closes in the late afternoon - confirm. The Grotto and the glasshouses keep the garden's hours but can close separately for maintenance. The Great Fountain plays only at set times, typically a couple of sessions on weekday afternoons and more at weekends in the main season, and not at all in winter or high wind - this is the single thing most worth confirming before you set out. The museum in the rebuilt palace follows museum hours and closes Mondays, as does the Sprengel. Confirm all current times and prices with the operators.

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