The best waterfall hikes and walks around Regattastrecke Oberschleißheim

The smaller of the two palace park lakes, the Pagodenburger See, was completed in 1813. It is named after the Pagodenburg, which lies in the northern part of the lake on an island formed by a ring-shaped canal. The area of the lake, including the island of about one hectare, is 2.9 hectares.

The octagonal floor plan of the Pagodenburg on a small island in the lake named after it was designed by Elector Max Emanuel. Master builder Joseph Effner completed the design and supervised the construction of the pleasure palace from 1716 to 1719. In 1767 it was rebuilt in the Rococo style. The name comes from the decoration of the interiors with Asian motifs. Consequently, the rooms are called "Chinese Salon" or "Chinese Cabinet".

For centuries, the Badenburg at the southeastern end of the Great Lake was the first major building in Europe exclusively dedicated to the purpose of enjoying a comfortable bath. Joseph Effner planned the pleasure palace and built it from 1718 to 1722. In addition to the large bathing hall, which extends over two floors, it also contains a ballroom and an electoral apartment with a bedroom, writing room, and dressing room. The bathing pool, over fifty square meters in size and holding 80,000 liters of water, was unparalleled in its time, not only as a work of art but also in technical terms.

The Badenburger See, with an area of 5.7 hectares, is the larger of the two lakes in the park. It is therefore also called Großer See (Large Lake). It was created between 1805 and 1807. On its southern shore stands the Badenburg, and on a peninsula on the northern shore is the Temple of Apollo, built in the form of a monopteros. There are three small islands in the lake.

Elector Karl Albrecht gifted his wife Amalie this Rococo building named after her, erected according to the plans of François Cuvilliés from 1734 to 1739 as a small hunting lodge for pheasant hunting. The Amalienburg is a typical late Baroque pleasure palace.

The birth of the Bavarian Prince-Elector Max Emanuel from the House of Wittelsbach in 1662 was the occasion for the construction of a palace with a garden in the area between the villages of Neuhausen and Obermenzing as a gift for the young mother, Electorress Henriette Adelaide of Savoy. The foundation stone for the "Schwaigbau zu Nymphenburg" was laid in 1664. The complex was designed as a pleasure palace in the style of Italian country villas; it only became a Baroque palace complex, which could serve as a summer residence and an alternative to the seat of government, the Munich Residenz, a generation later under Max Emanuel. The model for Nymphenburg was the Piedmontese hunting lodge La Venaria, whose architect Amedeo Castellamonte (1613 to 1683) also provided the initial designs for Nymphenburg.

Greek mythology served as the inspiration for the pictorial program of the Nymphenburg Garden, created in the 18th century: The sculptures represent the sixteen main deities of Olympus. However, their placement was changed with the redesign into an English landscape park. Today, only twelve statues remain in the garden parterre; four were moved to the Great Cascade. Male and female deities alternate.

The view of the castle canal from the Ludwig Ferdinand Bridge on the city side clearly shows the dimensions of the monumental three-winged complex of Nymphenburg Palace. From 1715 to 1918, it was the summer residence of the Electors, then of the Kings of Bavaria from the House of Wittelsbach. Nymphenburg is one of the largest palaces in Germany.