Belvedere Palace and Park
About This Site
A baroque summer residence on a wooded rise south of the city, built between 1724 and 1748 for Duke Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar and Eisenach. It began as a hunting lodge with a menagerie and turned into something far more elaborate — and the court kept using it as its summer place until 1904.
From hunting lodge to pleasure palace, 1724–1923
The building went up over twenty-four years,[1] which is itself the story: what started as somewhere to keep animals and shoot them became an ornamental residence as the century's taste changed under it. Anna Amalia and, later, Maria Pawlowna favoured it as their summer seat.[1] When the last grand duke abdicated in 1918 the estate passed to the state of Thuringia, and from 1923 the palace was a museum of eighteenth-century decorative art.[1]
The Russian garden
The park has the expected apparatus — clipped ground, fountains, sculpture, a rose arbour, an artificial grotto — and one thing that is not expected at all: a Russian garden, laid out as a near-exact copy of Maria Pawlowna's garden in St Petersburg.[1] A grand duchess from the Russian court reproducing her own garden in Thuringia is a more revealing object than any of the porcelain indoors.
Going, and when
The palace opens Saturdays and Sundays, eleven to five, in the summer only.[1] Admission is €8, with reductions, and free for under-16s.[1]
Questions visitors ask
- What is Belvedere Palace?
- A baroque summer residence on a wooded rise south of Weimar, built between 1724 and 1748 for Duke Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar and Eisenach. It began as a hunting lodge with a menagerie and became an ornamental residence as the century's taste changed; from 1923 it was a museum of eighteenth-century decorative art.[1]
- Who used it?
- The court's summer place until 1904; Anna Amalia and, later, Maria Pawlowna favoured it as their summer seat.[1]
- Why is there a Russian garden here?
- It is laid out as a near-exact copy of Grand Duchess Maria Pawlowna's own garden in St Petersburg — a member of the Russian court reproducing her homeland's garden in Thuringia.[1]
- Can I visit, and when?
- Saturdays and Sundays, 11:00–17:00, summer only. Admission is €8 adults, €6 reduced, €3 for ages 16–20, free under 16.[1]
Connected Historical Figures
hereditary prince • grand duke
He gave the park its landscape form, praised by Pückler-Muskau in 1845, and the Russian Garden; he died in the palace on 8 July 1853.
duke • builder • huntsman
The summer palace above Weimar is his — the pleasure house he had built and put on the title page of his own anonymous publication of 1742.
grand duchess • patron
The Russian Garden west of the palace was laid out for her at Carl Friedrich's instigation, as an almost exact copy of her garden in St Petersburg.
duchess • regent • patron • composer
One of the two duchesses who favoured it as a summer residence.
Sources (1)
- Schloss und Park Belvedere — Klassik Stiftung Weimar, retrieved 30 August 2026
Visit Information
€8 adults; €6 reduced; €3 ages 16–20; free under 16
Sat and Sun 11:00–17:00, summer only
Schloss Belvedere Allee 1, 99425 Weimar
50.9483, 11.3491
Stay and eat nearby
Where to stay
Belvederer Allee 25, 99425 Weimar
The hotel stands on the Belvederer Allee, the avenue that carries the palace's name.
Events held here
Events
Four days over Pentecost weekend, in May
A free garden-adventure trail for children runs here across the days.
One day in June
Belvedere counts as one property in three parts: the palace, the park, and the orangery.
One day in September
The water features in the Belvedere park are on the programme — apt for a year whose motto pairs monuments with infrastructure.
In Weimar's history
Historical periods
The court's summer address before the classical decades and through them, in use until 1904.
For roughly sixty years a duchy of a few thousand people held the centre of German literature, because its ruler kept inviting writers to live there and then gave them jobs. That is the whole mechanism, and it ran from Goethe's arrival in 1775 to his death in 1832.
In Weimar's history
Twice in three years the World Heritage Committee put Weimar on its list: the Bauhaus buildings on 7 December 1996, and the eleven monuments of Classical Weimar on 2 December 1998.
Palace, park and orangery form one of the eleven monuments of Classical Weimar since 1998.