Weimarhallenpark

The park beside the Weimarhalle, used for the Staatskapelle's open-air concert night at the close of the season.

The pond in the Weimarhallenpark at dusk, seen from the terrace above: a round pavilion at the near end, bare trees along both sides, an orange sunset sky mirrored in the water, two cyclists on the path — The Weimarhallenteich from the terrace of the Weimarhalle, at sunset in April.(Weimar Web)

About Weimarhallenpark

The green continuation of the congress centre: the terraces of the Weimarhalle hand you down into the park and the park delivers you to the town. In summer it turns into a stage — the city calls it Weimar's largest for open-air concerts — and the rest of the year it belongs to children, to people cutting through, and to anyone who wants quiet without leaving the middle of town.

Older than the hall beside it

The park first appears in the records in the fifteenth century as an orchard belonging to the dukes. In the eighteenth it was held on a hereditary lease by Friedrich Justin Bertuch, a merchant of Goethe's Weimar, and the city itself only took it over after 1900 — so the hall it is now named after is by some centuries the newcomer.

What repays the detour

Two things are worth the walk to the far end: the pond inside its baroque enclosing wall, with the cascade, and the burial place of the Bertuch family at the south-western edge — a merchant dynasty's grave sitting quietly behind a conference centre, which is a fairly complete summary of how Weimar is put together.