This brand-new WHS is a likely candidate to make it into our “One million visitors or more” connection. After the designation as a WHS, the average visitor numbers rose from 3,000 to 8,000 on the days that the waterworks are displayed (Wednesday and Sunday). I had chosen Wednesday for my visit, hoping that this would be the quietest of the two days. Kassel is located almost at the center of Germany, and within easy reach of the big cities in the Ruhrgebiet and Frankfurt. It also isn’t too far from the Dutch, Belgian and Polish borders. So these huge visitor numbers are no mystery.

I had arrived the evening before, and stayed for the night in a hotel in Bad Wilhelmshöhe – the suburb the Bergpark is located in. This way I had an early start the next morning. My car was the 5th at the parking lot of Wilhelmshöhe Palace. There’s no entrance fee to the park, and it’s not fenced off either. Lots of trails meander in and out of it. Arriving before 9 a.m., I only met a few joggers and people walking their dogs.

In about 2 hours I walked up from the lower car park to the statue of Hercules. It’s over 5 km, and there are a couple of follies and other distractions to see on the way. The largest of these is the Löwenburg Castle, a mock medieval castle. Tours of the interior are given on the hour, but when I arrived at 10 they decided to cancel the tour because nobody showed up except for me.

So I walked on upwards. It’s mostly a forest trail, and the hike should not be underestimated: it’s uphill all the time. There’s a public bus that stops at the main points for those that cannot walk that much. Later in the day, I encountered lots of tired grannies and dogs that felt the heat. The toughest part is at the end when you climb the steps next to the Grand Cascade. These stairs end at Hercules and the strange octagon & pyramid it stands on. I even tormented myself a little more and paid 3 EUR to climb the interior of the octagon & pyramid too. Most of the time nowadays I skip these kinds of “tower climbs”, and I would not say it was worth the effort here either.

As the waterworks display doesn’t start until 14.30h, I had some time to spare. I had lunch at one of the restaurants, had a quick look at the uninspiring visitor center and walked halfway down to the other side to see the Aqueduct and Neptune’s Grotto. The latter was covered in scaffoldings, just as part of the octagon & pyramid of Hercules by the way. I now encountered more and more people coming up, all in time to watch the water spectacle. By 13.30h I was back at the basin at the foot of the Grand Cascade, really tired from the distances I had covered on foot (and in the heat of the day). A few hundred people had gathered already, and I joined them in the grass for a siesta moment.

The display started right on time, though it takes quite some time for the water to trickle down the Grand Cascade and become visible to all spectators. The funny thing about this site is that there is no running water at all when the waterworks are turned off. All you see are barren rocks that only get some meaning during the running hours. After the Grand Cascade, at 4 other spots in the park the water supply is sequentially turned on. All spectators walk down, passing spot after spot. Despite the large number of visitors, it is easy enough to see the works on display and also walk the route without being crushed. It all ends at the Grand Fountain for the apotheosis: the “eruption” of the geyser-like and over 50m high fountain.

I spent all day at the Bergpark, because of its size a visit takes a lot of time. And I even did not get into the Palace (which has a good art collection) or see all of the follies. A few weeks ago I visited a similar WHS, the Studley Royal Park: also a huge English landscape garden with water features. Comparing the two, I found Studley aesthetically more pleasing – both as a landscape and because of its “real life” folly Fountains Abbey. The Water features and Hercules within the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe are weird constructions, over-the-top and a bit old-fashioned for a tourist attraction. No wonder a comparison was made in the Nomination File with the displays of power and water richness in the Gulf (including Saudi’s 300m high King Fahd’s fountain, the modern-day successor of Kassel’s Grand Fountain).