In this article, you will read some information about what to do and things to do in Bayreuth Germany. Although Bayreuth, with its approximately 73,000 inhabitants, is not one of the largest cities in Germany, it has a lot to offer culturally.
Bayreuth is part of the beautiful region of Bavaria (Location by Google Map). There are so many amazing city sights. which are shaped by the influence of the Margravial couple Friedrich and Wilhelmine. As the sister of Frederick the Great, Wilhelmine had high cultural and aesthetic standards. In the 18th century, in what was then a rather inconspicuous city, she had a number of buildings erected that could compete architecturally with the large metropolises of Europe.
Bayreuth has enjoyed a worldwide reputation as a festival city since 1876. Every year in July and August, an international audience gathers for the Wagner performances in the Festspielhaus on Green Hill. The city is not only a crowd puller during the festival season.
This also has to do with the fact that there has been a university there since 1972: 13,000 students from all over the world bring life and international flair to the city with its 73,000 inhabitants. For example, right in the center is the Iwalewahaus, which belongs to the university and supports the focus on Africa there. For more travel articles about Germany check this category and for all articles about Europe check this list. Below you will find some information about things to do in Bayreuth Germany:
1. The Margravial Opera House of Bayreuth
The Margravial Opera House is the best-preserved example of a free-standing baroque court theater. Models were the largest opera houses of the time in Vienna and Dresden. As a unique monument to the festival and music culture of the 18th century, it has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2012.
The Margravial Opera House follows the type of Italian box theater. The fully preserved loge house, made of wood and canvas, is set into the stone building envelope as a self-supporting construction.
The interior of the theater was completed in a very short time with wooden architectural elements and mounted sculptures, some of which were prefabricated and painted outside the construction site.
2. Bayreuth Festival Hall
Every summer, Bayreuth is the cultural center of artistic engagement with the music of Richard Wagner. The Bayreuth Festival has made the city internationally known, as have the participating singers, conductors, directors, and stage designers.
When the fanfares call at the beginning of the Richard Wagner Festival, an international audience streams into the festival city and to the Festspielhaus on Green Hill, the cornerstone of which was laid there in 1872. With its incomparable acoustics, it captivates visitors year after year.
3. The Hermitage
The Hermitage park is one of Bayreuth’s absolute highlights – fountains, magnificent buildings, and much more. The historic Hermitage Park is one of the most famous sights in the city of Bayreuth.
The extensive complex with its varied water features, artificial ruins, and magnificent sun temple is always worth a visit. The Bayreuth Hermitage, a historic park on the outskirts of the city, was a refuge for courtly life. Among other things, it houses the Old Castle with the Inner Grotto, which Margrave Georg Wilhelm had built in 1715 as the center of a hermitage.
4. New Castle at the Hofgarten
The New Castle is one of the main works of German architecture of the 18th century. After the fire in the Old Castle in January 1753, the French master builder Joseph Saint-Pierre built the successor residence on behalf of Margrave Friedrich von Brandenburg-Bayreuth.
Margravine Wilhelmine had a great influence on the design. Among other things, she designed the mirror cabinet and the old music room with pastel portraits of singers, actors and dancers herself.
5. Richard Wagner Museum of Bayreuth
Richard Wagner’s Wahnfried house, which he had built in the Hofgarten in Bayreuth between 1872 and 1874 and in whose garden he was buried after his death in 1883, has housed the Richard Wagner Museum since 1976.
The national archive of the Richard Wagner Foundation is affiliated with it in the Siegfried Wagner House, an adjoining building that Wagner’s son Siegfried had converted into his own home in 1894.
When the museum was renovated between 2010 and 2015, a modern new museum building was built on a piece of land that Winifred Wagner had only bought in the 1930s. This is one of sights not to be missed in Bayreuth
6. Ecological Botanical Garden
Another Bayreuth attraction is on the university campus: In the Ecological Botanical Garden (ÖBG), visitors can take a botanical trip around the world on the 16-hectare site in just a few hours: from tropical rainforests to the mountain vegetation of the Himalayas. Around 12,000 plant species can be admired here.
7. Maisel’s Beer
Beer lovers should definitely not miss a Bayreuth attraction: In Maisel’s beer experience world, everything revolves around the popular beer in an area of 4,500 square meters. Upper Franconia is famous for its beer culture and, with over 200 breweries, has the highest density of breweries in the world. The listed brewery museum was included in the Guinness Book of Records in 1988 as the “most comprehensive beer museum in the world”.
8. Bayreuth Fantaisie Castle
About five kilometers from Bayreuth, those interested in gardening will get their money’s worth: the imposing Faintaisie Castle not only has a handsome park but has also housed Germany’s first garden art museum since 2000. In the 18th century, the margrave couple Friedrich and Wilhelmine began building the complex.
It was later completed by her daughter Friederike Sophie. That is why the castle park also contains elements from different stylistic eras – such as the rococo or historicism. Visiting it is one of the things to do in Bayreuth Germany.
Things to do in Bayreuth Germany
- The Margravial Opera House
- The festival hall
- The Hermitage
- New Castle at the Hofgarten
- Richard Wagner Museum
- Richard Wagner Museum
- Maisel’s Beer
- Faintaisie Castle