Großer Garten
The Großer Garten is a park south-east of Dresden's city centre, laid out from 1676 for the later Elector Johann Georg III and centred on a baroque Palais, with the zoo and the Botanical Garden inside it.
What it is
The park is run by the Staatliche Schlösser, Burgen und Gärten Sachsen gGmbH, the state of Saxony's palaces-and-gardens company. The Großer Garten and its Palais are listed monuments of the state of Saxony.
The operator's English text calls the park the Grand Garden.
History
The Palais was begun in 1678 and its shell was finished in 1683, to the plans of the master builder Johann Georg Starcke, for the later Elector Johann Georg III. From 1683 the gardener Johann Friedrich Karcher shaped the baroque layout of the garden around the Palais. After 1694 the work continued under Elector Friedrich August I, known as Augustus the Strong.
In 1719 the court held the Venus festival in the garden for the wedding of Crown Prince Friedrich August II and Maria Josepha. After the Battle of Dresden in 1813 the Russian governor-general Repnin opened the garden to the public. In 1860 about 12.8 hectares of the garden went to the new zoo, laid out by Peter Joseph Lenné. By about 1948 the Palais stood destroyed.
The Park Railway
The Dresden Park Railway, a miniature railway, has run through the garden since 1950. Children and young people work in the railway's operation as conductors, signallers and in other posts.