Neues Schloss Schleißheim

Neues Schloss Schleißheim, north of Munich in Oberschleißheim, is a Baroque palace commissioned by Elector Max Emanuel in 1701 as a statement of Wittelsbach ambition modelled on Versailles. Visitors move through a sequence of state rooms culminating in the Victory Hall and grand staircase, both decorated with elaborate stucco and ceiling paintings celebrating the Elector's military campaigns. The palace's gallery holds one of Bavaria's strongest collections of Baroque painting, including works by Rubens, Titian, and Veronese, displayed in rooms with much of their original decoration intact. Outside, a formal French garden with a long canal connects the New Palace to the older Altes Schloss and the Lustheim hunting lodge across the water, making the full complex a pleasant walk of roughly a kilometre. A visit to the New Palace and gallery alone takes 2-3 hours; adding a walk through the gardens to Lustheim, which houses the Meissen porcelain collection, extends a visit to half a day. The garden is at its most photogenic in the morning, when the canal reflects the palace facade, and again in autumn when the surrounding trees turn colour. Because it lies outside central Munich, Schleißheim rarely sees the crowds of the city's main sights, even at midday.