Old Botanical Garden, Zürich, Switzerland

The Old Botanical Garden is an idyllic oasis at the heart of downtown Zurich. Its history dates back to the year 1837. Today it is home to various old trees that give the garden its enchanting aura.

The mediaeval herb garden, the “Gessner Garden”, is located on a hill and offers insight into 16th century knowledge of medicinal plants. The palm house is a protected monument from the 19th century and today is predominantly used for concerts, theatre and exhibitions.

References:

zuerich.com

User Reviews

Helena Korjonen (14 months ago)
Very nice old park. Many plants although need a bit of tidying up. Very charming place.

Marco Andrea Bolandini (14 months ago)
A lovely paradise in the middle of a busy city where you can relax on the small fields. Also an interesting collection of plants well described allowing you to wonder of from the chaos of the city, toilets are for free. However, at night is closed and there are no snack shop there.

Reza Mazaheri (14 months ago)
Calm area and very well designed garden with attractive paths.

Jusuf Zehnder (15 months ago)
A litte beautiful place in the heart of the City. Little great Relaxing time there.

Rabbit H (2 years ago)
Zurich has several botanical gardens. This is one of them. When I visited there, it’s noon and many people were relaxing and having lunch. There were housewives with kids,looked freeing. I was not able to see vivid colors flowers. But it’s a good place you should visit one.

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Photo from Flickr, copyright Polybert49

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Cochem Castle

The original Cochem Castle, perched prominently on a hill above the Moselle River, served to collect tolls from passing ships. Modern research dates its origins to around 1100. Before its destruction by the French in 1689, the castle had a long and fascinating history. It changed hands numerous times and, like most castles, also changed its form over the centuries.

In 1151 King Konrad III ended a dispute over who should inherit Cochem Castle by laying siege to it and taking possession of it himself. That same year it became an official Imperial Castle (Reichsburg) subject to imperial authority. In 1282 it was Habsburg King Rudolf’s turn, when he conquered the Reichsburg Cochem and took it over. But just 12 years later, in 1294, the newest owner, King Adolf of Nassau pawned the castle, the town of Cochem and the surrounding region in order to finance his coronation. Adolf’s successor, Albrecht I, was unable to redeem the pledge and was forced to grant the castle to the archbishop in nearby Trier and the Electorate of Trier, which then administered the Reichsburg continuously, except for a brief interruption when Trier’s Archbishop Balduin of Luxembourg had to pawn the castle to a countess. But he got it back a year later.

The Electorate of Trier and its nobility became wealthy and powerful in large part due to the income from Cochem Castle and the rights to shipping tolls on the Moselle. Not until 1419 did the castle and its tolls come under the administration of civil bailiffs (Amtsmänner). While under the control of the bishops and electors in Trier from the 14th to the 16th century, the castle was expanded several times.

In 1688 the French invaded the Rhine and Moselle regions of the Palatinate, which included Cochem and its castle. French troops conquered the Reichsburg and then laid waste not only to the castle but also to Cochem and most of the other surrounding towns in a scorched-earth campaign. Between that time and the Congress of Vienna, the Palatinate and Cochem went back and forth between France and Prussia. In 1815 the western Palatinate and Cochem finally became part of Prussia once and for all.

Louis Jacques Ravené (1823-1879) did not live to see the completion of his renovated castle, but it was completed by his son Louis Auguste Ravené (1866-1944). Louis Auguste was only two years old when construction work at the old ruins above Cochem began in 1868, but most of the new castle took shape from 1874 to 1877, based on designs by Berlin architects. After the death of his father in 1879, Louis Auguste supervised the final stages of construction, mostly involving work on the castle’s interior. The castle was finally completed in 1890. Louis Auguste, like his father, a lover of art, filled the castle with an extensive art collection, most of which was lost during the Second World War.

In 1942, during the Nazi years, Ravené was forced to sell the family castle to the Prussian Ministry of Justice, which turned it into a law school run by the Nazi government. Following the end of the war, the castle became the property of the new state of Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate). In 1978 the city of Cochem bought the castle for 664,000 marks.

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