At the crossroads of trade routes between Hamburg and the south and the Ruhr area and Berlin, Hanover (Hannover) is one of Germany's great commercial cities, with some of the biggest trade fair grounds in the country. Rebuilt after wartime devastation, the city centre bustles with life, both in the main shopping streets and in the reconstructed old town. In 1714 the House of Hanover provided the successor to the British throne when Elector Georg Ludwig, grandson of Elizabeth Stuart, became King George I of the United Kingdom. Georg Ludwig's mother Sophie was largely responsible for the city's outstanding landmark, the Herrenhausen Gardens, the finest baroque landscape in Germany, laid out in the late 17th and early 18th century.
Herrenhaeuser Gaerten (Royal Gardens of Herrenhaeusen). No matter where you go in Hannover, you won't be far from a park or garden. But make sure you don't miss this one, the only surviving example of Dutch/Low German early baroque-style gardening. Designers from France, the Netherlands, England, and Italy, as well as Germany, worked together to create this masterpiece of living art. Grosse Garten, from 1666, is the largest garden, consisting of a rectangle surrounded by a moat. Within the maze of walks and trees are examples of French baroque, rococo, and Low German rose and flower gardens. The Grosse Garten also contains one of the highest fountains in Europe, shooting jets of water 72m (236 ft.) into the air, and the world's only existing baroque hedge-theater (1692), where plays by Shakespeare, Molière, and Brecht are still performed, along with ballets and jazz concerts. The smaller 17th-century Berggarten, across Herrenhäuser Strasse from the Grosse Garten, is a botanical garden with houses containing rare orchids and other tropical flowers.
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