The pale yellow Oldenburg Palace looks magnificent to its visitors. The palace’s exterior has changed frequently in the centuries since its construction.
Anthony Günther, Count of Oldenburg, had his residence built on the foundations of a medieval moated castle. Peter I, Grand Duke of Oldenburg, also left his mark on the palace: it was he who had the library wing built at the end of the 18th century and redesigned the interior in a neoclassical style. Some of the historic state rooms have been almost completely preserved to this day. Nevertheless, huge parts of the façade unmistakably date back to the Baroque era.
The ancient trees, magnificent groves, watercourses and lush lawns in the adjacent garden at Oldenburg Palace make visitors feel like they are walking through a painting. Rhododendrons were planted here 200 years ago. Today visitors marvel at them, as they are the oldest of their kind in Germany. Court gardener Christian Ludwig Bosse designed the palace garden in an early 19th century English country garden style.
Part of the Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte (State Museum for Art and Cultural History) has been housed in the palace since 1921.
Regular palace tours are conducted for visitors. In addition to the small-scale exhibition, there are guided tours ‘op Platt’ (translation: in Low German) and tours with guides in period costumes, for example ‘Anthony Günther, Count of Oldenburg’, doing himself the honour of taking visitors on a journey back in time through the palace’s history.
