Royal Vineyard Wachwitz

King Friedrich August II. Acquired three vineyards in Wachwitz in 1824 and converted an existing winegrower's house into a small palace. From the vineyards you have a beautiful view of Dresden and the foothills. The rhododendron park is right next door.

(Source = dresdner-stadtteile.de) In 1824 Prince Friedrich August (later King Friedrich August II.) Bought three vineyards in the village of Wachwitz for 11,000 thalers. Another plot of land followed in 1825, before the entire Niederpoyritz manor with Wachwitz could be acquired in 1827. In the years that followed, Friedrich August bought additional properties so that a contiguous area of almost 40 hectares was created. At that time there were only a few buildings on the property, including the old Wachwitz wine press and a winegrower's house, which the Wettiner had converted into a small palace. Above, a small chapel was built on a rock in the middle of the vineyards.
Friedrich August only stayed in Wachwitz occasionally. The management of the property was therefore entrusted to a gardener who was expressly to allow strangers to visit the royal vineyard if the king was not present. Even today, the stranger enjoys the right of way, even if many signs indicate that you are now entering a private route at your own risk.
After Friedrich August II took office in 1836, Wachwitz developed into the summer residence of the Wettins. Visits by King Otto I of Greece and the Russian Tsar Nicholas I are guaranteed. After the king died in a mountain accident in Tyrol in 1854, Queen Maria chose Wachwitz as her widow's residence, she died in 1877. Around 1890 the old vineyard palace was demolished and replaced by a larger villa. In 1984, a circle of friends was founded, which together with the Wachwitz winegrowing community, planted parts of the former vineyards with vines again from 1987 onwards. I took a photo of the following buildings:

Directions: Coming from Oberloschwitz you pass the Marienhaus to follow under a bridge through a paved sunken road (currently construction site). Turn left at the end of the ravine and a staircase leads to the rhododendrons. Then follow Royal Villa and kitchen house. Turn right before the kitchen house and enter the private property belonging to the press house behind another bridge. However, you can use the path to the vineyard. He leads to a right-hand retaining wall. There you will find a staircase. If you follow the stairs (106 steps) you reach the mountain chapel, turn on the first step on the right to a path, you get to the vineyard. The door to the vineyard is not locked. A shady spot under a tree invites you for a rest. At the end of the vineyard path is the Kulturterasse (highlight, events see the Internet.). The Himmelsleiter (Highlight) leads up the vineyard. There you get over another unlocked door into the forest. Old retaining walls, gates testify to old buildings (abandoned vineyards, to the New Castle Wachwitz belonging parks?). On some days a very secretive, highly private place, with a lot of history.