Jagdschloss Grunewald

Jagdschloss Grunewald on the south-eastern shore of the Grunewaldsee is the oldest surviving palace in Berlin. Elector Joachim II commissioned it from Caspar Theiss in 1542 as a Renaissance moated hunting lodge in what was then game-rich woodland. Friedrich I had the building remodelled in Baroque forms in 1705 and the moat filled in. Today the whitewashed Schloss houses Berlin's largest collection of Cranach paintings, with works by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop, including several portraits of Joachim II. The adjacent Jagdzeugmagazin shows hunting knives, boar spears and trophies from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The lakeside trail around the Grunewaldsee starts at the gate and is a favourite Berlin dog-walking route.