Schleißheim Palace

Schleißheim Palace, about 15 kilometers north of Munich, is one of the largest Baroque palace complexes in Germany — three distinct buildings aligned along a single garden axis linked by a canal stretching to the pavilion of Lustheim. Elector Max Emanuel commissioned the New Palace in 1701 as a deliberate rival to Versailles, but the project was interrupted when he lost the War of the Spanish Succession and spent nearly a decade in exile; the complex was only nearing completion by 1726. That gap shows: several interior rooms were never finished, giving the palace an unusually fragmentary quality for such an ambitious project. The main gallery houses one of Bavaria's most important Baroque painting collections, with works by Rubens, Tintoretto, and Van Dyck. The unbroken sight line from the entrance portal across the canal all the way to Lustheim is among the best-preserved Baroque axial perspectives in southern Germany.

Baroque three-palace complex with French garden, Great Hall and old gallery — Munich's mini-Versailles.