With peacocks feeding on the lawn before a neo-Gothic house, a tree-lined stream flowing toward a Grecian-style temple and a gap in a hedge framing a distant villa, the 112-hectare English-style Wörlitz Park is the pinnacle of Prince Leopold’s garden region. Take your sweet time to saunter amid this mosaic of paths, hedges and follies, but don’t even think about having a picnic on the sprawling lawns: even walking on them is very much verboten, as is bicycling within park grounds.
On the edge of the park nearest the town lies Prince Leopold’s former country house, the neoclassical Schloss Wörlitz, which is still filled with original late 18th-century furniture and decorations.
Bus 334 does the 30-minute trip from Dessau to Wörlitz roughly every two hours between 6am and 5.30pm. From late March to early October, there’s also a 35-minute train service on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. Check the timetable carefully before heading out or, better yet, check with the information kiosk Mobilitätszentrale outside the train station. By road from Dessau, take the B185 east to the B107 north, which brings you right into town.