☰Schloss Hellbrunn

Hellbrunn is a 17th-century pleasure villa built between 1612 and 1615 by the Salzburg architect Santino Solari for Prince-Archbishop Markus Sittikus, an impulsive Italian-educated prelate with a famous sense of humour. The mannerist palace itself is a pleasant enough baroque pile, but the real attraction is the Wasserspiele (trick fountains) in the gardens — hidden water jets concealed in benches, statues, pathways, and a full-scale mechanical theatre of tiny moving figures driven by a 200-pipe water organ. Guided tours run constantly during the warmer months; expect to get wet, and bring a change of shirt if you care. The park also contains the "stone theatre", an outdoor amphitheatre carved into the rock, where in 1617 the first opera ever performed in the German-speaking world was staged.