The Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe is Kassel's biggest claim to fame — a 240-hectare landscape park rising up the slope of the Habichtswald, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013. At the top stands the colossal Herkules statue (1717), an eight-metre copper figure on top of a stone pyramid on top of an octagonal pavilion, the whole composition visible from anywhere in the city.
The park's signature event is the Wasserspiele (water features), released on summer Wednesdays, Sundays, and holidays. Water flows down a series of cascades, channels, an aqueduct, and a series of grottoes before erupting in a 50-metre fountain in front of Wilhelmshöhe Palace at the foot of the hill. It is the largest hillside hydraulic system in Europe and the engineering — gravity-driven, no pumps — is older than the United States.