Flower island Mainau on lake Constance

Former stronghold, monastery, castle, typhus sanatorium and YMCA camp, conquered, pillaged and owned by Romans, Franks, Swedes and Teutons, the little island Mainau on lake Constance came into its quiet years at the beginning of the 19th century when a Hungarian prince bought it from the Baden Duchy and started an early collection of rare and valuable plants.

After it changed again several owners, around mid-19th century the island became property of Friedrich I, Grand Duke of Baden. He had a soft spot for flowers, so he and his court gardener worked for decades and turned the island into the flower museum we see today. Well… not quite exactly as we see it today, because after Friedrich died, the island began to exchange hands and royal houses again, and it was rather derelict in the mid-1930s, when another prince, a Swedish one, who just happened to be the great-grandson of the Grand Duke of Baden, offered to bring it back to life.

Lennart Bernadotte renounced his royal claim to the Swedish throne and all the titles when he married a commoner, and he is now known in history as a gardener and landscaper, and especially as the one who made flower island Mainau into what it is indeed today.

Where is Island Mainau?

Flower island Mainau is situated on Lake Constance, a very large lake between Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

“You say Lake Constance, but what do you mean?” In German it’s called Bodensee, and it actually refers to three conjoining bodies of water, the Upper Lake, the Lower Lake and the Rhine Lake. Our focus here is the Upper Lake, which has both island Mainau and city Konstanz, which translated into Constance, so… let’s just call it Mainau at Lake Constance, shall we? (although in German it’s actually Mainau am Bodensee, alles klar?)

When to visit Mainau?

We hear mid-November is best! Jk aside, it’s a flower island, so try your best to be between early April to late summer. But remember April is the cruelest month and spring is a fickle lover in Germany, so don’t be taken aback by thick clouds the colour of a 3-day-old bruise, nor by the merry pitter patter of the rain. We weren’t!

(Of course we were, but when one is on a scheduled road-trip, you can’t afford to be picky about the weather, make like a tree and leave. Plus, the day ticket is quite steep – 23€ – so we stayed, got soaked among the hosts of golden daffodils and bloody liked it!).