Palace Mosigkau is a small Rococo palace on the edge of Dessau, in Saxony-Anhalt, and its story is that of a princess who wanted a house of her own. It was built in the middle of the eighteenth century for Anna Wilhelmine, a daughter of the Prince Leopold I of Anhalt-Dessau, known as the Old Dessauer, a military commander of the Prussian army. She did not marry, and after she died the palace became a noble ladies' foundation, a Damenstift, where unmarried women of good family could live in comfort. Its name sits within the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm, a landscape of palaces and parks created in the age of the Enlightenment, which UNESCO has listed.
The palace is low, yellow and cream, with a central pavilion and long wings, and inside the main hall is a delicate affair of mirrors, stucco and paintings. The gallery holds a famous collection of Flemish and Dutch pictures, with works by Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens among them, which Anna Wilhelmine's family collected, and which stayed in place when the building became a foundation. The Rococo garden has a maze of hedges and a small orangery, which is very pleasant in the summer evenings, and it is a calm place beside the more famous parks at Wörlitz.
The landscape is the flat, fertile plain of the Elbe and the Mulde, with fields, poplar avenues, small oak woods and the broad river. Roads are quiet and straight, and the ride between Dessau and Wörlitz, going east along the Elbe, passes through the floodplain forests of the Middle Elbe Biosphere Reserve, which are home to beavers and white-tailed eagles. It is more a ride for contemplation than for bends. The best seasons are late spring and autumn, with mist over the meadows, and floods can close some riverside roads after heavy rain. Dessau is also the home of the Bauhaus, with the famous school building by Walter Gropius, a short ride away.
Dessau, about seven kilometres from here, is a city of seventy-seven thousand, with fuel, bakeries, supermarkets and restaurants, and the nearby village of Quellendorf is much smaller. Try a plate of local freshwater fish, or one of the Bauhaus-inspired cafés in town. The palace is open in season and on weekends in winter, so check times, and tickets can include guided tours. The gardens are pleasant for a walk, and you will find shaded benches among the lime trees.