Discover Wittstock/Dosse: City Wall, Church and Parks

Discover the city's history along the wall and through the old town

From May to October, public guided tours of Wittstock's historic old town are offered. They share interesting facts and legends from the city's history. If you plan to join a tour, check the current dates before your trip.

Wittstock's fortifications are 2,435 metres long in total: 1,999 metres of city wall, 264 metres of administrative wall and 172 metres of castle wall. Apart from a small fieldstone base in the north, the entire fortification is built of monastery-format bricks. These three measurements and the distinctive building material offer concrete points of interest for exploring the complex.

St. Mary's Church: landmark and views

St. Mary's Church is a landmark of the former episcopal town of Wittstock; construction began in the 13th century. The tower of the three-aisled church is 68 metres high. The Baroque tower offers sweeping views over the town and surrounding countryside. The church thus combines a long architectural history with a vantage point that takes in both the town and its surroundings.

The interior also features a variety of fine craft details, including an altar structure made up of two carved altarpieces, a late Gothic sacrament shrine, a Baroque wooden baptismal font, a Madonna in a radiant halo, the Lütkemüller organ and the pulpit. The Ostprignitz Museum is also located at Wittstock's Bishop's Castle. These are several distinct aspects of the town's history, so the focus need not be solely on the city wall.

Park features between wall and river

The park at Bleichwall lies directly beside the historic city wall and an old cloth factory. Here, green space, fortifications and another part of the town's history come together. The Glinze flows through Friedrich-Ebert Park, where two wooden bridges cross the river. The two parks have different features: Bleichwall is next to the wall and cloth factory, while Friedrich-Ebert Park has a watercourse and bridges.

A small botanical detail adds to the picture: in 2015, Wittstock received a shrub rose that grows to a height of 80 to 100 centimetres. For planning your trip, this offers a choice between historic buildings, park features and the seasonal programme of guided city tours.

Wittstock/Dosse and the wider destination of Ostprignitz-Ruppin

The wider destination of Ostprignitz-Ruppin offers another perspective on the landscape. The district is predominantly rural and is characterised by open spaces and tranquillity, green beech and pine forests, meadows, shady avenues, and numerous lakes and rivers. The Kyritz-Ruppiner Heath covers 12,000 hectares in Ostprignitz-Ruppin and has been part of Stechlin-Ruppiner Land Nature Park since 2021. It is one of Europe's largest contiguous areas of Calluna heath and provides a habitat for protected and endangered species, including more than 70 bird species and, since 2008, the wolf.

The Bishop's Route also broadens the view of the region: the 108-kilometre cycling route passes through Heiligengrabe and Wittstock, among other places, and invites you on a journey through Prignitz's medieval past and landscape. It runs entirely on paved, signposted cycle paths. Heiligengrabe and Wittstock have rail connections to Berlin and Hamburg. The town's history and the regional cycling route offer different ways to shape your stay.

When looking for a holiday apartment in Wittstock/Dosse, deciding what you would like to focus on can help: should the town's history, with its wall, church and guided tour, take centre stage, or would you also like to include the cycling route and the landscape of Ostprignitz-Ruppin in your plans? This distinction helps make your choice of destination more specific without treating the town and the wider region as one and the same.

Discover more destinations: Neustadt, Wusterhausen/Dosse, Rheinsberg, Fehrbellin, Zernitz-Lohm, Vielitzsee, Neuruppin, Kyritz.

Go to the wider travel overview: Ostprignitz-Ruppin.