Karlstal 2.54

The Karlstal is the valley of the Moosalb stream located near Trippstadt in the Palatine Forest in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is registered as a nature reserve - number 335 055 - under the name of Karlstalschlucht ("Karlstal Gorge").LocationThe Karlstal lies about 10 kilometres south of the German city of Kaiserslautern near the climatic spa of Trippstadt. There is a footpath running through the Karlstal Gorge, a ravine which is roughly 3 kilometres long.HistoryFriedrich Ludwig von Sckell, who laid out the first landscape garden in Germany, was involved in the conversion and extension of the gardens of Trippstadt House in the 1780s. Whilst there, he got to know the nearby Karlstal and described it thus:Subsequently Sckell undertook alterations over the central part of the gorge, a good kilometre long, and dovetailed a trail with little wooden bridges and a wooden pavilion into the valley, so that its near-natural impression was even more heightened.An iron table at the entrance to the valley refers to a royal visit: Ex-king Ludwig I of Bavaria, Grand Duke Louis III of Hesse-Darmstadt and Archduchess Hildegard of Austria, together with their retinue, visited the valley on 9 August 1862.