Neustrelitz

Neustrelitz was drawn before it was built: after fire destroyed the old Strelitz residence, the dukes of Mecklenburg-Strelitz laid out a new capital from 1733 on a pure baroque diagram — eight streets radiating from a perfectly square market, a star of avenues that survives as one of Germany's clearest planned townscapes, best appreciated from the church tower at its centre. The little duchy dealt in daughters as skilfully as in geometry: Sophie Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz left this court to marry George III, becoming Britain's Queen Charlotte — patroness of botany and Mozart's London childhood, godmother-city to Charlotte, North Carolina.

The palace itself burned in 1945, but its garden kingdom remains: the Schlossgarten's avenues, the temple follies, the orangery's Pompeiian-style halls — and in them, each summer, the town's proudest modern tradition: the Festspiele im Schlossgarten, open-air opera and operetta seasons that draw tens of thousands to hear Verdi and Lehár where the dukes once strolled, fireworks over the Zierker See included.

The Landestheater Mecklenburg, heir to the ducal stage, keeps a year-round repertoire remarkable for a town this size, and the surrounding waters — the city sits at the Mecklenburg Lake District's southern gate, with the Müritz National Park's ospreys and beech forests minutes away — supply the summer audience. A star-shaped town, a queen exported, a garden that sings: Neustrelitz in three movements.