Wittstock/Dosse: Old Town, City Wall and St. Mary's Church

Discover Wittstock/Dosse through its historic old town, city fortifications and St. Mary's Church. The parks also add their own distinctive touches to the townscape. For your trip planning, you can combine these themes with a seasonal guided tour of the town and regional opportunities for cycling and nature experiences.

Guided Old Town Tour and City Fortifications

From May to October, a public guided tour of the historic old town is offered. It covers fascinating stories and legends from the town's history. If you plan to join the tour, check the latest dates before your trip.

The city fortifications are 2,435 metres long in total. They comprise 1,999 metres of city wall, 264 metres of the Amt wall and 172 metres of castle wall. Apart from a small fieldstone base in the north, they are built entirely of monastery-format bricks. Their length, wall sections and building materials offer different points of reference when exploring this historic structure.

St. Mary's Church and the Ostprignitz Museum

Construction of St. Mary's Church began in the 13th century. It is a landmark of the former episcopal town of Wittstock. The tower of the three-aisled church is 68 metres high; the Baroque tower affords sweeping views over the town and surrounding countryside.

The interior includes several different works: these include an altar structure made up of two carved altarpieces, a Late Gothic sacrament shrine and a Baroque wooden baptismal font. There is also a Madonna in a radiant halo, the Lütkemüller organ and the pulpit. The Ostprignitz Museum is also located in Wittstock's Bishop's Castle.

Parks in the Town

The park at Bleichwall lies right next to the historic city wall and an old cloth factory. The Glinze flows through Friedrich-Ebert Park, where two wooden bridges cross the river. Alongside its historic buildings, the town offers clear points of reference for finding your way around its parks: the juxtaposition of the wall and former factory in one, and the river and bridges in the other.

Regional Orientation: Ostprignitz-Ruppin

Looking beyond Wittstock/Dosse to the wider travel destination of Ostprignitz-Ruppin, you will find a rural region of open spaces and tranquillity, beech and pine forests, meadows, avenues of trees, and numerous lakes and rivers. The Ruppiner Seenland is one of the county's travel regions. The Stechlin-Ruppiner Land Nature Park lies partly within Ostprignitz-Ruppin and is ideal for hiking and cycling.

One specific connection to the town is the 108-kilometre Bishop's Tour: this cycle route passes through Wittstock and Heiligengrabe, among other places, and invites you on a journey back to the Middle Ages through the Prignitz landscape. It runs entirely on surfaced, signposted cycle paths. Heiligengrabe and Wittstock have rail connections to Berlin and Hamburg.

Another regional landscape to explore is the 12,000-hectare Kyritz-Ruppiner Heide, which lies within Ostprignitz-Ruppin. Since 2021, it has been part of the Stechlin-Ruppiner Land Nature Park. The heathland is one of Europe's largest contiguous areas of Calluna heath and provides a habitat for protected and endangered animal species, including more than 70 bird species and, since 2008, wolves. The heath can also be explored on electrically assisted fat bikes along unpaved, often sandy paths, allowing visitors to experience its wildlife and plant life with minimal impact.

Discover more destinations: Heiligengrabe, Gartow, Märkisch Linden, Kyritz, Rheinsberg, Rüthnick, Fehrbellin, Temnitzquell.

To the wider travel overview: Ostprignitz-Ruppin.