The island of Mainau (insel Mainau in German) is an island situated in the western part of Lake Constance (Bodensee in German). It is maintained as a garden island, belonging to the Lennart Bernadotte-Stiftung (eng. The Lennart Bernadotte Foundation). It is entity created by Prince Lennart Bernadotte, originally a Prince of Sweden and Duke of SmÃ¥land. It is one of the main tourist attractions of Lake Constance. Beside flowers there is a park landscape with views on the lake. There is also a greenhouse with a tropical climate and thousands of butterflies.Â
There is an entrance fee for entering the island, but it's definitely worth the money. Due to subtropical influences, Mainau features an almost year round warm climate, that allows the cultivation of exotic trees like banana trees or many kinds of palm trees.
Besides this subtropical vegetation, Mainau is also home to many topical Central European trees like the lind.
The cultivation of the gardens have a long history in Mainau and attract thousands of tourists from all over the world each year.
Mainau Island is a "flowering island" notable for its parks and gardens. Frederick I, Grand Duke of Baden, created the island's arboretum, which now contains 500 species of deciduous and coniferous trees, many exotic and valuable, including fine specimens of Sequoiadendron giganteum (1864) and Metasequoia glyptostroboides (1952). The island also contains about 200 rhododendron and azalea varieties.
 In other words - there is lots of stuff to take pictures of and you see some of my pictures below.Â
I used my Pentax K-3 II camera house and Sigma 18-35 f1.8 on these images. You find my copyright notice on this page.