Designed by Giuseppe Galli Bibiena, a famous 18th-century architect from Bologna, Bayreuth's opera house is one of Europe's most stunningly ornate baroque theatres. Germany's largest opera house until 1871, it has a lavish interior smothered in carved, gilded and marbled wood. However, Richard Wagner considered it too modest for his serious work and conducted here just once.
This grand old dame spent most of the past decade under wraps, receiving a multimillion euro facelift but reopened its door in early 2018. It was declared a Unesco World Cultural Heritage Site in 2012.