Manor Tourism: Where We Come From – and Where We Need to Go
Follow the story of the Baltic Manors Route
The second Baltic Manors Route academic conference, “Manorial Culture in Modern Tourism”, organised this time in cooperation with the ENCOUNTER Network, spans a remarkable arc: from fascinating insights into the early history of manor tourism to a future in which revitalised historic estates can flourish as attractive destinations once again — while bringing new life to the rural areas around them. For the first time, the Baltic Manors Route concept is being presented to an academic audience as a prospective European Cultural Route.
It almost seems as though someone has deliberately designed the conference programme around that very progression – perfectly in keeping with the motto “Old places, new life”. In the morning, as one might expect at a historians’ conference, the focus is on the past: on a time when most manor houses were still inhabited by their original owner families and travel remained a privilege enjoyed by relatively few.
In the afternoon, attention turns to the future: what might manor tourism look like if it connected historic houses across the Baltic Sea Region, took their complex and layered histories seriously and, at the same time, opened up new perspectives? The programme covers several centuries in a single day. All that separates them is a lunch break and a few cups of coffee.
On 25 and 26 June 2026, around 50 experts from across Europe gather in Frankfurt (Oder) for the annual conference of the ENCOUNTER Network. Founded in 2015 on the initiative of the Danish Research Centre for Manorial Studies at Gammel Estrup, ENCOUNTER serves as an international platform for academic exchange on the historical and contemporary significance of manor houses and country estates. This year’s conference focuses on “Manorial Culture in Modern Tourism” and, for the first time, is organised in cooperation with the Baltic Manors Route initiative. Alongside the Baltic Manors Summer School at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, the initiative hopes that this collaboration can develop into another regular forum for academic exchange around the emerging European Cultural Route. Participants from across Europe are gathered in the magnificent Senate Hall of the European University Viadrina – a room that would hardly look out of place in one of the grand manor houses characteristic of the Baltic Sea Region. Just a few minutes’ walk away lies the bridge across the Oder and, beyond it, neighbouring Poland: the country where, according to an old Polish saying, there is a manor house behind every hill.
Putting the Route before a critical academic audience
For the Baltic Manors Route, which is still taking shape, this meeting is of particular importance. Network Coordinator Jens Masuch and Manfred Achtenhagen, Chair of the newly founded transnational Baltic Manors Association, are presenting the new Route concept to a selected academic audience for the first time. In fact, this is more than a presentation. Conference organiser Paul Zalewski of the European University Viadrina has assembled a distinguished panel of experts representing heritage conservation, museums and cultural tourism. In front of an audience like this, Masuch and Achtenhagen could easily find themselves having to defend the concept – not entirely unlike a doctoral candidate defending a thesis.
It is no coincidence that this step is being taken in precisely this setting. Over the preceding months, fundamental questions have already been discussed with several of the academic audience present, some of whom are also involved in the academic advisory work accompanying the development of the Baltic Manors Route. These questions form an essential foundation for the intended certification as a Cultural Route of the Council of Europe. Which architectural, historical and social characteristics connect the manor houses around the Baltic Sea? What are the defining features of a “Baltic Manor”? And where do the boundaries of this shared cultural landscape lie? By now, robust answers have been developed to most of these questions. The academic foundations are in place. But where should the journey go from here? What form should manor tourism take under the umbrella of a “European Cultural Route”? These are the questions Masuch and Achtenhagen have come prepared to address today.
Older than we thought: manor tourism
First, however, the conference takes a closer look at where journeys to manor houses led in earlier centuries. Several presentations make one point particularly clear: interest in these places as destinations did not begin with their present-day use as hotels, museums or cultural venues. Travelling to visit remarkable houses has a long history. With the the emergence of a broader middle-class public and a flourishing body of travel literature, the phenomenon was already becoming visible in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sabine Bock, a retired professor based in Schwerin and author of a standard reference work on manor houses in the Baltic Sea Region, shows how travellers of the period were drawn not only to architecture, but also to gardens, landscapes, libraries and important collections. Filip Binder of the Institute of Art History at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague demonstrates, using the Bohemian lands as an example, how castles and country houses there were already developing into visitor destinations during the nineteenth century. Manor tourism avant la lettre.
And with that, the first important conclusion of the day becomes clear: today’s manor tourism has much deeper roots than one might assume. Long before terms such as “cultural tourism” or “destination marketing” had been coined, people were setting out to discover architecture, ways of life and landscapes. Even then, many travellers crossed borders – and some crossed boundaries in their thinking too. That the manor houses and country estates of the Baltic Sea Region form, to a significant extent, a transnational cultural heritage shaped by shared histories and traditions was already there to be seen – for anyone willing to look closely.
A vivid historical backdrop – and a future taking shape
The discussions also reveal the limitations of this early culture of travel. At the time, the image of manor houses was still largely shaped by the social elites who inhabited and visited them: aristocrats and affluent members of the bourgeoisie[KP1] . Travellers were interested in architecture, art collections, parks and the world of the landowners. Far less attention was paid to the people whose labour and social circumstances made that world possible in the first place. The darker sides of an authoritarian society rarely featured in traditional tourism narratives. As the morning progresses in the Senate Hall in Frankfurt, another insight emerges. Historical research can do more for the Baltic Manors Route than provide definitions and geographical boundaries. By identifying academically grounded themes for historical storytelling, it can create a vivid backdrop against which the present-day revival of these places takes shape. The past is not simply something to look back on. It can provide the context in which new ideas for the future begin to emerge. Lunch break.
20.000 houses and one shared idea
Enter Jens Masuch and Manfred Achtenhagen – and a change in the direction of travel. The themes of the morning are still in the air: how can this historical heritage become the basis for a shared tourism future that benefits not only the houses themselves, but also the rural areas around them and the people who live there? Before the main presentation, Achtenhagen offers a personal reflection. As one of the first “space pioneers” in the post-Soviet era, he restored Ludorf Manor in Mecklenburg, Germany, in the 1990s and turned it into a hotel. He also has family roots in Latvia. For many years, he says, he has dreamed of a route that could, in principle, connect all the manor houses of the region. Achtenhagen then hands over to Masuch, whose data and statistics bring the scale of that idea into focus. The current concept works with an estimate of up to 20.000 manor houses across the wider Baltic Sea Region, around 1.000 of which already offer tourism or cultural experiences.
Yet, as both speakers make clear, this is about far more than putting dots on a tourism map. Within the Route concept, manor houses are explicitly understood as “socio-economic assets”. Many have already been brought back to life over the past decades by a new generation of owners and operators. Thanks to the drive and commitment of these “space pioneers”, formerly vacant or endangered buildings have become hotels and restaurants, museums and galleries, event venues, parks, co-working spaces and meeting places for local communities. Revitalised manor
Inspiring visitors to explore the manor world beyond their own borders
This diversity of places, projects, people and ideas lies at the heart of the Baltic Manors Route concept. The aim is not to standardise them. Quite the opposite: it is to give their individuality greater international visibility, accessibility and impact under a shared brand. Rather than drawing a single line through thousands of manor houses, the concept envisages regional clusters and routes that visitors can realistically travel and experience during a holiday. Cross-border tours around particular themes can complement these regional offers. But the ambition goes beyond individual cross-border journeys. Joint marketing will encourage visitors to return to the Baltic Sea Region and discover its manor culture country by country. Someone who has explored manor houses in Poland or Germany may well want to spend a future holiday discovering their counterparts in Lithuania, Sweden, Latvia or Denmark. One journey can lead to the next. Season after season.
And what does this mean for the individual houses? They can become “Route Spots” within regional routes. The range is deliberately broad: hotels and restaurants, museums and parks, volunteer-run cultural projects, “lost places” and even privately used houses that may only be viewed from the outside. Their uses may differ, but many share a new, outward-looking spirit: democratic, pluralistic and committed to sustainability. Most of these manor projects and their space pioneers are, in fact, already guided by precisely the European values that the Council of Europe expects from a European Cultural Route. And it is exactly these qualities that make manor houses attractive to younger and more urban audiences. They want to spend a few days experiencing this new form of rural life. They are interested in the commitment of the space pioneers and in places where they can feel part of something meaningful. And they value the chance to experience that world beyond their own national borders. Initial marketing pilots and target-group surveys point clearly in this direction.
Yet, as both speakers make clear, this is about far more than putting dots on a tourism map. Within the Route concept, manor houses are explicitly understood as “socio-economic assets”. Many have already been brought back to life over the past decades by a new generation of owners and operators. Thanks to the drive and commitment of these “space pioneers”, formerly vacant or endangered buildings have become hotels and restaurants, museums and galleries, event venues, parks, co-working spaces and meeting places for local communities.
Strong support for a convincing concept
Another insight of the day soon follows: historians, too, clearly appreciate the occasional opportunity to look ahead. Judging by the applause and the first reactions in the room, the concept presentation is very well received. Contributions from the audience reinforce that impression, while also bringing the three perspectives represented by the expert panel into sharp focus: cultural tourism, heritage conservation and museum practice. A cultural tourism expert from Poland highlights the openness of the Route concept, and the importance of making it clear to visitors what they can expect at each individual site. Good expectation management, she argues, is essential. Not every manor house can be a hotel, museum and visitor attraction all at once. In fact, it is precisely the different forms of “new life” that make this manor landscape so appealing. She also praises the way the concept combines tourism appeal with intellectual and historical depth. The heritage becomes visible in all its complexity, including both its brighter and darker sides, without reducing the past to something simply to be consumed. Instead, history becomes a starting point for new ideas about rural life.
A Lithuanian museum expert, particularly struck by the narrative potential of the Baltic Manors Route brand, responds with a childhood memory. He recalls travelling through the country with his parents and seeing little more than ruins in many places. Manor houses stood empty. Much of their original fabric and interiors had disappeared. Yet even where almost nothing remained but walls, the stories associated with those places had survived in local communities. That represents both an opportunity and a responsibility. Good storytelling can make lost worlds accessible again and turn them into something meaningful for future generations. This is especially important when dealing with the upheavals of the twentieth century, whose traces are deeply embedded in many manor houses. But such storytelling needs to rest on serious academic research.
The key phrase: “future generations”
Masuch is quick to pick up on the phrase “future generations”. Young people, he notes, are not interested in history alone. They also want to eat well, stay overnight and have experiences – increasingly with an awareness of climate, the environment and meaningful consumption. They are looking for authenticity. And they want opportunities to become actively involved. They can find all of this in the manor houses of the Baltic Sea Region. Achtenhagen adds that summer camps are already being considered at several locations, where young people could support owners with restoration work. Other participatory formats are also being explored. This is more than a “nice to have”. It is a central element of the European Cultural Routes approach. Cultural Routes are expected to promote diversity and exchange. They are expected to communicate European values. And only by engaging younger generations in the contemporary revitalisation of this heritage – and by giving them a role in shaping its future – can both the places and the ideas behind them be carried forward.
The formal comments following the presentations are one thing. Equally revealing is what can be heard in the general murmur of conversation once the official session is over. “Great project.” “So much energy.” “It all fits together.” By late afternoon, the circle closes. A future-oriented project has gained greater historical depth and sharper contours. People still travel to see extraordinary houses. They still seek stories about different ways of life, distinctive architecture and memorable landscapes. But today, those stories are becoming more polyphonic, more sustainable and more transnational – just like society itself. Places that were once symbols of an aristocratic world are becoming places with a European future. The momentum generated by the day now needs to feed into the further development and academic support of the Baltic Manors Route project. At the end of the discussion, Achtenhagen and Masuch therefore send a clear signal to the ENCOUNTER Network: if there is interest, they would be very happy to deepen the dialogue.
For the participants, however, the next step is far more immediate: crossing the pedestrian bridge over the Oder into Poland for dinner together. The willingness to cross borders and set out for new shores is, after all, part of the very nature of this project – on both a large and a small scale. And when the response from a critical academic audience is this positive, the beer on the other side of the river tastes all the better.
Yet, as both speakers make clear, this is about far more than putting dots on a tourism map. Within the Route concept, manor houses are explicitly understood as “socio-economic assets”. Many have already been brought back to life over the past decades by a new generation of owners and operators. Thanks to the drive and commitment of these “space pioneers”, formerly vacant or endangered buildings have become hotels and restaurants, museums and galleries, event venues, parks, co-working spaces and meeting places for local communities.